#It's been a long way come from sellwood high... | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

genewolf · 3 years

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Contractor specials sell for more than houses that are in decent move in condition.

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littlejedii · 7 years

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I’ll Be Fine By The Morning

did i procrastinate studying for 2 exams to write this shitty halloween story? yes! did i also not even get it done in time for halloween? also yes. title from permission slip by mainland. this is a bit rushed but happy halloweed!! story under the break! :)

Fall is usually bright, crisp days with a chilly wind that smells like decaying leaves and bonfires. Brilliant shades of red and gold and orange. The cool nights of wide open skies, the ones where you can just almost-not-quite see your breath on the wind.

But not in fucking Sellwood.

What a shitty place to be in the fall. The trees don’t change to any magnificent colors, but instead turn a muddy brown then drop their leaves unceremoniously into the wet, dirty streets. It rains almost constantly in the fall, not the light patter on your window which helps you sleep, but the thunderous, dark sky, drenching, gray, freezing downpour. The weather does a number on all the residents, of course, and the upcoming threat of hooligans making Halloween mischief really puts everyone in a shitty state.

People are so shitty, and the weather’s so shitty, and God why is everything just so shitty?

Probably because it’s around the holidays, probably because they’re always hyper-aware of what- but really who- is missing. Halloween might actually be the worst for Mitch. Freddie loved Halloween.

And then he died. Leaving Mitch in this podunk, bland, gray-ass town all alone.

What a shitty thing to do.

There aren’t enough houses to egg to forget that Freddie was a half-assed Jason Voorhees every single year. No amount of pumpkin smashing will make him forget that Freddie would sit on him and fart until Mitch handed over all his Kit-Kats. He can’t even begin to think about toilet-papering, because who else would have taught him the perfect toss? When Scratch had forced them all to watch Pet Sematary last year, Mitch spent the weeks after walking around the woods to find a haunted burial ground to shove his dead brother in just so he’d come back.

It’s been even harder lately with his Mom locked up, too. At least when he was a kid, she’d try and lighten the mood. She’d save and save for supplies to make him any costume he wanted, buy him any candy bar he desired in the biggest king-size bar she could find.

He always asked for Kit-Kats.

The fairly decent thing about Halloween is that now that they’re older everyone throws parties. Getting plastered by yourself to drown your pain is just pathetic, but getting plastered in someone’s basement where everybody is wearing plastic fangs is apparently just fine.

So this is where he finds himself. He barely knows the kid who’s house they’re trashing. Cory, from his Spanish class that one year the school tried to make him take a language, is just as shitty as everyone else in this town and throws a shitty party. But they stay anyway, downing lukewarm beers on his ratty couch as the basement fills with thrumming music and smoke. Mitch doesn’t wear a costume, obviously, because that’s fucking lame. His friends have taken to their usual masks, and everyone else is pretty decked out. The thumping of the bass vibrates in his chest, which hitches when he catches sight of a curly black head weaving through the crowd.

“Spots,” he yells over the music, springing up form the couch so quickly Javier startles. Jonas turns, blinking in surprise behind a sloppily-cut orange cloth mask. He pushes it up his forehead, causing his hair to stick out wildly in all directions, and Mitch could cry.

To his absolute fucking delight, Jonas grins wide as he makes his way over.

“Hey! I didn’t expect you to be here,” the smaller boy yells up over the music, “what’re you supposed to be?”

“I’m a werewolf,” he shouts back, and Jonas looks at him skeptically.

“You’re wearing exactly what you usually wear,” he gestures to Mitch’s torn t-shirt and jeans.

“Yeah well I guess it ain’t a full moon tonight then, huh?” His grin grows as Jonas tosses his head back in laughter, his shoulders shaking as a bit of beer spills from the can in his hand.

“That’s actually pretty clever,” he’s still giggling, but stops as he sees Mitch curiously eyeing the booze and quickly shakes his head. “I haven’t taken a sip. It’s yours.” He pushes the can against Mitch’s chest. It’s warm from Jonas’ fingers, and Mitch shrugs as he knocks a sip back.

“And what’re you, Joey? A frog?” Jonas frowns and looks down at his green t-shirt.

“No, I was supposed to be a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, but Sid and I waited too long to make our costumes so it’s pretty bad. I don’t even have nunchucks.”

Mitch has no idea what those are or why this alien frog guy would have them, but Jonas’ nerd shit is so goddamn cute he can’t help but chuckle.

“Aren’t there s’posed to be like 6 of you? Which one’s your clone?”

“4,” Jonas corrects quickly. “And she wanted to be Casey Jones.” Behind Jonas’ shoulder, he sees Sid fumbling a hockey stick under arm, trying and failing to rip bong through the slats of a white mask as she laughs hysterically. He nods as if it means anything to him.

“You ain’t drinkin’ tonight Joey?” The lukewarm beer in his fist is halfway gone now. It’s certainly not his first of the night and he could use at least two more to start feeling a buzz.

“No... I mean, I’d rather smoke, but only if you wanted to,” his soft eyes are downcast, his voice coy under the pounding music. Mitch grins, because Jonas could ask to smoke his entire stash and he’d hand it over without question.

“Yeah. This place is fuckin’ lame anyway, let’s get outta here.” He wraps a wiry arm around Jonas’ shoulder and pulls him up the stairs, away from the smoky basement and sweaty bodies, out into the cool night air. They smoke a bowl as they wander back to the trailer park. Well, Mitch smokes a bowl while Jonas taps out after 2 hits, but they’re both pleasantly buzzed when they push into the trailer, Jonas’ side pressed into Mitch’s, freckled fingers wrapped around a thin wrist, big hands threading through tangled curls. Jonas is laughing, uneven and high, and only goes redder as he snorts. Mitch is teary-eyed too, his loud cackles pressed into Jonas’ temple as Jonas stumbles onto his knees over the carpet divide between the kitchen and living room.

Their laughter seems to echo through the trailer, amplified by the cold dark air in the empty room. The only sound which hums on when they finally break into soft, breathy giggles is the radiator, clicking rhythmically before shuddering on. Jonas rubs at his bare arms, shivering only slightly on the ground as Mitch fumbles with the dials on the ancient TV. Mitch eyes Jonas and goes off to his room, retrieving his filthy blanket and big plaid sweatshirt, throwing both around Jonas shoulders and guffawing at the muffled laughter.

Jonas clambers onto the couch and tosses the sweatshirt back, starting to untangle the blanket at pull his mask away from his forehead. He gives Mitch a look when the garment is thrown back into his lap.

“It’s for you,” Mitch chuckles in response, leaning back against the armrest and tossing his legs into Jonas’ lap. As the smaller boy worms his way into the sweatshirt, pink lights drifting over to the drafty window, Mitch sinks into the plush cushions, letting the sensation of the static hum drifting through his extremities warm him. Jonas unfurls the blanket over them, but pouts the moment Mitch tugs it up over his shoulders to his chin.

“No fair,” Jonas starts, “You look so cozy.” Mitch hisses out a laugh through his teeth, pulling the covers away and extending his arm with a teasing grin.

“C’mere then, don’t ya wanna be warmed up Spots?” he’s half-joking, fully assuming Jonas will shove him softly like always.

But he doesn’t. Holy shit, he most certainly doesn’t. The smaller boy lowers into his invitation, curling underneath his arm and pressing his face into Mitch’s ribcage with a long sigh. Mitch freezes, cold sober the immediate moment that Jonas nestles into his side. His arm stays up for a moment as he watches Jonas turn and rub at his red eyes as he squints to see what’s on the TV. Jonas’ ass is pressed right up against his side now, and his breathing has stopped.

How gone is Jonas right now, to want to do this? Yeah, Jonas is one cuddly motherfucker when he’s high, but it’s usually just those soft moments of him leaning into his shoulder. Is he taking advantage of the smaller boy, who now is examining a spot on his hand where two freckles touch? Is this too far? Will Jonas regret this when he’d sober? Shit, fuck, will he be angry when he’s sober? Oh god, will he be hurt? Or worse, embarrassed?

Fuck, he totally will, won’t he? Fuck, he totally will. Fuck. Fuck.

“Woah, no way, I am not watching this,” Jonas blurts out, wide-eyed staring at the television, pulling Mitch from an imminent self-destructive panic attack.

“What the fuck is it?” Mitch says, turning to press into Jonas and narrowing his eyes at the TV, trying to sound calm. “Oh, Joey c’mon, this ain’t even scar-”

It’s ‘Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives.’

Freddie’s favorite.

