FranLab is getting evicted

[james_s]

To me that sounds like a fundamental incompatibility and a relationship I would not wish to continue, but that's only something each individual can determine for themselves. If I had a wife that was badgering me to buy a different house or a replace my car I would replace the wife instead with one that is frugal like I am but that's just me.

Divorce is notoriously un-frugal in its own right.

That's why I never got legally married in the first place. It's a huge financial risk, for very little reward. It serves very little purpose in modern society.

[james_s]

Might be cheaper to buy a nicer house now, instead of ending up with half a house later.

That's starting to sound like extortion, no thanks!

[Kasper]

Might be cheaper to buy a nicer house now, instead of ending up with half a house later.

That's starting to sound like extortion, no thanks!

Haha, it does kind of sound like that, but I prefer it to sound like 'team work makes the dream work'.

[SiliconWizard]

Houses are not necessarily going to be more expensive, actually there are signs of the real estate market collapsing a bit in a lot of western countries right now. But loans are going to be much more difficult to get. And property taxes are very likely to raise significantly too, thus making ownership a lot more expensive even if your house is fully paid.

[Kasper]

Canada national home price index is down 15% from the peak.  Some recent forecasts are for the decline to continue until mid or end of 2023 when interest rates start decreasing.  Canada seems to have one of the largest housing bubbles in the world so we are overdue for a 'correction'.  My long term guess is house prices will increase for a while after next years bottom.  Builders have started postponing projects which should reduce the supply and the feds are cranking up immigration to bolster the demand.  The Canadian housing ponzi scheme: as long as we keep accepting immigrants faster than we build houses, we'll be 'fine'.

[james_s]

Haha, it does kind of sound like that, but I prefer it to sound like 'team work makes the dream work'.

I just accept that I'm not cut out for marriage. I've lived with a couple of girlfriends, one for nearly a decade, in the end I'm SO glad I never got married. Now I have a girlfriend who has her own house just a couple miles away from mine and it's great, I have my space, she has hers, if the shit really hit the fan we could combine households and rent one of them out but I'd really rather not. I don't tell her what to spend her money on and she gives me the same courtesy.

[james_s]

Houses are not necessarily going to be more expensive, actually there are signs of the real estate market collapsing a bit in a lot of western countries right now. But loans are going to be much more difficult to get. And property taxes are very likely to raise significantly too, thus making ownership a lot more expensive even if your house is fully paid.

What we had, was IMO a bubble, and actually I think we still have a bubble and I expect prices to keep dropping for a while. Due to inflation they will never drop to what they were say 10 years ago but I do think we are past the massive rises. On the other hand, the population is still unfortunately growing exponentially.

[MK14]

I'm not sure, if the following video, explains some of the feelings, behind, people like Frans, situation.  It seems to show how some people have rented places to live in Philly, for a very long time, and are very disappointed, that they are apparently being forced to leave.
Because they like it there, feel very safe there, and just want to keep paying rent, and stay there, and not have to move, to somewhere else.

[Kasper]

Haha, it does kind of sound like that, but I prefer it to sound like 'team work makes the dream work'.

I just accept that I'm not cut out for marriage. I've lived with a couple of girlfriends, one for nearly a decade, in the end I'm SO glad I never got married. Now I have a girlfriend who has her own house just a couple miles away from mine and it's great, I have my space, she has hers, if the shit really hit the fan we could combine households and rent one of them out but I'd really rather not. I don't tell her what to spend her money on and she gives me the same courtesy.

My wife and I earn similar salaries and don't tell each other how to spend it aside from what we put into our house.  Sometimes I have to compromise but the frustration subsides when I remember how much less I could afford without her.

[EEVblog]

My wife and I earn similar salaries and don't tell each other how to spend it aside from what we put into our house.  Sometimes I have to compromise but the frustration subsides when I remember how much less I could afford without her.

One of my top tips to wealth would be to find a partner. Two incomes is actually way better than just double the income.
Say you both earn $50k/year and expense are:
$20k/year residence
$15k/year misc.

On your own you only bank $15k/year.
With a partner you share the residence and expenses (maybe slightly higher), so you pocket say $60k/year. That's a x4 improvement over being single. x2 improvement individually.

