$$$ s/o Dave Ramsey: Why are YOU rich/poor/other?

[msjones]

That Dave Ramsey thread is wearing me out.  Bicker, bicker!

 

So, I wonder who is up for a frank conversation about their finances.  

 

Are you rich?  Poor? In debt?  Comfortable?  Stretched, but okay?  

 

Who is responsible for your situation?  Is it due to your own decisions? A medical crisis?  Family money?  Stock options?  Reckless spending?  Not enough education?  Too much education (school debt dragging you down)? The recession? Careful planning?  Or something else?

 

We are comfortable on one teacher salary.  We have no debt -- not even mortgage any more.  We have had some family help, but also are very careful about our spending.  

 

We would have more money if I had been working more the past 15 years, but I'm glad to have stayed home with the boys.  Work is back on the horizon in the next couple years for me.

 

Anyone else?

 

(And no bickering!)

[Moxie]

Started out our marriage less than poor due to student loans. Thanks to Dave Ramsey's ideas and 15 years of hard work, we're on our way to wealthy.

 

ETA: the student loans were totally our fault and our mess to clean up. We're teaching our kids better, again, thanks to Dave Ramsey's ideas.

 

Also ETA: DH has very serious, expensive heart issues. One of the smart things we've done has been to put medical insurance at the very top of the list when job hunting. We pay for it 100% so it costs a fortune but we do have it and it has saved is hundreds of thousands of dollars.

[Pawz4me]

Very comfortable.  Enough to feel quite confident about being able to afford an enjoyable retirement and being able to fully cover the cost of our boys' college at the schools of their choice (merit aid would certainly be nice, of course, but it's not a necessity).

 

Due to:

Good decisions about education and career choice (DH), savings/investments and lifestyle choices

Inheritance of family money and real estate

A great deal of good luck -- no major medical issues for us or the kids, no job losses, no major life catastrophes, a very generous employer (DH), parents who didn't have to rely on us for financial help, etc.

[Ali in OR]

We are comfortable financially. Some due to luck, some to parents' help (education) and example, some due to good habits.

 

-dh and I both had parents who paid for our college educations (he was smart and got several scholarships; I paid most of my 1 year graduate program). We will do the same for our kids.

-dh is still super smart and can do hard technical things that people will pay him well for (electrical engineering)

-I worked our first 5.5 years of marriage before kids (teaching, engineering), so two good incomes to save for first house

-Live below our means--smaller house, old cars, no cable t.v.

-Always paying extra on mortgage, lots of saving.

-Job(s) have always provided health insurance. Otherwise our disabled dd's medical costs probably would have bankrupted us. Something must be done about health care in this country.

[sbgrace]

I don't consider us either rich or poor financially.

 

We have made good financial choices in the past (paying off our mortgage, not having a car payment or other debt, never carrying a balance on credit cards, etc.)

 

These choices, though, were only possible because of good fortune that largely had nothing to do with us. My husband's parents gave us an old car when we got married. It was a klunker, but ran. This allowed us to save money to buy our next vehicle debt free. My parents loaned us money for 20% down on our first house, avoiding mortgage insurance. We made the decision to put all of my teacher's salary to that mortgage so that we could pay it (and my dad) off. We bought a house that was less than (on paper) we could afford so we could do that, but clearly we live in an area were you can get a decent home for under $100K. So some of that was choices, but a lot was just circumstantial. Similarly, my parents and my in laws contributed to our college educations. My husband and I,  with their contribution and  working throughout college, both graduated with very little school debt that was quickly paid off. Sad to me, we won't be able to do the same for our kids. Why?

 

Some choices (my CPA husband is in governmental accounting, which pays quite a bit less than the public school teacher's salary I left to stay home with our kids) limit our income. But the biggest thing for us is we have a medically complicated child. He costs a lot. We have a high deductible insurance plan with no alternative through my husband's work, so we pay a lot out of pocket yearly. And some (many) necessary things aren't covered anyway. This means we struggle. We still don't carry consumer debt, but we do owe my parents about 10,000 on our current home. We save up for emergencies, but I know a really big one or series of many could sink us. That is how we ended up owing my parents on this house. They helped us when an unbelievable number of unrelated things went wrong several years ago and work went to the high deductible at the same time. It quickly out-stripped our savings. What if they weren't there? We'd have debt obviously.