He bolts upright abruptly, jostling Jonas as he clambers off the couch towards the TV in two long strides. In his cloudy mind, he can’t think of anything more than to turn it off, slamming his finger into the button and watching the screen flash then go dark.

“...Mit-”

“Yeah, fuck that movie. We don’t have to watch it,” he says curtly, cringing at the way his voice wavers. When he turns back, he doesn’t want to look at Jonas. But he’s so small on the couch, looking soft and warm in Mitch’s sweatshirt, eyes half lidded and one eyebrow cocked, that Mitch can’t help but stare.

“I thought you loved scary movies.”

“That one sucks.”

“You only like the ones that suck,” Jonas snorts and breaks down into giggles as Mitch looks out the window into the moonlight, willing himself to laugh too. But he doesn’t, he can’t, and Jonas trails off. He says something, but Mitch is zoned out.

“What?” Mitch shakes his head, trying to clear the fuzziness.

“Why does that one suck? Does it scare you?” Mitch actually snorts harshly, and Jonas frowns. “Hey, you know I won’t judge, everything scares me. So if it scares you...”

“It doesn’t scare me,” Mitch says firmly, crossing his arms over his chest. Jonas’ head lulls to the side, eyebrow still arched and questioning. “It... it makes me... it was Freddie’s- Freddie liked it. H-he loved it. He fucking loved Halloween,” he’s loud at first, brave, but by the end he’s mumbling just above a whisper and digging his nails into his skin.

“Oh... Mitch, I-” Jonas sounds so broken, so sad for him and he’s so not worth it.

“No, Joey, we’re not talkin’ about this, seriously. I can’t always bum you out like this when we’re high,” he laughs humorlessly, itching the back of his neck with discomfort as Jonas shifts upward. There’s a long, strained pause before Jonas pats the couch cushion.

“C’mere,” he says, and Mitch robotically does as he’s told. “What was his favorite candy?”

“Why do you wanna know?” Mitch spits, but Jonas just leans into his shoulder.

“I know his favorite movie, so why not?” More silence, filled by the sound of Mitch’s uneven breathing.

“Kit Kats.”

“Good choice,” Jonas hums into Mitch’s skin. They both turn toward the hallway as the sound of Buddy’s scratching drifts down from his room, but his eyes dart down to Jonas as he feels a hand wrap around his bicep.

“I bet he was Jason,” Jonas muses.

“...What?”

“Freddie. I bet he was Jason for Halloween, at least one year. Seems like something he’d do, at least from what you’ve told me.”

“Every year,” Mitch swallows thickly. Jonas laughs, genuine and real but soft. He lays his head into Mitch’s arm again with a sigh.

“I’m sorry this Halloween’s so lame, then,” he hums, sounding apologetic. Mitch pulls back, and Jonas jumps.

“Shit, what’re you talking about?” he blurts out. ‘This is exactly how I’d wanna spend it’ sits on his tongue, and out of his mouth comes, “I’m usually alone, so this is way better.”

Jonas raises his eyebrows, and Mitch coughs, “No, that’s not what I meant, I meant like actually this is what I’d wanna do, not just have you here ‘cus I didn’t wanna be alone, I didn’t mean it that-”

Jonas throws his head back again in laughter, curling his hands around his stomach and flinging himself back into the couch. It echoes against the cold walls of the trailer as tears start to form at the corner of his eyes. Mitch covers his red face, laying his head in his hands and mumbling for Jonas to stop and relax and seriously shut up before he’s laughing too, ugly and rough into his hands.

“W-well,” Jonas starts breathlessly, his chest still shaking with giggles before he clears his throat, “if it makes any difference, this is probably the best Halloween I’ve had, too.”

“We haven’t done shit, Spots,” Mitch runs his fingers through his hair, shaking his head and looking down into Jonas hazel eyes which seem to glow in the darkness.

“Yeah, but I’m having fun... and you’re not alone,” he teases, before adding softly, “and I’m the one who gets to keep you company.”

Holy shit. How the hell did he get so lucky?

“What?”

Oh fuck, that actually just exited his mouth.

“I-” he starts, looking everywhere but Jonas’ eyes, “I- I- uh, I didn’t mean-”

“Oh... oh, no, it’s fine. We all say stuff we don’t mean. When we’re high. I guess,”

“Fuck, c’mon, you know I meant it.”

“You just said you didn’t, Mitch, it’s really fine.”

“I did,” he says firmly, leaning towards Jonas, tongue feeling heavy in his mouth as he desperately tries to explain away his stupid mistake. “I do, I am lucky. To have you here. I am.”

There’s a silence after he makes the affirmation. Their thighs are touching and Mitch gulps as he realizes how close he’s leaned in, fingers curled around Jonas’ shoulder. He’s staring at Jonas, not into his eyes but at his nose, at the freckles there, and he can’t help his gaze from wandering down, further, to his lips. Subconsciously he runs his tongue over his own lip, lost in his high and the color of Jonas’ skin.

Jonas leans back, and Mitch stupidly leans with him until Jonas is pressed into the cushions, curls spread out like a halo around his head.

“You don’t mean that,” Jonas whispers, and Mitch can feel his warm breath.

“I do,” his voice comes out softer than he’d meant it as he feels Jonas’ hands on his chest, curling into the fabric of his t-shirt and not pushing away like he’d expected them to. He’s waiting for Jonas to shove him, curl away from him, anything, but he doesn’t. So Mitch lowers just slightly, coming down on his elbow and using his other arm to cage Jonas in and curl around his head.

“You d-don’t” Jonas whispers again, and Mitch lets himself fall further until their bodies are so close, close enough that he can feel the heat radiating off Jonas, but not yet touching. After it feels like they’ve been leaning back for a century, Mitch’s nose meets Jonas’.

“C’mon Joey, you gotta know I do,” he mumbles. Their breath is fast, and he can feel the warmth of Jonas’ lower lip just almost against him. Their noses are pressed together, their foreheads touching, but neither of them move. Mitch wills his body to shift, to do it, God just fucking do it already, kiss him like he’s always wanted to, but he’s frozen.

“Will- will you still want th-this, like want me, when you’re not high?” Jonas squeaks softly, and Mitch crumbles.

“I- fuck, of course... always. You want this, though? Jonas, if you wake up tomorrow and you hate stupid ugly dumb Mitch Mueller for kissing you, I will hate myself so much more-”

He’s silenced as Jonas pulls them together, their lips colliding awkwardly as their teeth cut into their skin.

Jonas just kissed him. Jonas just kissed him. And he’s still doing it, holy shit. Jonas slides his trembling, inexperienced hands up from Mitch’s chest to his neck, into his hair, and Mitch shudders as the smaller boy whimpers only slightly. He wastes no time deepening the kiss, prodding Jonas with his tongue, tasting his teeth, gnawing on his lip, pulling back to breathe heavily for a moment before pulling him in even more tightly than before. In a moment when he pulls back, to peek his eyes open to just confirm that this is actually really happening, his chest twists at the way Jonas glows under the pink light illuminating the space around them.

Jonas opens his eyes too, face flushed and lips swollen and Mitch melts.

“So lucky.”

They kiss until their high wears off, until it feels so real and visceral that Mitch has to pull away and fall onto his side, gather Jonas into his chest and nuzzle into his hair.

“Why’d you stop?” Jonas whispers, tugging at the wet collar of his t-shirt, pulling it over the marks starting to bloom on his neck.

“I didn’t wanna take things too far,” he hums, kissing Jonas’ curls and trying to angle his hips away from Jonas’ side. His plan backfires, and he ends up pressing himself straight into Jonas’ plush hip, causing them both to jump. “I also gotta cool down a little,” he mumbles, looking away. Jonas giggles breathlessly.

“Yeah... me too... because I should be getting home soon,” he looks up but Mitch doesn’t look back, just lets his eyes slip shut and pretends to not feel his heart pull.

“Not yet, please” he whispers into the side of Jonas’ freckled face.

“I don’t want to, but it’s past 2 and I know Sid’s probably-”

“It’s past 2?” He interrupts, eyes widening. Jonas nods underneath him, inching his chin up for another kiss. Mitch feels like the king of the universe when he ducks down to press their lips together softly, almost getting lost in the feeling of Jonas surrounding him before he raises up.

“So I guess it’s not Halloween anymore....”

“Mm, I guess not,” Jonas murmurs against his chin, kissing the underside of his jaw.

“I haven’t liked Halloween since- for a while,” Mitch says, muffled by Jonas’ lips as he pulls face down again.

“You like Halloween again?”