[EEVblog]

I'm not sure, if the following video, explains some of the feelings, behind, people like Frans, situation.  It seems to show how some people have rented places to live in Philly, for a very long time, and are very disappointed, that they are apparently being forced to leave.
Because they like it there, feel very safe there, and just want to keep paying rent, and stay there, and not have to move, to somewhere else.

That's the problem with livng in a major city, at least in the inner-city areas. Big business will always win and you can't stop the change.
Even where I live in the suburbs, Baulkham Hills was rolling green hills and orange orchards just 30 years ago, my wife remembers it as she grew up here only a few streets away from our house now. Now they are building apartment towers because anything within 800m of a train station is now zoned for high rise development. Small shops and business dropping like flies as they are bought out by the developers. And I've shot several videos of my riding around Nowest which is now high-rise central with a ton more to come. There is even talk of a casio going in.

[EEVblog]

This Fran situation, seems to partly remind me of a (at least once) popular, multimeter (and other things) testing/review Youtube channel, from South Africa , which eventually disappeared (or was planning/seeming to).  Called mjlorton.

Well... except Martin doesn't seem to have a problem to relocate thousands of km away from his previous place(s).

He moved to North Carolina, as did Chris Gammell. They get together a bit. Saw a photo of his new shed he's building recently on a big I think remoteish property. He's basically semi-retired though, I guess his wife must earn a lot or they have some other money. Add in Louis Rossman and that's at least 3 US based electronics Youtubers who have moved for lifestyle and/or financial reasons, actively setting themselves up for a better future.

I'd told Fran that I'd stop trying to "help" her, so I guess I have to let my frustration out here. She has told me countless times personally that I just don't get it, and that what she has is literally the only option. I have the call BS on that. And whilst she no doubt has lots of local friends in Philly, she has no family, no partner and no local job to tie her down there. It pains me every time I see a new video talking about the financial situation 

[EEVblog]

Her income is plentiful, as far as I can tell she is taking in much more than I do, but she is pissing it away on rent in a totally unsustainable situation.

Expeneses were $70k last year, rising to over $80k this year I believe. So yeah, income isn't the problem.
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/yet-another-franlab-crisis/msg4457578/#msg4457578
The income she has would be make her quite well off in smaller towns.
Not sure about taxes in Pennsylvania and whether that's a desirable state or not from that point of view. But Philly seems to be an expense nightmare with those 4 spaces. But no surprise for downtown in a big city.

Would be the same here in Sydney city. Go 50km out west to where I grew up and it's way way cheaper, both residential and commercial spaces.

[Quarlo Klobrigney]

I think the only original plan should have been get a real paying job to feed the YouTube and hobby stuff.
Accumulating enough wealth/savings in the process.
Then if there was enough safety net go full time.
That ship I'm sorry to say has sailed along with the youth and energy necessary to do it.


I myself was successful in running my own shop repairing everything.
As I got older I found I had nothing saved and no real insurance.
Then it happened, I blew out my back. Fortunately it was at a remote sub contracted job and all was paid.
It was then I decided at age 30 something to get a real job with paid vacation and benefits and leave the worrying  to someone else.


After 20 years, I had accumulated enough to buy a house.
Not a fancy house, but one of my own with no one to hold anything over me (take it away) as I paid cash.
Now in my 60's I am extremely grateful to myself for taking these steps.
I don't have to worry about living or not, or will I make it later in life without money or shelter.


That is never a good place to be in, however a person must learn to accept advice from people who are successful before it's down to food stamps and Section 8 housing.

[james_s]

One of my top tips to wealth would be to find a partner. Two incomes is actually way better than just double the income.
Say you both earn $50k/year and expense are:
$20k/year residence
$15k/year misc.

On your own you only bank $15k/year.
With a partner you share the residence and expenses (maybe slightly higher), so you pocket say $60k/year. That's a x4 improvement over being single. x2 improvement individually.

Well, yeah, if you're one of the lucky ones it works out for then that's good advice, but in the US something like 50% of marriages end in divorce and 80% of divorces are initiated by women, I suspect most other Western nations are not too far off that. The statistics make it a risky proposition, it's only really sensible if you meet early in life before either of you have much in the way of assets and even that can be risky.

[james_s]

Now they are building apartment towers because anything within 800m of a train station is now zoned for high rise development. Small shops and business dropping like flies as they are bought out by the developers. And I've shot several videos of my riding around Nowest which is now high-rise central with a ton more to come. There is even talk of a casio going in.