 

Things are tight.

 

And it's as beyond our control as the good stuff that I outlined above.

 

This is why articles that act like nearly anyone could be ok if they just made the right choices bug me so much. Compared to many, we are very blessed even with the medical stuff. Of course choices matter. This is why we still try to make good ones, forgo things that others see as givens probably, live in a simple home, keep a budget (just the act of tracking lowers spending here), etc.

 

But people don't have as much control over their financial state as some believe. Many have great odds stacked against being financially well off from, well, birth.

 

I say this as someone who, for most of her life, was on the better side of the coin. Even now I'm on the better side really. But this is circumstances, not me.

[SKL]

Good health, mostly God-given, partly good habits.

 

IQ (God-given).

 

Learned mostly good values from family (God-given / parent-given) - value of education, value of work, value of thrift, unimportance of superficial stuff, how to share, probaby others.

 

Being poor-ish as a kid meant I took/take nothing for granted.

 

Education support:  church support for my elementary education; halfway decent public school; federal student loans and even a couple of tiny grants.

 

Getting education goals over with as soon as possible.

 

Working, working, and more working.  I usually had 2 jobs, even when I was in school full-time.  When I didn't have a typical W-2 job (or even when I did), I was self-employed or worked for a family member.  It didn't usually bring in much $ in the short run, but the experience was beneficial to future endeavors.

 

Reading and keeping up with information relevant to job and interests.

 

Sharing to reduce costs.

 

Studying to find the most beneficial ways to invest even a small amount of money, cash back credit cards, cash flow benefits of proactive tax planning (e.g. least possible withholding rather than waiting a year for a tax refund), etc.

 

Giving to charity.  Giving opens one up to receive more.  The more I donated, the more my raises and bonuses increased.

 

Helping others who were more down-and-out than I was.  Many of those people will return the favor when they can.

 

Being honest.  People will give you more responsibility, more credit, and more grace if they feel they can trust you.

 

Very detailed, long-term budgeting with drastic penny-pinching between the time I finished school and the time I'd paid off my bills and felt I'd saved enough money to feel secure for the future.

 

Taking calculated risks.  Trusting my instincts.

 

Still weigh every non-budgeted purchase to make sure it's worth it - even though I don't have to go into debt for it.

 

Spend free time doing stuff that doesn't cost anything.  The best things in life are free, after all.

 

 

It's a mix of "luck" and choices.  We can admit that choices make a difference without denying that some things are outside our control.

[Carol in Cal.]

We are comfortable.  Mostly this is because of sheer grace from God and circumstances.

However, we are also careful with our spending, and we have made some anti-tech choices that have saved us a great deal of money over the years--no video games or DDR type systems, no big computer installations or home theater, no new vehicles since 1989, no pricey portable music devices.  Most people would say that we have odd lifestyles--we spend more on experiences and the 'stuff' that we buy tends to be books and crafts or hobbies. 

 

We probably won't ever retire, though, because 4 years ago we decided to buy a cabin in the mountains rather than work aggressively toward retiring.  And this year we managed it, the dream that I never even dared to dream.  We are really, really blessed. 

[Jerico]

We are comfortable.

 

We do not have any debt anymore. We were blessed to have our parents pay for college- we went to a very cheap state school. Our previous debt has been medical and car. The car was a bad choice and we sold it to get rid of the debt. But we also live frugally and now only have one car and we are keeping it that way for a little bit by choice.

 

My husband is in a decent job but he worked crappy jobs he hated for a long time. He does not love his job per se but he is happy because it provides for us.

 

I think the good thing about our previous poor decisions is that we have learned from our mistakes. We are trying to plan better for our future.