“If I get to spend it like this, yeah.” Mitch wraps Jonas tighter, presses his face into the crook of his neck and inhales as he squeezes Jonas’ middle, savoring him.

“That could be arranged,” Jonas says softly before their kissing again, forgetting the talk of leaving or stopping or cooling down as they wrap up into each other again, and for the first time in a long time Mitch isn’t lonely. The room glows pink and the moon glows silver in the fall air, and it’s not shitty, it’s not empty, and nothing’s missing.

#long exposure #mitjo #halloweiners #mitch mueller #jonas wagner

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clubofinfo · 6 years

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Expert: In a sense, blowback is simply another way of saying that a nation reaps what it sows. Although people usually know what they have sown, our national experience of blowback is seldom imagined in such terms because so much of what the managers of the American empire have sown has been kept secret. It is time to realize, however, that the real dangers to America today come not from the newly rich people of East Asia but from our own ideological rigidity, our deep-seated belief in our own propaganda. ― Chalmers Johnson, Blowback, Second Edition: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire There are no more leaps of faith, or get out of jail cards left anymore. The first casualty of war is truth. Lofty heights of defining the first amendment are just overlooks onto the crumbling mythology of a democracy, where the people – citizens — vote for laws directly. We have a republic, a faulty one, the source of which is the power derived from billionaires, financiers, arms merchants, K-Streeters and the attendant moles allowing the government to break every charter of human concern. So, in that regard, we in this corptocracy have the right to be fooled every minute, suckered to not know a goddamned thing about democracy in big quotes. The very concept of manufactured consent and a controlled opposition destroys much of the power of agency and so-called freedom of assembly, association and travel. The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum. ― Noam Chomsky, The Common Good The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves. ― Vladimir Lenin But, alas, we have blokes who see the world not as a black and white dichotomous illusion of the for v. against bifurcation, but a world of flowing back to what words should mean, a world that allows the filters to be smashed like high polished glass and instead deploying a magnifying glass to point toward the very source of the blasphemies and strong arm robberies that have been occurring in the Republic the very first moment the beaver hat was put on and the first treaty scripted by the powdered wigs of Washingtonian Fathers and broken, ripped to shreds, seeded with the dark force that is the white race. Here comes Tools for Transparency into the mix of triage to uphold the declaration of independence, and the few tenets of the constitution that are supremely directed to we-by-for-because of the people, AND not the corporation, monopoly, Military-Retail-Finance-Ag-Energy-Pharma-Prison-Medical-Toxins-IT-Surveillance-Legal Complex. This project is the brainchild of a former Marine who “came to life late in the world” of pure skepticism about the powers that be and his own questioning of the motivations and machinations of his government and political representatives. Sometimes it’s hard to don and doff the uniform of a trained/manipulated/choregraphed killer and make any sense of the orders belted out and campaigns designed with no benefit to the invaded peoples other than the demented good (bad) for that gluttonous octopus parasite called capitalism as it entangles its tentacles on each invaded country’s birthright, history, natural resources, land and people through the power of the high explosives bomb and the usury bond. “Heck, before starting this project, I didn’t even know we had 535 representatives in Congress,” states Brian Hanson. So goes the beginning of this start up, Tools for Transparency, an on-line clearing house for what Hanson hopes will be a light shed onto all the backroom dealings we as consumers of news just aren’t privy to. Or that’s at least what Brian Hanson is shooting for in this atmosphere of “fake” news, “really fake” news, “non” news, “no” news, “distracting” news “manufactured” news, “rabbit hole” news, “lies are truths” news, or newspeak. The Beaverton, Oregon, resident is the father of this platform which is still in its infancy, as the former Marine throws his all into the project. The 37-year-old Hanson is a Pacific Northwest product, having dropped out of traditional high school and landing up in an alternative high school where the instructors were outside the box. He recalls reading Shakespeare, doing two weeks of study on the Nez Perce peoples, and a class report on the Battle of Wounded Knee. With gusto, he told me that his class made a video of the trail of tears and presented it to the local Shriners. For this father of a special needs daughter, he easily lets roll off his tongue, “black sheep,” both an emblematic moniker and symbolic of his travails, having stuck with him throughout his life, from high school, to the Marines (“where I learned to get responsible”) to today: divorced, single dad, precarious income stream. On top of that, he’s living in his elderly parents’ garage/converted small studio apartment. After the Marines, where he specialized in communications, and field wiring, he worked on a community college degree, eventually ending up with a BA from Portland State University in psychology. The disciplines of cognitive behavior therapy and behavior analysis “got to me” first in college, initially through the inspiring teaching of a San Bernardino community college instructor who helped the young Hanson stick it out after Hanson smashed up bones in a motorcycle accident: a spill that caused him to miss half the classes. This faculty member went the extra mile, Hanson says, allowing him to do outside work and test make-ups. I was fresh out of the military and had no idea what I was doing. This professor missed dinners with his family, missed his kids’ recitals, to allow me to make up tests. . . . I’ve been a lifelong feminist because of this man, who instructed me on his own philosophy tied to feminism. I never had a male role model like that before. Hanson kicked around, came back to Beaverton, worked with developmental disabled youth and then foster youth, where I met him when we were both case managers for 16-to 21-year-old foster youth. We talk a lot about consumable information, as Hanson explains his gambit with his new information web company. It’s an age-old conundrum, what George Lakoff puts down as narrative framing. That was a big issue in the Bush Junior (W) election cycle, how born-with-a-silver-spoon George W had snookered Joe Six-Pack and NASCAR country with his Yale education, dicey National Air Guard record and Bush’s rich charmed life, getting a professional baseball team (Texas Rangers) as part of the family bargain. The illustration is dramatic to both Hanson and myself, as we talked about Mad Men, the Edward Bernays and Milton Friedman schools of propaganda, framing stories (lies) and setting out to paint good people as bad, heroic politicians like Salvador Allende of Chile as Commie Baby Killers. Even now, Bush, the instigator of chaos in the Middle East, with all the cooked up lies and distractions of his own stupidity (like Trump), and, bam, W is reclaimed (in the mainstream mush media) as something of a good president, and especially by the likes of the Democratic Party misleadership. Bush, millionaire, entitled, crude, racist, and, bam again, we have dirt poor kids from Appalachia or Akron joining up through the economic draft of standing down the armies of burger flippers to fight illegal wars, and then to come home creaking decrepit shells of their old young selves to fight for oil and geopolitical checkmate brinkmanship of the World Bank and Goldman Sachs order. Here we have an old Connecticut political family, from Prescott Bush, putting the grandson out on tens of thousands of acres of scrub brush near Waco, Texas, with 4×4 hefty pick-up trucks and chainsaws (George is deathly afraid of horses), and we’re all good to call him a man’s man, roughing it West Texas. Honest George or Rough-rider Teddy or Ahh Shucks Reagan, Yes We Can/Si Se Puede Obama, One Thousand Points of Light Bush Sr., Make America Great Again Trump — the news isn’t the news, and patriotism is the graveyard of scoundrels and their bromides. A huge turning point for Brian was this last election cycle, with Trump getting guffaws and trounced in the court of public opinion as a wimp, liar, cheat, misogamist, racist, buffoon, narcissist, from people all over the political spectrum, during the beginning of the election cycle. But then once Trump got in, family feuds and friendship breaks occurred: “How was it that this relationship I had with a male buddy, a true friend, going on 27 years, just gets dumped because I was questioning Trump as a viable candidate and questioning his integrity?” The age-old battle – turning blue in the face trying to explain to a friend, or anyone, that candidate x is this and that, based on the historical record. In Trump’s case, there is a long written, legal, quotable/citable record of this guy’s dirty dealings, bad business decisions, his lechery, racism, sexism, blatant unmitigated arrogance, criminality. For Hanson, it’s a no-brainer that anyone in their right mind might question Trump’s validity and viable character when he threw his toupee into the ring. A great friend just dropped Brian. Took him off social media, stopped socializing, screen to black, and this broken friendship was racing through Hanson’s mind because of the new normal: the targeted toxicity of social media feeds, and the social and psychological conditioning which this huge chasm between red state/blue state ideology has meted out to an already bifurcated flagging American consumerist society. Even having a respectable, clean and thorough debate about Trump is almost impossible, Hanson said while we talked over beers at the Yukon Bar in Sellwood. This huge cultural divide exists as far as individuals’ skills sets and critical thinking skills. The more technical the stuff like climate change or the deep state military industrial complex, people’s world views get challenged. They just don’t have the tools to dig deep into a bill passed (and endorsed) by their local representatives. Again, “consumable” as a tool to enlightenment or at least knowledge comes up in our conversation, and Hanson has done the following thought experiment literally hundreds of times – “I hear an opinion in the news – FOX, MSNBC, the Young Turks – and I can spend four hours digging up truths, and how that opinion got to us.” What he’s found is the consumable stuff the typical news consumer gets is absolutely counter to the reality of that news’ origins, facts and context. His Tools for Transparency cuts through the opinion, and as he proposes, makes the world news and the even more Byzantine and elaborate proposed legislation and lobbying groups behind “the news” approachable, again, consumable. He taps into his college days taking courses in industrial organizational psychology, seemingly benign when the American Psychological Association gets to mash the term into a three-fold brochure by defining it for prospective students as business as usual for corporations, and humanity is better because of this sort of manipulative psychology, but . . . In reality, it’s the science of behavior in the workplace, organizational development, attitudes, career development, decision theory, human performance, human factors, consumer behavior, small group theory and process, criterion theory and development and job and task analysis and individual assessment. It’s a set of tools to keep workers down spiritually and organizationally, disconnected, fearful, confused and ineffectual as thinkers and resisters, and inept at countering the abuse of power companies or bureaucracies wield over a misinformed workforce. The shape of corporations’ unethical behavior, their sociopathic and the draconian workplace conditions today are largely sculpted and defined by these behavior shapers to include the marketers and the Edward Bernays-inspired manipulators of facts and brain functioning. This begs the question for Hanson, just what are today’s hierarchy of needs for the average American? Physiological; Safety; Love/Belonging; Esteem; Self-Actualization. Of course, Maslow added human’s innate drive toward curiosity. Ironically, the lower scaffolds of the pyramid are deemed primitive – eating, sleeping, drinking, as are the safety needs and social needs such as friendship and sexual intimacy. In one sense, we see it played out – one cannot philosophize on an empty stomach and for Aristotle, his observation is prescient – ‘all paid work absorbs and degrades the mind.’ Hanson and I talk about the existential threats of climate change, terrorists, war, and our own mortality. We are in that hyper-speed moment in history when technology changes at breakneck speed, and disruptive technologies’ create disruptive economies which in turn give us disruptive communities. We are avoiding the inevitability of collapse, peak oil, peak everything, so we construct comforting (read: dopamine-triggering and sedating) realities, tied to bourgeois values, consumeristic habits, customs, degraded culture, moral codes that are antithetical to our own agency, and, then, religious fervor. Hanson states: How do they get us to take actions against our beliefs? This conditioning now is based on not just ‘buy my product’ to attain unattainable standards. Today, we, as a society, are terrified if we can’t attain that level of status or standard, Hanson’s singular (one of several) bottom lines is that his Tools for Transparency has to find a way to be consumable, and a second one Hanson repeats posits the solutions to our problems have to be profitable: “How can he create a market for alternative information profitable?” Tools for Transparency uses the platform Patreon, founded five years ago as a platform that allows patrons to pay a set amount of money every time an artist creates a work of art. Hanson’s web site and service, then depends on loyalty, fee-paying patrons. The result thus far for Hanson is nascent, but growing. I asked him how his daily routine tied to this dream can be synthesized in a nutshell: My daily routine is actually starting to wrap up at this point, it has never been very consistent as a single start-up founder anyways. For the most part my site is not sophisticated enough to continue in perpetuity yet. Too many requirements for data and input that cannot be done on a static basis. So I am mostly working on a static prototype I can display, build an audience with. For the most part I have been diving headfirst into legislative bulk data sets. Making connections between publications, finding creative ways to link (intentionally I think) differently formatted data together. Working to construct cohesive and understandable information. When I get tired of staring at data sheets, I will work to develop relationships with business people, work on marketing techniques, reaching out to colleges and programs, learning about business development, corporate securities, federal regulations pertaining to my business, or some general outreach (mostly family right now, you’re the first real contact outside my main family I am working with). There really isn’t anything routine about what I am doing, because it is mostly just me and a single developer friend working on the site. We talked about other issues tied the militarization of society, and I posed some long-winded questions cut and pasted below: 1. What makes what you are doing relevant to the click bait/screen addicted generation? 2. You say you were terrified for the lives of the family members, the country. Blacks and Hispanics tell me that finally, the whites get what we have been experiencing for decades, since the beginning of the country. Speak to that reality. This has been and is a white supremacist country, and with that operating procedure/system, poor people, disenfranchised people, people of color especially, are on the chopping block for those white elitists and the militarized mentality of law enforcement and even our daily lives as a renter class. He and I talk much about Black Lives Matter, and why this new movement is relevant in 2018 as it would have been in 1950 USA or 1850 America. And I do not for a second believe it has ever not been exactly this way. Every regime has to have a solider class that it uses to enforce the social hierarchy. And the solider class is always expected to use violence to enforce ideology. The threats are always transient, ever shifting, but the response is doggedly the same. Authoritarianism flourishes in this environment, we sacrifice freedoms for security, and our world shrinks a little more. Brian believes there is an awakening today in this country, and that the examples of movements such as those in Portland where youth are out yelling against the police state, and then how we are seeing individual officers returning firing with violence against those youth: The viral video of an officer drawing his pistol on a group of school age children is terrifying. We talk a lot about the devaluing of language and intentional discourse which includes the abilities of a society to engage in lively and cogent debate. For me, I know the forces of propaganda are multi-headed, multi-variant, with so much of American life seeded with lies, half-truths, duplicitous and twisted concepts, as well as inaccurate and spin-doctored history, which has contaminated a large portion of our society, up and down the economic ladder, with mind control. Unfortunately, our language now is inextricably tied to emotions, as we see leftists (what’s that?) and so-called progressives screaming at the top of their lungs how Trump is the worst president ever. Black so-called activists, journalists, stating how the empire (sky) is falling because Trump talked with Putin. Imagine, imagine, all those millions upon millions of people killed because of all the other presidents’ and their thugs’ policies eviscerating societies, all those elections smeared, all those democracies mauled, all those citizens in the other part of the world hobbled by America’s policies, read “wars, occupations, embargoes, structural violence.” It is a daily reminder for us all that today, as was true yesterday, that we are ruled by masters of self-deception and our collective society having a feel good party every day while we plunder the world. Doublethink. Here: Orwell’s point: To tell deliberate lives while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality one denies – all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth. Herein lies the problem – vaunting past presidents on pedestals while attacking this current deplorable, Donald Trump. The reality is the US has been run by an elite group of militarists, and by no means is Trump the worst of the worst, which is both illogical and unsupported by facts: Yet, we have to mark the words and wisdom of those of us who have been marking this empire’s crimes, both internal and external, for years. Here, Paul Edwards over at Counterpunch hits a bulls-eye on the heart of the matter: After decades of proven bald-faced crime, deceit and the dirtiest pool at home and abroad, the CIA, FBI, NSA, the Justice Department and the whole fetid nomenklatura of sociopathic rats, are portrayed as white knights of virtue dispensing verity as holy writ. And “progressives” buy it. These are the vermin that gave us Vietnam, the Bay of Pigs, Chile, the Contras, Iraq’s WMD, and along the way managed to miss the falls of the Shah and Communism. Truly an Orwellian clusterfuck, this. War Party Dems misleading naive liberal souls sickened by Trump into embracing the dirty, vicious lunacy Hillary peddled to her fans, the bankers, brokers, and CEOs of the War Machine. Trump is a fool who may yet blunder us into war; the Dems and the Deep State cabal would give us war by design. In an innocent way, Brian Hanson is hoping to dig into that “objective reality,” with his Tools for Transparency. He might be unconsciously adhering to Mark Twain’s admonition: “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” Maybe Tools for Transparency will get under the onion peels of deceit, a consumeristic and kleptocratic debt-ridden society to expose those culprits’ origins – where or where and how and why did something like the Flint, Michigan, poisoning of people’s water happen? Who signed off? How did it, the deceit (felonies), weave its way through a supposedly checked and triple-checked “democracy”? As we parted from a free jazz concert in Portland, he has some pointed words for me: “I will keep working on you Paul to get some hope about society, about the world. I’m going to keep on you.” http://clubof.info/

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themoneybuff-blog · 6 years

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Cost of living: Why you should choose a cheap place to live

Shares 105 While visiting Raleigh earlier this month, I spent a morning with my pal Justin (from the excellent Root of Good blog) and his wife. As we sipped our coffee and nibbled our bagels, the conversation turned to cost of living. (Money nerds will be money nerds, after all.) Things are cheaper here in North Carolina than they are in Portland, I said. Food is cheaper. Beer is cheaper. Hotel rooms are cheaper. Your homes are cheaper too. Last night, as I was walking through the neighborhood next to my hotel, I pulled up the housing prices. I was shocked at how low they are! Yeah, housing costs are lower here than in many parts of the country, Justin said. Take our house, for instance. We bought it in 2003 for $108,000. Zillow says its worth around $198,000 right now. But Ill bet thats a lot less than youd pay for a similar place in Portland. Hes right. Justin and his wife own an 1800-square-foot home on 0.3 acres of land. Their place has four bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms. Theres only one place for sale in Portland right now that matches these stats and its going for $430,000 more than twice the price the same home would fetch in Raleigh.

