(no subject)

[mereilin]

I don't know what other people do that we're not doing, but I feel like we flunked the whole "being grownup" thing when we have to resort to fancy accounting to maintain a lifestyle that doesn't include nice cars, contemporary appliances and electronics, or even furniture that isn't secondhand. There is no private school tuition, the kids don't go away to summer camp, and traveling means driving 500 miles twice a year to stay with family. We don't have a pony or a huge yard or live in a fancy suburb.

I know what's important. I count my blessings every time I hug my healthy kids and the bills get paid for another month. I don't even feel like we need a fancier lifestyle. I'm just saying I could accept financial stress if I felt like it could be alleviated by cutting out a few of those luxuries instead of "luxuries" like dental work.

Comments

[htnatch.livejournal.com]

I know I'm one of the lucky ones who has a husband with a great job and benefits, but we still struggle just to make it every month. There is no IRA, no great savings for the future, but we do have a pension that will put food on our table when he retires, once we sell the house and find a cheap apartment.

That being said, I can understand where you are. Adding kids to any mix makes the money go faster and what you do have doesn't go as far. The last decent vacation we took was to Niagra Falls about ten years ago, and I worked to pay for it. All four days of it.

It took a year of David working 60-80 hours a week to pay off all but one of the credit cards we used for emergencies while the kids were growing up.

You are doing as well as a lot of us and better than most people I know, even some who live in great houses that their parents bought for them.

I think some people are just better at hiding it than others. Yup.

Oh, and those people who take great vacations and have new, nice everything..? How much more than you do they make, and how much help do they get from their families, and what things do you do that they don't? I never did figure out how a guy making $32,000 a year could manage to drive a huge new pick up truck, have an extensive collection of guns, and go hopping all over the country to go hunting.

I'm rambling. I'll stop.

[karasuair.livejournal.com]

I never did figure out how a guy making $32,000 a year could manage to drive a huge new pick up truck, have an extensive collection of guns, and go hopping all over the country to go hunting.

They do it by going wicked into debt. That's were all those credit counsling commercials come into play.

[minor-ramblings.livejournal.com]

Quite honestly, a large part of the American Dream (And Canadian Dream too, to a certain extent.) is being built on the absolutely terrifying use of credit cards with no thought about how they're going to be paid off beyond using other credit cards to do it.

Your lifestyle may feel pinched by comparison, but you're probably actually in a lot better financial shape than a lot of the supposed "grown ups".

[whobyfire78.livejournal.com]

I feel your pain. I'm single and I still feel your pain.

[desyana.livejournal.com]

I do know what you are saying. In fact I could have written that post almost word for word.
I hate the struggle but as has been said.. there is (some) food on the table, we do have simple small pleasures and no one is trying to take away the house; the car is owned out-right...

But we need a new furnace, we need a new computer; tuition for college(s) is staring at us as of 7 months from now ...

What do the simple folk do?

[htnatch.livejournal.com]

;)

Work... eat salad... just like us

;)