[Guest]

Downwardly mobile. My family makes me very grateful that I'm not a comfortable, middle class suburbanite with messed up values. I grew up thinking that we were poor because we belonged to the "wrong" country club and had to listen to our records on my mom's portable record player from college instead of those monstrous console stereos from the '70s and being too upset about disappointing my mother by not winning first prize at the dog show to appreciate having a roof over my head and food in my belly.

 

I can afford to stay home with my son, but I can't afford dentures or getting my 25 year old car fixed right away when it breaks down.

 

I understand that a lot of people (including one of my daughters) look down on me for my choices. I couldn't do this if I was saddled with student loan debt so I'm glad I was too stupid to know I was eligible for it at the time. I'm also grateful that my bad public school experience taught me how to educate myself and question the status quo.

 

Horatio Alger wrote fiction. I'm not better than other people, I'm just very, very lucky and a lot of bad decisions wound up having silver linings.

[NicksMama-Zack's Mama Too]

Saving money from the time I had my first time job.  Pay yourself first, I think it's called.

 

Driving older cars and having access to a free mechanic (husband!).

 

Contributing maximum amounts to retirement accounts during my 10 years in the workforce.  Today that account has increase threefold, even though I haven't worked in 17 years.

 

Buying a very modest house within six-months of marrying.  Moving up to bigger home when the market rose and we were able to keep the same mortgage payment and get more for our money.  Last year, we were able to refinance and take advantage of a lower interest rate.  We have the same payment as before, but we have more cash in the bank to help with college costs.  I do not worry about paying off my house as I plan to live here until dh retires in 20 years.  

 

Delaying having children and having a small family.

 

Living below our means  (thrift stores, old cars, no cable tv, beans and rice!) and monitoring our spending via Quicken.  I have found that  lack of commercial television is very helpful in curbing spending.

 

Paying credit cards off every month.  

 

Vacations included camping and staying with friends and relatives and a few trips to the beach during the off-season.

 

Luck/blessed.  We are very healthy.  

 

 

 

[Onceuponatime]

Stretched but okay. We made decisions that put us where we are and we live with it. We have an old house with a low mortgage payment. I haven't had a paying job in 30 years to stay home with the kids. My husband's military retirement supplements his dream job which doesn't pay that much. We don't have to worry too much about medical expenses because of the military retirement and our few debts are manageable. I shop discount and thrift stores for many things and we don't go without necessities.

[idnib]

Very comfortable.

 

Things for which I give us credit:

 

Living below our means

Working very hard in school

Picking STEM majors

Networking

Putting away savings regularly

Driving 11 years old cars w/ dents

Wearing clothes into the ground

Cooking a lot

Foregoing all electronics except mobile phones and laptops (so no TV/cable/gaming/Kindle etc)

Walking away from family expectations in order to pursue our true paths

Signing up for retirement plans in our early 20s

Picking good companies but also knowing when to leave

Good work habits (esp DH)

Being well-insured beyond what would be expected for home, liability, property, life

Arranging life so we use one tank of gas/month

 

Things for which we don't get credit:

 

Growing up in homes where education was very important

Fulbright scholarship that brought my parents here to pursue the American Dream

Hard work and sacrifice of my immigrant parents

Our parents' generous benefits (allows us to not have to care for them financially in their later years)

Health insurance has almost always been provided by employers

One set of our parents has passed some inheritance to us early

Parents in generally good health

One of us had our parents pay entirely for college and the other went completely free based on scholarships and parent's university employment

Tech boom in stock options. We get credit for researching companies with good futures, but not for the boom itself!

 

[HRAAB]

Not rich but debt free.  I used to feel very middle class but not so much anymore, but I'm not complaining.  

 

Always lived beneath our income.

 

Focused on paying off our mortgage quickly.

 

Saved a good portion of our income.

 

Paid cash or went without.

 

Frugal living.

 

Plan for the future.  Pay now.

 

Repair rather than replace when possible.

 

Both dh and I have always been on the same page: saving from when we were young, watching our pennies, simple living, avoiding debt with a united goal of being debt free.

 

Truly content with what we have.