Housing is by far the largest slice of the average American budget, representing one-third of typical household spending. Because of this, the best way to cut your costs (and, therefor, boost your profit margin) is to reduce how much you spend to keep a roof over your head. One obvious way to cut costs on housing is to choose a cheaper home or apartment. But if you truly want to slash your spending, consider moving to a new neighborhood. Or city. Or state. If youre willing to change locations, you can supercharge your purchasing power and accelerate your saving rate. Cost of living is one of those factors that people seldom consider, but which can have a huge impact on the family budget sometimes in unexpected ways. According to The Millionaire Next Door: Living in less costly areas can enable you to spend less and to invest more of your income. You will pay less for your home and correspondingly less for your property taxes. Your neighbors will be less likely to drive expensive motor vehicles. You will find it easier to keep up, even ahead, of the Joneses and still accumulate wealth. Its one thing to talk about the effects of high cost of living, but another to actually experience it. Cost of Living in Real Life On our fifteen-month road trip across the United States, Kim and I made a point of watching how prices varied from city to city and region to region. While stranded for ten days in rural Plankinton, South Dakota, for example, I paid $10.60 for a fancy mens haircut. At home in Portland, I pay $28 for the same fancy haircut. In Fort Collins, Colorado, I paid $30 for a haircut. In Santa Barbara, California, I paid $50 or $60 for the same fancy cut. Gas was cheaper in South Dakota too. So was food. So was beer and whisky. So were movies. So was just about everything, including housing. Housing prices followed a similar pattern to the haircut prices I mentioned above. A $280,000 home in Portland might go for $300,000 in Fort Collins and $500k to $600k in Santa Barbara. In South Dakota, that same home would cost about $106,000. A couple of years ago, I exchanged email with a reader who had first-hand experience struggling with the high cost of living. She gave me permission to share her story: I had been saving about 40% of my relatively modest salary for eight years. I had built up an emergency fund as well as a good sized savingsand then we had kids. We lost our rent-stabilized apartment right after our children were born. We live in New York City, and while I maintain that there are many things about the city that are actually very budget-friendly (public transit and free entertainment top my list), the cost of rent and daycare in NYC are over the top. In one year, the cost of a market-rate apartment in our neighborhood plus two kids in daycare ate into my hard-earned savings. By the end of the year, the pot of money that I had worked so hard to save was down by almost $50,000. Luckily, my husband and I have never carried any kind of debt and had already been living well below our means before the kids came along. But that also meant there was very little fat left to trim in our budget other than rent and daycare expenses. (Wed already dropped the landline, never had cable, cooked almost all of our meals at home, and cut out our modest allowance of $50/month for splurges.) We are the very definition of penny wise and pound foolish! Eventually, we moved into a cheaper apartment. Although we havent had to dip into savings since we moved, were still essentially living month to month because of daycare and rent. The neighborhood is cheaper for a reason. Real Life will force us to make another move in the spring. One of our jobs is going away, so it will force a decision one way or another since we cant stay in New York on one salary. Change is definitely coming. This reader and her husband are already frugal-minded thats how she built her buffer of savings to start with so there isnt much more the family can cut. This is an example where the only real solution is to seek a city with a lower cost of living. Saving in Savannah Which places are cheapest to live? Which are most expensive? This map from Governing magazine shows how far the average paycheck goes in 191 U.S. metro areas.

Dark green (blue?) dots indicate cities where your wages buy more after adjusting for cost of living. Dark brown dots are places where you have to work harder to get what you want. (Click through to play with an interactive version of the map.) As you can see, large coastal cities tend to be more expensive than smaller towns in the center of the country. If you have a fixed budget, youll get more bang for your buck by buying a home in Oklahoma City or Sioux Falls than by living in San Francisco or Washington D.C. Its not just coastal cities, though. There are spendy pockets throughout the U.S. from Flagstaff, Arizona to Hot Springs, Arkansas. And some coastal cities Boston, Houston, Seattle, Tampa are relatively inexpensive. (In Boston and Seattle, though, thats because wages are high, not because things are cheap.) In the middle of our road trip, Kim and I decided to stay the winter in Savannah, Georgia. During our six months in Savannah, we spent much less than we would have for the same lifestyle here in Portland. According to the CNN cost-of-living calculator, Portland is 44% more expensive than in Savannah. (And housing costs nearly three times as much here as it does in Georgia!)

In larger cities, there are often cost-of-living differences between neighborhoods. When deciding where to live in Savannah, for instance, we had a choice: We could rent a small apartment in the downtown historic district for $1750 per month. The place would have been a lot of fun because it was surrounded by shops and restaurants, and it was close to anything we might want to do.We could opt instead for a modest-sized condo on the outskirts of town at $1325 per month. This location was next to nothing. We could walk to the grocery store, but wed have to drive into the city if we wanted to indulge ourselves. After considering financial and lifestyle factors, we chose to rent the condo in the middle of the marshlands. On the surface, this decision saved us $425 per month. In reality, it saved us much more than that. If we had lived downtown, we would have had to pay to park the Mini Cooper ($95/month). We would have been constantly tempted to eat out or go for drinks. It would have been too easy for window shopping to become actual shopping. Instead, we enjoyed one Date Night each week. We spent the rest of our time working and exercising. I believe that opting for the less glamorous location saved us a minimum of $5000 over our six month stay and the real savings are probably far greater. Pinching Pennies in Portland This same concept certain neighborhoods costing less than others was a driving factor in our decision last year to sell our condo and move to the country. We loved where we lived, but the costs were crazy. First, there were the maintenance costs for a place that we ostensibly owned outright. Even without a mortgage, we were paying nearly $1200 per month for HOA fees, utilities, insurance, and more. (In our new place, we spend half that.)Plus, there was the sneaky cost of lifestyle inflation. Our condo was in a fun neighborhood filled with restaurants and bars. It was all too easy after a long day to simply walk up the street to one of our favorite spots, where wed drop $50 or $100 on food and drinks. Moving to our new place cut our restaurant spending in half.Lastly, the cost of goods in our new neighborhood is lower than in our old. In Sellwood, our grocery options were limited. And expensive. The nearest markets were both high-end organic-only affairs, the kind of places you might see on an episode of Portlandia. Yes, the quality was outstanding. But since weve moved, were spending about 25% less on groceries each month. Moving helped us save big on some cost-of-living items. But it also brought with it a few increases in spending. Because were more rural now, we drive more often. Kim, especially, is spending more on gas. Our new home also has greater maintenance costs than the condo. Weve poured a ton of money into this place since moving in. (I guess thats not actually a cost-of-living issue so much as a homeownership issue, though.) My point is that even within a city, there are cost-of-living differences you can leverage to your advantage especially if youre willing to live in a rougher part of town. The Bottom Line Obviously theres more to picking a place to live than pure price. When you choose a city (or neighborhood) to call home, you do so because of the climate, the politics, and the people. You want to live close to friends and family. You want a nice school district. You want people who think and act the same way you do. For those reasons (and others), Omaha might not be a good choice for you. (Savannah isnt a good choice for me long-term, but it was fine for a few months.) Heres the bottom line: Where you choose to live has a greater effect on your long-term financial success than almost any other factor. How much you earn is sometimes more important (not always), in which case cost of living is a close second. Cost of living can wreak havoc on your pursuit of financial freedom. Or it can help you achieve your goals sooner than you thought possible. The choice is yours. Other ways to make the most of your housing budget? Consider renting. Live close to where you work so that you can walk, bike, or take the bus. Purchase a house that fits your lifestyle and needs rather than the commonly cited buy as much home as you can afford. The latter is self-serving advice from real-estate agents and mortgage brokers. You dont need a big house; you just need someplace comfortable. Shares 105 https://www.getrichslowly.org/cost-of-living/

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andrewdburton · 6 years

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Cost of living: Why you should choose a cheap place to live

“Things are cheaper here in North Carolina than they are in Portland,” I said. “Food is cheaper. Beer is cheaper. Hotel rooms are cheaper. Your homes are cheaper too. Last night, as I was walking through the neighborhood next to my hotel, I pulled up the housing prices. I was shocked at how low they are!”