That would be my cue to get the hell out of Dodge, being surrounded by highrises is an unlivable hell to me. It's a bit stressful just thinking about it.

[james_s]

I'd told Fran that I'd stop trying to "help" her, so I guess I have to let my frustration out here. She has told me countless times personally that I just don't get it, and that what she has is literally the only option. I have the call BS on that. And whilst she no doubt has lots of local friends in Philly, she has no family, no partner and no local job to tie her down there. It pains me every time I see a new video talking about the financial situation 

I've known a couple of people like that and frankly I just had to cut them loose at some point. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink, and as somebody who is a fixer by nature I simply can't handle people that insist they have no other options when I can plainly see several viable options staring them in the face. It's just pure stubbornness, people so deeply dug into their comfort zone that they'll go down with the ship instead of getting into a liferaft. Fran's housing problem is purely of her own making, and the only reason it continues to be a problem is that she chooses to continue down that path. There is no reasoning with people like that, they simply can't see things any other way.

[Kasper]

My wife and I earn similar salaries and don't tell each other how to spend it aside from what we put into our house.  Sometimes I have to compromise but the frustration subsides when I remember how much less I could afford without her.

One of my top tips to wealth would be to find a partner. Two incomes is actually way better than just double the income.
Say you both earn $50k/year and expense are:
$20k/year residence
$15k/year misc.

On your own you only bank $15k/year.
With a partner you share the residence and expenses (maybe slightly higher), so you pocket say $60k/year. That's a x4 improvement over being single. x2 improvement individually.

Another benefit is bulk discount.  It costs less / sq ft to build bigger homes and most of the demand is concentrated at the lower end.  If you dare to pool incomes and extend yourselves you get a better deal.

Rough prices for houses here:
1000 sq ft on 0.1 acre, 50 years old: 500k
2000 sq ft on 0.15, 20 years old: 750k
3000 sq ft on 0.2 acre, 5 years old: 1M

[EEVblog]

Now they are building apartment towers because anything within 800m of a train station is now zoned for high rise development. Small shops and business dropping like flies as they are bought out by the developers. And I've shot several videos of my riding around Nowest which is now high-rise central with a ton more to come. There is even talk of a casio going in.

That would be my cue to get the hell out of Dodge, being surrounded by highrises is an unlivable hell to me. It's a bit stressful just thinking about it.

I live further than 800m away from a train station, so no threat of that happening to me. They could of course attempt to change the zoning laws, but that would be political suicide.

[tom66]

High rises are good planning around transit zones, like near railway stations.  We can't continue to build car dependent suburbia endlessly.  (It's called transport-oriented development, by the way.)

[nctnico]

High rises are good planning around transit zones, like near railway stations.  We can't continue to build car dependent suburbia endlessly.  (It's called transport-oriented development, by the way.)

You mean ghetto

[NiHaoMike]

That's why I never got legally married in the first place. It's a huge financial risk, for very little reward. It serves very little purpose in modern society.

I thought Fran being single is part of the problem? That the banks aren't willing to lend to an older single woman?

[tom66]

High rises are good planning around transit zones, like near railway stations.  We can't continue to build car dependent suburbia endlessly.  (It's called transport-oriented development, by the way.)

You mean ghetto

I have never seen anywhere around a busy metro station that could be remotely called a ghetto.  Usually these locations are popular places to live and consequentially the housing costs shoot up, eventually leading to gentrification of the area.  That is its own problem for some, but I would argue it is the natural improvement of an area and shouldn't be stopped, we can't live in the past because some people can't afford to live in the future.

[sokoloff]

Come on over; I can show you some in Boston; others can show you some in Seattle or Baltimore.

[Nominal Animal]

It just pains me to see people like Fran put themselves in a spiral of continuous/repeated severe stress, even when alternatives really do exist.

It's like having a friend of family member who smokes, and has terrible lung problems and persistent coughing.  When confronted, they say it's not because of the smoking, it's because they have a lung condition/5G towers/bad vibes/took a bad vaccine/something else, and refuse to see the whole situation; they even often say that smoking alleviates the coughing and the lung problems.  It's like seeing someone smoke while having nasal cannula for oxygen: self-destructive.