 

Two lay offs and increasing health insurance premiums and medical costs is what is hurting us and scares me most about the future.

[Scarlett]

Certainly not poor. We qualify for no government assistance at all. My dh has a good job and I get substantial CS from my xh.

 

Certainly not rich.

 

Somehow it feels like we are always just barely getting by. Literally.

 

Dh and I were both in long term first marriages....so I will tell you about the hand up my first husband and I got. His mom was so opposed to the marriage she wouldn't come to the ceremony much less help us out. My mom was just graduating college herself and starting to teach school....at a poverty level. She struggled for several years until her salary finally became a living wage. Xh and I only had high school education and both of us got jobs....he worked in a factory, I worked in an office. We rented a few different places, all in good areas of a small city....it wasn't a horrible time for us. After about 5 years his mom was less hostile on some days and offered us $1000 to help with the closing on buying a house. So we had a house. I had never owned a house before. I loved it.

 

And then about 12 years into our marriage, my MIL and her new wealthy husband offered to send xh back to school. They paid all books and tuition and gave us enough cash to cover the job he had at the time so that he could quit working and go back full time. It was a very generous gift....marred only by MIL insisting that I sign a document stating the money was not for me and I would not try to get any of it in the event of a divorce. Ugh. I hate that memory.

 

So xh went back to school. I kept working, supplying our insurance, and we stayed in our cute little house. He got through school in 3 ears, got a great job which he still has 15 years later and where he quickly climbed the ladder....making a lot of money.

 

Divorce divides everything. I took half our marital assets, and got sole custody of the most valuable asset.

 

Came to marriage with current dh with a decent financial situation....his was dismal. Poor guy.....the decisions he made wouldn't have been devastating but coupled with a career changing back injury, divorce, an accident, a pulmonary embolism that almost killed him, job loss.....by the time I met him he was flat broke. But that was ok he had a good job and I had the house......then he got sick and in one calendar year was off work for 6 months!

 

So that leads us to our current situation where we are barely making it. But I feel blessed because my husband is awesome, he is healthy at the moment, our kids are healthy. Dh has a job, xh pays cs faithfully, and our modest home is free and clear. The other debt we have is very small in the grand scheme of things.

 

Just typing all if that out makes me realize how well we HAVE done with the things thrown at us the past 5 years.

[KrissiK]

We are comfortable (for us).

Reasons:

Temperment - both DH and I are savers, not spenders, we don't have expensive tastes, we are not impulse buyers

Got married later in life: dh had a decent nest egg, neither of us had student loans

Luck: dh bought a house in 2000, we sold in 2003 for $75,000 more than he bought it for, we're able to put a good down payment on our now home and just paid it off this summer; we have had no health crises or any other financial crises; dh didn't lose his job in the recession

Good habits: we stick to a budget, pay off our CC every month

 

We are by no means rich, but we live within our means, we have absolutely no debt and have a decent amount in investments.

[swellmomma]

We are poor and in debt, poor due to a divorce and raising these kids on my own with limited assistance from my exhusband, in debt mainly due to student loans.  Student loans for degrees/diplomas I never got to finish due to the kids issues and needing me home.  Despite that we are over all comfortable, things get tight, things get rough but on the whole we have so much more than so many and you can't complain about that.

[Element]

We are stretched but okay, working towards comfortable.

 

Dh was born to a teen mom who was born to an orphan. No one in his family has (or ever had, to my knowledge) a legitimate and legal job. No one taught him job skills, no one helped him navigate high school in a way which would prepare him for college or even adulthood. He was born with a moderate physical disability (scoliosis, missing half of his forearms, and wrists and upper knuckles that do not bend) so he was put on SSI at age 3 and taught that he would never need to work, and could just "live off the government."

 

He now has an accounting degree, works his tail off 60-75 hours a week as an office manager for a home improvement store, and has a fantastic work ethic... but it has been a LONG road. We are in our mid 30s and I think he's still learning life skills. We're making progress every year. We paid off our student loans earlier this year and had no debt until 2 months ago when we bought our first house. Our cars are 10-15 years old, most of our clothes come from Goodwill, and we've never been on vacation, but we're okay. 2013 was the first year since we've had kids that we've made too much to qualify for assistance of any kind. While it's tough being on that border, it's also very satisfying to know we're making progress.