“Yeah, housing costs are lower here than in many parts of the country,” Justin said.

“Take our house, for instance. We bought it in 2003 for $108,000. Zillow says it’s worth around $198,000 right now. But I’ll bet that’s a lot less than you’d pay for a similar place in Portland.”

He’s right. Justin and his wife own an 1800-square-foot home on 0.3 acres of land. Their place has four bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms. There’s only one place for sale in Portland right now that matches these stats and it’s going for $430,000 — more than twice the price the same home would fetch in Raleigh.

One obvious way to cut costs on housing is to choose a cheaper home or apartment. But if you truly want to slash your spending, consider moving to a new neighborhood. Or city. Or state. If you’re willing to change locations, you can supercharge your purchasing power and accelerate your saving rate.

Cost of living is one of those factors that people seldom consider, but which can have a huge impact on the family budget — sometimes in unexpected ways. According to The Millionaire Next Door:

Living in less costly areas can enable you to spend less and to invest more of your income. You will pay less for your home and correspondingly less for your property taxes. Your neighbors will be less likely to drive expensive motor vehicles. You will find it easier to keep up, even ahead, of the Joneses and still accumulate wealth.

It’s one thing to talk about the effects of high cost of living, but another to actually experience it.

Cost of Living in Real Life

On our fifteen-month road trip across the United States, Kim and I made a point of watching how prices varied from city to city and region to region.

While stranded for ten days in rural Plankinton, South Dakota, for example, I paid $10.60 for a fancy men’s haircut. At home in Portland, I pay $28 for the same fancy haircut. In Fort Collins, Colorado, I paid $30 for a haircut. In Santa Barbara, California, I paid $50 or $60 for the same fancy cut.

Gas was cheaper in South Dakota too. So was food. So was beer and whisky. So were movies. So was just about everything, including housing. Housing prices followed a similar pattern to the haircut prices I mentioned above. A $280,000 home in Portland might go for $300,000 in Fort Collins and $500k to $600k in Santa Barbara. In South Dakota, that same home would cost about $106,000.

A couple of years ago, I exchanged email with a reader who had first-hand experience struggling with the high cost of living. She gave me permission to share her story:

I had been saving about 40% of my relatively modest salary for eight years. I had built up an emergency fund as well as a good sized savings…and then we had kids.

We lost our rent-stabilized apartment right after our children were born. We live in New York City, and while I maintain that there are many things about the city that are actually very budget-friendly (public transit and free entertainment top my list), the cost of rent and daycare in NYC are over the top.

In one year, the cost of a market-rate apartment in our neighborhood plus two kids in daycare ate into my hard-earned savings. By the end of the year, the pot of money that I had worked so hard to save was down by almost $50,000.

Luckily, my husband and I have never carried any kind of debt and had already been living well below our means before the kids came along. But that also meant there was very little fat left to trim in our budget other than rent and daycare expenses. (We’d already dropped the landline, never had cable, cooked almost all of our meals at home, and cut out our modest “allowance” of $50/month for splurges.)

We are the very definition of penny wise and pound foolish!

Eventually, we moved into a cheaper apartment. Although we haven’t had to dip into savings since we moved, we’re still essentially living month to month because of daycare and rent. The neighborhood is cheaper for a reason.

Real Life will force us to make another move in the spring. One of our jobs is going away, so it will force a decision one way or another since we can’t stay in New York on one salary. Change is definitely coming.

This reader and her husband are already frugal-minded — that’s how she built her buffer of savings to start with — so there isn’t much more the family can cut. This is an example where the only real solution is to seek a city with a lower cost of living.

Saving in Savannah

Which places are cheapest to live? Which are most expensive? This map from Governing magazine shows how far the average paycheck goes in 191 U.S. metro areas.

As you can see, large coastal cities tend to be more expensive than smaller towns in the center of the country. If you have a fixed budget, you’ll get more bang for your buck by buying a home in Oklahoma City or Sioux Falls than by living in San Francisco or Washington D.C.

It’s not just coastal cities, though. There are spendy pockets throughout the U.S. from Flagstaff, Arizona to Hot Springs, Arkansas. And some coastal cities — Boston, Houston, Seattle, Tampa — are relatively inexpensive. (In Boston and Seattle, though, that’s because wages are high, not because things are cheap.)

In the middle of our road trip, Kim and I decided to stay the winter in Savannah, Georgia. During our six months in Savannah, we spent much less than we would have for the same lifestyle here in Portland. According to the CNN cost-of-living calculator, Portland is 44% more expensive than in Savannah. (And housing costs nearly three times as much here as it does in Georgia!)

In larger cities, there are often cost-of-living differences between neighborhoods. When deciding where to live in Savannah, for instance, we had a choice:

We could rent a small apartment in the downtown historic district for $1750 per month. The place would have been a lot of fun because it was surrounded by shops and restaurants, and it was close to anything we might want to do.

We could opt instead for a modest-sized condo on the outskirts of town at $1325 per month. This location was next to nothing. We could walk to the grocery store, but we’d have to drive into the city if we wanted to indulge ourselves.

After considering financial and lifestyle factors, we chose to rent the condo in the middle of the marshlands. On the surface, this decision saved us $425 per month. In reality, it saved us much more than that.

If we had lived downtown, we would have had to pay to park the Mini Cooper ($95/month). We would have been constantly tempted to eat out or go for drinks. It would have been too easy for window shopping to become actual shopping. Instead, we enjoyed one Date Night each week. We spent the rest of our time working and exercising.

I believe that opting for the less glamorous location saved us a minimum of $5000 over our six month stay — and the real savings are probably far greater.

Pinching Pennies in Portland

This same concept — certain neighborhoods costing less than others — was a driving factor in our decision last year to sell our condo and move to “the country”. We loved where we lived, but the costs were crazy.

First, there were the maintenance costs for a place that we ostensibly owned outright. Even without a mortgage, we were paying nearly $1200 per month for HOA fees, utilities, insurance, and more. (In our new place, we spend half that.)

Plus, there was the sneaky cost of lifestyle inflation. Our condo was in a fun neighborhood filled with restaurants and bars. It was all too easy after a long day to simply walk up the street to one of our favorite spots, where we’d drop $50 or $100 on food and drinks. Moving to our new place cut our restaurant spending in half.

Lastly, the cost of goods in our new neighborhood is lower than in our old. In Sellwood, our grocery options were limited. And expensive. The nearest markets were both high-end organic-only affairs, the kind of places you might see on an episode of Portlandia. Yes, the quality was outstanding. But since we’ve moved, we’re spending about 25% less on groceries each month.

Moving helped us save big on some cost-of-living items. But it also brought with it a few increases in spending. Because we’re more rural now, we drive more often. Kim, especially, is spending more on gas. Our “new” home also has greater maintenance costs than the condo. We’ve poured a ton of money into this place since moving in. (I guess that’s not actually a cost-of-living issue so much as a homeownership issue, though.)

My point is that even within a city, there are cost-of-living differences you can leverage to your advantage — especially if you’re willing to live in a rougher part of town.

The Bottom Line

Obviously there’s more to picking a place to live than pure price.

When you choose a city (or neighborhood) to call home, you do so because of the climate, the politics, and the people. You want to live close to friends and family. You want a nice school district. You want people who think and act the same way you do. For those reasons (and others), Omaha might not be a good choice for you. (Savannah isn’t a good choice for me long-term, but it was fine for a few months.)

Here’s the bottom line: Where you choose to live has a greater effect on your long-term financial success than almost any other factor. How much you earn is sometimes more important (not always), in which case cost of living is a close second.

Cost of living can wreak havoc on your pursuit of financial freedom. Or it can help you achieve your goals sooner than you thought possible. The choice is yours.

Other ways to make the most of your housing budget? Consider renting. Live close to where you work so that you can walk, bike, or take the bus. Purchase a house that fits your lifestyle and needs rather than the commonly cited “buy as much home as you can afford”. The latter is self-serving advice from real-estate agents and mortgage brokers. You don’t need a big house; you just need someplace comfortable.

