It is really bad when you can not afford to even do your work and only buying materials.

Making new nose piece for car, Non available fit my chassis and body. I could buy then rework.Sounds dumber than doing whole piece. Between Fiberglass Mat,clotch resing and Bondo I figure almost 250 bucks. 2 x's cost of buying run of mill piece. Yes half is because have to do twice.Make mold off plug then make actual part..WIll always hav e mold if need another.LOL

The shyt I will do to have different. Hope there are more doing similar because being crazy by yourself take half the fun out.

tell me about it.

cost of everything is up 60% over what it was in 2020 when I changed jobs. That's averaging the costs to do what I do (including living expenses).

Just found out recently that the place i work for is not going to offer insurance anymore so i have to buy it on the marketplace. For the wife and I it will be roughly $1400/month and that's a plan with high deductible and such. That's the cheapest we have found.

I don't have any choice in the matter either as she is disabled and NEEDS the insurance. And doesn't work. So I've paused my retirement to free up some funds, and that's gonna really hurt in a few years but I don't have any other choice. Race car is for sale and will likely go away sooner or later. I can't afford to race anymore so what's the point in keeping it? Haven't been able to go in months. Boat is fixing to go away, side-by-side is for sale, and already sold the street car hotrod. Good news is interest is still decent on the savings account so there is a little bit coming in from that.

It is honestly depressing and this is exactly what I and many, many others predicted was going to happen, way back in 2020-ish.

In 2020/21 we heard there was going to be a massive recession...The Traditional "Recession didn't happen..instead massive Inflation!! The Net result is the same: People cant afford to Buy Stuff!!!

Now guys there is only about 8% inflation, I mean gas only up 70% food uo 70 to 100%,building materials about the same. Seems government has some new math the we stupid regular folks are not smart enough to understand.

Not only the government has a weird calculator, insurance companies must use the same one. My auto policy for my three vehicles went up 25% across the board with no increase in coverage. My commercial policy went up 38%. The only thing that stayed close to the same was my motorhome policy which went up 4%. Home insurance coverage went up 5% but premium went up 15%. I hope my agent is enjoying his third vacation home and his new Bentley.

My Home owners insurance DOUBLED and nothing I can do about it because it is a Barndominium and very few people insure them.
Car insurance has doubled. Glad I am not buying a house right now because it is almost triple from 2.75% to 7.5%!!!
Food is almost double, I find myself buying much less than I used to. For instance I would buy these glazed apple pies for $1 each. They went up to $3.25 each for a while. I guess I could afford it but I am not paying that much for them so I passed them up.

For Health insurance most all of us had good low cost insurance before ObamaCare. No nobody can afford it and Doctors will send you all over for wild goose chase to make more money. In the past you go to Doctor and they check you out, run some tests and give you a prescription and you are better in a few weeks.
Now you go to Doctor, wait in office a few hours, then they look at you and send you out for tests. Those tests often take weeks to get scheduled and you have to go back to your original Doctor to get results. And THEN you may get prescription and start getting better. But by then you are already getting bills from all the Doctors that insurance will not pay. It has become a runaround and we lose.
Company I worked for 37 years always said their retirement was not that great but have awesome insurance when you retire. Well they took that all away but did not increase our retirement pay any. They did give us option to stay with insurance company when you retire. It was $600 a month and did not cover ANYTHING until you had met a $7,500 Deductible and then it pays 70% up to their cut off point. So I would have to spend more than $14,700 a year before insurance started paying anything at all! It would not even cover flu vaccination or anything until you me the deductible.

And that I think is part of the ObamaCare master plan. They do not want you to retire, they want to make it so expensive you have to work (Pay Taxes) until you die.

My point here is that insurance is high because of ObamaCare and food, gas and everything else now is high because of Bidenomics. Things were getting better and went to sh!+ real quick. We all have to decide if we want to go back how it was a few years ago or continue in direction Democrats are taking us.

We may not be able to afford to race much longer at the rate that Biden is going.
I feel blessed that I was able to break even and even make a little money racing last 10 years before Biden. Do not think it is possible now.