[Upward Journey]

I'll bite.

 

We are living month to month. I'd say that we're solidly lower, middle class. This is *not* how I pictured us at this stage in life, nor how I grew up, but it is what it is.

 

We were middle, middle class, also not how I pictured us ;) prior to the recession, but we had a house & savings, we couldn't afford vacations or extra-curriculuars except for parks & rec stuff, but we had what we needed and were happy enough. The only debt we had was a smallish mortgage.

 

Really what tanked our finances was the economy. My husband works in an industry that was severely affected. We had to move ($$) for a salary that was 1/2 as much and re-buy in a new location (again $$). A year and a half later he was unemployed. That lasted for 6 months and used up the emergency fund & the pantry. We've since moved again to another country and to a higher COL area. My dh is making what he was before the recession, but we still own that darn new house so we're now paying a mortgage and rent (approx. 4x what it was prior to the rec. in our first location.)

 

It feels like we haven't made any progress financially in the last 20 years :(

 

Yes, we could have made other choices. We both have college degrees. I could have chosen to work instead of homeschool. However, we've never aspired to be wealthy and family time was more important. We did all the right things, bought a house below our means, lived frugally buying everything we could used instead of new, drove our cars as long as possible. It wasn't enough when the economy took the dive.

 

Luck truly plays a role, because none of us can tell the future. We can make the best decisions with the information we have at hand, but sometimes it's not enough.

 

If I could go back in time I'm not sure that I would change much. I could have maintained my credentials while the kids were young so that I could have entered the work force again once they were of school age. We could have chosen not to home school, but that means my kids wouldn't be as close to each other as they are. My youngest would barely know his oldest sibling. We could have had less children. I'm OK with the fact that we've had to do without sometimes. I think my kids are too. They are much less material minded than I was at their age.

 

The last three years were quite a growing experience. I won't lie. They've been hard. But I grew SO much as person. I like myself better now, than I did then.

[City Mouse]

My DH likes to tell people that we spent 20 years living the American Dream and have the debt to prove it, but I don't regret any of our choices.

 

We both have good, stable careers that allowed us to follow our "retirement" dream long before retirement age and move to desired location in another state. People live a lot differently here in this rural, low income area than in our previous middle to upper middle class surburban town, and that has helped us change for the better. We are working hard to pay down the debt and are making different choices now. We are both working toward our second government pensions in our new state with the plan of full retirement in 13 more years when DH is 60.

Our big goal for now is to get DD through college with no loans. We do not have enough saved to cover all her expenses, but between savings, her scholarships, and her working some, we are doing okay paying for college so far.

 

Sometimes, I do wish that I had gone into a different career field, but I am good at what I do, and it is one of the best paying jobs available where we live now.

[Scarlett]

Thanks mrsjones for starting this thread. At first typing out some of those memories was painful but then I read other stories and I see the common thread of good fortune, hard work and human nature shaping so much of what we all are.

[Scarlett]

Another thing is my my lack of education. Lately I have been beating myself up over wasting my life and now having little ability to make any money. But my goal was to be home with and homeschool my son...and I have done that. He is almost 14 and my time left with him is short. I want to keep focusing on him for a few more years and then I will shift my focus to contributing to our finances. We have little but we owe little...and in the end that brings more peace than you would think.

[Jackie]

I consider myself middle class comfortable, though I know Dave Ramsey would not approve of my financial situation.

 

We have debt - one credit card and student loans. It is not a small amount, but is less than half of the debt we had just a year ago, so I'm feeling relieved.

 

We are comfortable primarily because we are educated, because DH and I work hard, and he chose an especially well-paying career. We have savings for retirement that are at a decent amount for our age. We have not made very good decisions previously, which is why we are comfortable and not rich.