The post Cost of living: Why you should choose a cheap place to live appeared first on Get Rich Slowly.

from Finance https://www.getrichslowly.org/cost-of-living/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

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foursprout-blog · 6 years

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Cost of living: Why you should choose a cheap place to live

New Post has been published on http://foursprout.com/wealth/cost-of-living-why-you-should-choose-a-cheap-place-to-live/

Cost of living: Why you should choose a cheap place to live

“Yeah, housing costs are lower here than in many parts of the country,” Justin said.

Cost of living is one of those factors that people seldom consider, but which can have a huge impact on the family budget — sometimes in unexpected ways. According to The Millionaire Next Door:

It’s one thing to talk about the effects of high cost of living, but another to actually experience it.

Cost of Living in Real Life

On our fifteen-month road trip across the United States, Kim and I made a point of watching how prices varied from city to city and region to region.

A couple of years ago, I exchanged email with a reader who had first-hand experience struggling with the high cost of living. She gave me permission to share her story:

I had been saving about 40% of my relatively modest salary for eight years. I had built up an emergency fund as well as a good sized savings…and then we had kids.

We are the very definition of penny wise and pound foolish!

Saving in Savannah

Which places are cheapest to live? Which are most expensive? This map from Governing magazine shows how far the average paycheck goes in 191 U.S. metro areas.

In larger cities, there are often cost-of-living differences between neighborhoods. When deciding where to live in Savannah, for instance, we had a choice:

I believe that opting for the less glamorous location saved us a minimum of $5000 over our six month stay — and the real savings are probably far greater.

Pinching Pennies in Portland

My point is that even within a city, there are cost-of-living differences you can leverage to your advantage — especially if you’re willing to live in a rougher part of town.

The Bottom Line

Obviously there’s more to picking a place to live than pure price.

Cost of living can wreak havoc on your pursuit of financial freedom. Or it can help you achieve your goals sooner than you thought possible. The choice is yours.

The post Cost of living: Why you should choose a cheap place to live appeared first on Get Rich Slowly.

#Wealth

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littlejedii · 7 years

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Your Face

this week has been *jean-ralphio voice* THE WORRRST and I’ve been thirsty for mitjo content so i wrote some. title from “clouds” by borns, thanks to one of @buddymueller mods, a radical human. story under de break :))

Jonas pushes through the heavy front doors of Sellwood High, moving with a crowd of people who push and shove and bump their way to freedom. It’s a Thursday, he hates Thursdays. Such a tease for the weekend. Not like he does anything particularly special, really. Plays video games, practices tricks with Sidney... and lately, waits for Mitch Mueller to text him and whisk him off for a little secret troublemaking. If Jonas wasn’t such a goody two-shoes, he’d probably have much more fun. But he’s getting there.

Like today, he told Dean and Sue he was staying late to tutor a girl from his math class. But in reality, he’s heading to Mitch’s to do their project.

Pretty rebellious, huh?

Jonas spots him in the senior parking lot. The tall boy is hunched over at the waist, staring into the driver’s window of Scratch’s car with a frown, running his long, busted fingers through his hair. He jumps when Jonas bumps his shoulder, his shock quickly turning to the warm, familiar smile which makes Jonas’ heart flutter.

“Doing your hair, huh? You don’t seem like someone who cares about your hair,” Jonas teases.

“I don’t, just... fuckin’ hate when the brown shows through,” Mitch grumbles the last few words under his breath, looking back to the window and tugging at his locks exasperatedly. “Means I gotta dye it soon and I haaaate dyin’ it,” he tosses his head back as he whines, making Jonas giggle. For a second, Jonas gnaws on his lower lip, considering whether or not to say the words lingering right behind his lips. He blurts them out as he meets Mitch’s gaze in the window.

“I- I could do it for you...”

“You could? You’d wanna?” Mitch turns now, straightening. Jonas nods, smiling up and clenching his fists hard to keep his lights at bay as Mitch gives him a toothy grin for the first time that day. “Well shit, then! Scratch, we’re stoppin’ at the store.” Scratch slides off the hood of her beater and excitedly into the driver’s seat. Mitch has no idea that Jonas’ stomach does a cartwheel when he pulls him into the backseat and onto his lap, long arms wrapped loosely around his middle as he chatters away with his friends.

The trailer is quiet when they arrive, stolen box of bleach tossed onto the counter as Mitch rummages through the fridge.

“Watcha want? Soda?” he calls as Jonas stands awkwardly near the sink, glancing around the kitchen. He’s still getting acclimated to Mitch’s living conditions. He just isn’t used to it, a house which doesn’t smell like disinfectant, a house where the bags of chips are left open on the counter, a house with ashtrays on every available surface. It’s not bad. Just different. He’s still glancing around, not answering as Mitch nudges him and presents him with a can, suspiciously lukewarm for coming right from the fridge.

“So... how do you do this?” Jonas asks, and Mitch cocks an eyebrow.

“I thought you knew, you offered.” Jonas starts to blush, stuttering out an apology and feeling positively stupid before Mitch stops him with waving hands. “No, no it don’t matter! I’ll teach ya,” Mitch tears open the box and shakes the contents on the counter. “Usually I just like, put that shit on my hands and like... scrub it through my hair and then... wash it out?”

“Okay, I know I said I didn’t know how to dye hair, but I know that’s not right,” he laughs as Mitch grimaces, rubbing the back of his neck. “You should probably sit down near the sink, to wash your hair. Like they do when you get it cut.”

“I’ve... never had my hair cut anywhere but here,” Mitch mumbles, and Jonas’ chest seizes with embarrassment.

“I’ll sh-show you then!” he squeaks, pulling a folding chair away from the table and situating it against the cabinets, motioning for Mitch to sit. The taller boy looks down at the chair, then back to him.

“It’s backwards.”

“No, it’s not,” Jonas huffs, tugging gently at Mitch’s arm. “Just sit.”

“Pushy, pushy,” Mitch mutters, but he’s grinning as Jonas pretends to forget he still has a hand securely around his bicep. Softly, he pushes Mitch’s chest, swallowing thickly and trying to ignore the way Mitch’s eyebrows shoot up.

“Do you have shampoo?”

“Yeah, uh... bathroom. Under the sink,” Mitch’s voice is just a touch cloudier than it had been a moment ago, and Jonas curses himself for noticing it. His fingertips sear where he had pressed them into Mitch’s chest as he shuffles away to retrieve the bottle. Mitch’s face is still pink when he returns and turns the faucet on, running his fingers under the water as he looks down at the taller boy.

“Lean back,” he commands, smirking slightly at how quickly Mitch complies. One sharp eyebrow cocked, questioning, Mitch stares up as Jonas grabs a grubby, crusty dishtowel from near the sink and says, “for if it’s uncomfortable.”

“Nah, s’fine,” Mitch shrugs, but lifts his head to allow Jonas to slip it beneath his neck. Jonas can’t help but let out a shaky breath as he presses his fingers softly to Mitch’s temples and coaxes his head back. Mitch’s jaw clenches and he casts his eyes down as he starts to go red. Every time they’re together, boundaries are pushed; lines are blurred between study partners and friends and something else he can’t identify. Mitch is full of firsts for him: the first time he smoked, the first time he skipped school, the first crush on a guy, the first person he’s touched like... this.

It’s intimate. He feels powerful, because usually Mitch is the one touching, but now he’s melting beneath his hands. With just light brushes of his fingertips he threads his way through Mitch’s hair. He’s flushed bright red as he lets the warm water flow over Mitch’s scalp, squirting shampoo onto his hair and beginning to lather it with calm, gentle strokes. His eyes flicker down to his friend’s face.

How long had Mitch’s eyes been closed? His shoulders are still slightly rigid, arms crossed tightly over his chest, but his face is free of any tension. Jonas keeps his fingers working as he scans over Mitch’s face, silently praying the boy won’t open his eyes. He looks so peaceful.

Jonas has never noticed how thick and dark Mitch’s eyelashes are. His eyelids flutter, amber eyes moving beneath them, and Jonas is enraptured. A lattice of faint blue and purple veins decorate his lids, smooth and white up to his eyebrows. Jonas swallows as he notices a tiny line of discoloration, a scar, underneath Mitch’s right brow. His eyes continue to trace down over Mitch’s cheeks. Just under the skin, faded and old and nearly unnoticeable, are a few stray acne scars and pockmarks he’s never been close enough to make out until now. There’s a slight stubble over Mitch’s lip and near his jaw, the light brown hair barely visible, but Jonas grins anyway.

Mitch actually shaves around that pube-y beard of his. Gosh that’s... really cute.