At some point all of us will have to decide how much money do we have to lose every week before we cut our losses and move on? Many are already quitting and that is why some tracks are closing.

Word for word what Curly said. I will soon be retired 7 years our tax bills and insurance cost have doubled in last 4 years. Due to some severe issues with my legs I havent been able to race since 21 so that cost has been deferred with exception of buying parts. Hopefully things will get better at some point. Being 68 my best racing days are over but I still love the sport

One thing we are blessed with in NC.Lots of tracks.Most of time one nearby. Piedmont is 18 miles so towe almost nothing. I have probably 5 100 or less and 3 or four more under 150 . Not saying that number will not drop with economy and younger generations lack of interest.

Figure enven if have almost nothing money wise I can get to track to make few passes regardless. Hell who needs foor just makes driver fat and slow the car anyway. Got to have prioritys in order,LOL

Going to keep playing until dabetes makes getting in car impossible and then may engineer a deivice to stick me in it anyway or just easier to get in car.LOL

quote:

Originally posted by qtrrcr:
Not only the government has a weird calculator, insurance companies must use the same one. My auto policy for my three vehicles went up 25% across the board with no increase in coverage. My commercial policy went up 38%. The only thing that stayed close to the same was my motorhome policy which went up 4%. Home insurance coverage went up 5% but premium went up 15%. I hope my agent is enjoying his third vacation home and his new Bentley.

My auto insurance has gone nuts too. My State Farm agent says "Auto body repair shops are charging more".

Yeah.....cool story, bro.

A word to the youth in the military: Stay in as long as you can, and get that pension.
Even if you must get into a Guard or Reserve unit when you separate from active duty. Get that 20 year letter.
Tricare has allowed me to retire earlier. Or allowed me to retire, period.

I went to the races Sat night for a bracket program. Had a lot of fun. But it'll probably be the last time I can go, given the state of my personal economics.

M80,

Glad you had fun! Sorry about your personal economics but sounds like you have your priorities in check.

While it has been sometime since I heard this story from a racer. He was racing but said he hadn't paid his mortgage in 3 months & didn't know when he would be able to. I thought to myself why are you spending money at the racetrack.

2BKING trying not to take luxuries for granted.

Brenda says she will fix the economy on her first day in office when she is president.

Chris up above mentioning all the tracks in the Carolinas---Try finding one open and racing.

quote:

Originally posted by Bad Nusz:
A word to the youth in the military: Stay in as long as you can, and get that pension.
Even if you must get into a Guard or Reserve unit when you separate from active duty. Get that 20 year letter.
Tricare has allowed me to retire earlier. Or allowed me to retire, period.

There is no more traditional pension in the military. Its essentially a 401K so that incentive is GONE and has been since 2018. Only the folks who were in at the time an elected to stay with the pension are elgible. Here soon wont be anyone left doing time for a pension.

It's not that the cost of goods and services have risen, it's that the Dollar has been devalued.

If there were an infinite supply of Gold or Diamonds, they'd be cheap too.

I always LMAO at the idiots who buy Gold, thinking it protects their wealth.

Venezuela.

I was curious of some price increases so I logged into my Tim Mcamis account

End of 2020

Blank motor plate: 100 dollars, now 145 (45%)

Drive shaft enclosure kit: was 475, now 625

April of 2021 I ordered a set of delta rears, 5x5 bolt pattern for 6300 shipped including taxes. That’s over 10K now

In November is 21, I ordered a set of carbon wheel tubs for 760 that are 975 now

Crime rate is directly related to inflation rate.

The more basic items cost, like shelter and food, the greater the need to survive. These idiots in Washington don't understand basic economics, homeless starving people do. The moment people in Congress can no longer make their house payments and can't afford food for their families, they WILL INSTANTLY understand economics.

California is a prime example of Democratic Leadership. They tax the population to death.

No Country can withstand our current inflation rate, not and survive.

Bob

Once Kamala gets in and introduces price controls, it will all be fixed. (insert sarcasm disclaimer here) Take care. Tom Worthington

Voting for Kamala is voting to choose what caliber of bullet they execute you with. 45 or 9mm. You choose.

Bob