“Is this what I been missin’ out on, not gettin’ haircuts?” Mitch murmurs suddenly, causing Jonas to jump. “S’good,” Mitch hums out a noise of pure contentment and Jonas can hear his own heartbeat in his ears. He rinses the suds from Mitch’s hair and fumbles the gloves on.

“I’m gonna put this conditioner stuff in, then do the bleach. Is that okay?” Mitch hums once more in concession, and Jonas swears when he starts to run the conditioner through Mitch leans into his touch. In a moment of uncharacteristic bravery Jonas presses his fingers onto Mitch’s head, applying light pressure as he strokes through his hair, and Mitch’s sigh is like music. He rinses the conditioner and fumbles with the applicator, carefully squirting the thick dye onto Mitch’s dark roots. Slowly, carefully, he begins to run the bleach through his hair, unsure if he’s doing it right, but he takes the fact that Mitch hasn’t protested yet as a good sign. He’s cautious to avoid Mitch’s dark, shaved sides before the tall boy’s body shifts suddenly, and Jonas yelps.

“Hold still, I don’t want to-” He snaps his mouth shut quickly as he looks down. Mitch’s head is lulled back, his arms have fallen away from his chest which is rising and falling steadily beneath his once-white tank top.

He’s asleep.

Jonas inhales sharply. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to tell Mitch doesn’t sleep often. The dark bags under his eyes are the strongest indication. But if you know Mitch, or watch him as much as Jonas does, you can see the exhaustion which permeates his limbs and lips and walk. His heart warms with pride as he slowly takes his hands away from Mitch’s hair, starting a timer for the dye. As strange as it is, and he knows it’s strange, he leans against the counter to watch Mitch’s chest rise and fall with even, slow breaths.

Mitch is such a wild flurry of movement and energy that Jonas has never gotten to... admire him like this. The sharp prominence of his collarbone enchants Jonas and distresses him all at the same time. He’s glad he has gloves on, or else he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from bringing his fingers to that skin and running across it. He bets it feels paper-thin and smooth stretched over the bone, almost straining. From afar Mitch is thin, strong, sinewy, but up close here Jonas can see the beginnings of emaciation. Beneath his chest, his ribs are starting to become obvious, something Jonas notes is definitely new. The thinness of his wrists, the gauntness of his face begin to spin into a new light, and Jonas stiffens. He had seen the fridge, and though there hadn’t been much, there had still been food in it. That day in the bathroom, when he’d heard Mitch, he tried to write it off as something else.

But here staring down at the unnatural sharpness of Mitch’s hipbones peaking out above the hem of his boxers, he can’t pretend any longer. He knows she shouldn’t, but he carefully takes a glove off and slowly brings a hand to Mitch’s head. Pressing his palm into the side of the boy’s long face, he slowly caresses a thumb along Mitch’s eyebrow. He freezes when Mitch leans into his hand, but he doesn’t stir any further, so Jonas continues his soft strokes.

“Mitch,” his voice is too low to even be a whisper, but he wants to say something. He just doesn’t know what. I’m worried, maybe? Can I help? might be better. You deserve to be happy. Or I want you to be happy. Maybe even I want to make you happy. Could I ever? He can’t say any of it, though, so he just continues to rub him soothingly. Things begin to float, then. Only the light things. His free glove rises off the counter. Crumpled paper towels near the sink, a used styrofoam plate, half of an old-looking cookie drift upwards. Jonas can’t help but laugh softly as they begin to spin lazily, orbiting around them. Little items continue to float up, joining the orbit around he and Mitch as he cradles the sleeping boy’s face.

His heart pulls as he gazes down. Scary, angry, mean Mitch Mueller is no longer the front he puts on for anyone, and Jonas is pretty sure he’s one of the only people to ever have seen him like this. God, he looks so vulnerable, so small for someone who’s so tall and long. He looks gentle and soft and warm and serene.

He looks beautiful.

Just as Jonas inhales, realizes he’s so far gone into something he told Sidney was a crush but is now recognizing is infatuation, the timer on his phone begins to ring and the atmosphere breaks. He pulls his hand away instantly as the items drop to the ground, making small noises as Mitch jolts upward.

“Shit,” he grumbles as he rubs his eyes, resting his elbows on his knees. “Did I fall asleep?”

“Yeah,” Jonas’ voice is shaky, almost guilty, but Mitch doesn’t seem to notice. “I still have to, uh... I still have to wash the bleach out.” Mitch grunts and leans back, arms back to being crossed over his chest, a protective barrier around himself. He doesn’t melt under Jonas’ touch as he had before, he stays rigid with his eyes screwed shut as Jonas works. Mitch’s hair is light again, more blonde in some areas than in others and a little blotchy, but for a crappy box dye and his first time Jonas feels pretty darn good about it.

Still, he can’t ignore the way his heart drops when Mitch doesn’t relax under his hands. He’d give his whole life for one more moment of that vulnerability, that moment when it felt like Mitch was almost his. So with quaking fingers, craving just one more touch, he brings his thumb back to Mitch’s eyebrow. Mitch jolts and peeks an eye open, but the smaller boy doesn’t stop. He runs the digit slowly, carefully over the scar.

“I’ve never noticed this.”

“Yeah, got it from Freddie. He thought he had pretty decent aim when he’d toss me into those pools but one time he- he didn’t,” Mitch snorts and Jonas laughs softly in response, not taking his hand away. “Thank fuckin’ Christ it ain’t any bigger, though. I don’t need my face lookin’ even more fucked up than it already does.” With those words he leans forward, away from Jonas’ touch, and grabs the towel to dry his hair. Jonas can’t help but notice the way Mitch’s spine rises from his back when he bends, and though his hands itch to stroke against it he pulls them away, back by his sides.

“Hey, this looks pretty damn good, Spots! I’m impressed,” Mitch is staring into the glass oven door, fumbling with his still-wet locks.

“Yeah, not so bad for my first time,” Jonas hums, watching Mitch’s long fingers run through his hair and longing to replace them with his own.

“What I’m hearin’ is that you’re gonna do even better next time?” Mitch turns to look at him, face plastered with that smug, crooked smirk he puts on whenever he flirts. Jonas smirks back. He takes a step forward, his knee pressing into Mitch’s thigh as he threads his fingers through the taller boy’s hair. Mitch’s mouth drops open in surprise and his eyes widen, but he doesn’t make a noise. Jonas strokes over his scalp, messily brushing Mitch’s hair into it’s usual slicked-back style.

“Mhmm,” he hums as his fingers work, “It’s a little patchy, next time I’ll make it more even,” he cocks his head to the side, feigning innocence, pretending that his fingers aren’t trembling, pointedly ignoring the bright red blush on Mitch’s cheeks. As he continues to style Mitch’s hair, the taller boy’s sharp shoulders ease. He rests his elbows in his knees, his body slumping with relaxation, and Jonas warms.

Someday, maybe Mitch won’t lean away from his touch. He may be able to trace his fingers over that sharp collarbone, over his spine, over that little scar and the stubble he’d never known existed. Finally, Mitch’s downcast eyes slip shut as he leans ever so slightly into Jonas.

Yeah. Maybe someday.

#mitchell mueller #Jonas Wagner #mitjo #long exposure #when will i stop writing fics #?

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themoneybuff-blog · 6 years

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Cost of living: Why you should choose a cheap place to live

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themoneybuff-blog · 6 years

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Cost of living: Why you should choose a cheap place to live

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themoneybuff-blog · 6 years

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Cost of living: Why you should choose a cheap place to live

While visiting Raleigh earlier this month, I spent a morning with my pal Justin (from the excellent Root of Good blog) and his wife. As we sipped our coffee and nibbled our bagels, the conversation turned to cost of living. (Money nerds will be money nerds, after all.) Things are cheaper here in North Carolina than they are in Portland, I said. Food is cheaper. Beer is cheaper. Hotel rooms are cheaper. Your homes are cheaper too. Last night, as I was walking through the neighborhood next to my hotel, I pulled up the housing prices. I was shocked at how low they are! Yeah, housing costs are lower here than in many parts of the country, Justin said. Take our house, for instance. We bought it in 2003 for $108,000. Zillow says its worth around $198,000 right now. But Ill bet thats a lot less than youd pay for a similar place in Portland. Hes right. Justin and his wife own an 1800-square-foot home on 0.3 acres of land. Their place has four bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms. Theres only one place for sale in Portland right now that matches these stats and its going for $430,000 more than twice the price the same home would fetch in Raleigh.

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