 

The biggest mistake IMO was buying a house that was really beyond our budget because we wanted it. Got a phenomenal deal on it, but sunk so much into it and had the credit cards spiral out of control. We knew we were making "a lot" of money and we just kept on spending and things got way out of control; we couldn't see a way out. We sold the house this past summer and moved into a rental; we were able to pay off a good chunk of our debt with the profit and things are much more manageable now.

 

We are now on a budget that we are actually sticking to, which is truly a first for us. And it only took us 12 years of marriage to figure it out. Even our current decisions aren't ones many would approve of. We pay more than the minimums on our debt, but we also take an annual tropical vacation, drive fairly nice cars, and still have some personal spending money. We have learned that neither one of us does "frugal" well and somehow all of our restrictive budget plans in the past have landed us further in debt because we come up with so many reasons to make exceptions. The more liberal budget with no exceptions and a slower-but-surer pay down plan is working better for us and we feel richer on it.

[KrissiK]

After reading Malcolm Gladwell's book "Outliers" I realized how much good luck, being in the right place at the right time, happening to know the right person, plays into a person's station in life. Granted, hard work has a huge part, too (you may have been in the right place at the right time to land that plum job, but it was your own hard work that enabled you to keep it and succeed), but not all hardworking people are able to succeed and become materially wealthy. And yes, sometimes we make our own bad luck through foolish choices, but other times we are truly victims of circumstances beyond our control that makes it very difficult to recover from.

[Shellydon]

Comfortable.

 

Reasons --

 

Taking money management courses through our church while in college.

Limiting debt, never having any CC debt, ever.

Choosing STEM degrees and graduate schools

Living POOR in college

We both worked 20 to 40 hours a week while in going to school full time.

One cheap car for both of us in college, no partying or 'fun' things.

Paying off student loans in just a few years by working extra hours and two jobs

Always living below our means

DH studies and learns about finances and investing so he makes wise choices

We put back $$$ towards retirement and savings rather than spending on luxury items like vacations

DH has learned to repair almost anything.

I chose a degree that would allow me to make 6 figures if anything ever happened to DH or to his job. If needed, I can work a few hours and pay off a medical bill.  I chose this field specifically because of it's flexibility and pay grade.

We live in an older home in a nicer area and have paid off our house.

 

The Lord has blessed us.

 

[Carrie12345]

Comfortable, but not flexible. On our way to really comfortable.

When we got married in 2000, we lived (in the hood, with a toddler)on $9/hr., but with amazing health coverage. Without question, that benefit "paid" well!

 

I can really only say that we strategized dh's career well. He's in the very same industry he started in. He worked hard, I calculated risks and helped him figure out just how hard to push. He is now his original employer's biggest competition, even though they're national and he's regional.

 

The goal wasn't really financial, originally. We were thrilled when our income hit a number that would still be low-income today. We're only just beginning to reap the financial rewards now.

[DawnM]

We are comfortable.

 

We both have graduate degrees and are in fields with higher demand.

We have strong worth ethics and if we had to find jobs, we have strong recommendation letters to follow us.

We both were raised in families where money was managed well.

We live below our means.

We only owe on our mortgage, no other debts.

We have enough to survive for a year with no income.

We have some college savings for the kids.

We have a good retirement savings.

We take two vacations per year.

 

 

 

[*lifeoftheparty*]

......

Edited December 18, 2016 by *lifeoftheparty*

[Guest]

Comfortable.

 

 

It's a mix of "luck" and choices.  We can admit that choices make a difference without denying that some things are outside our control.

 

I could not have said this any better.  Totally this.

 

Dh was especially frugal and intelligent about money at a younger age than typical. Partially luck. Partially choices. He lived with his folks while he paid on a lot to eventually build a house on. Luck - parents that let that be an option  Choices - I'm sure sometimes he wished he didn't live with his parents while his friends all lived apart from parents. We built that house. Dh worked incredibly hard, long and late to build the house. He did everything possible himself to save money. It took two years to finish it. It was a drag! He worked at his job all day (and I worked all day then, too), only to come home and drive over to the house to lay floors, frame walls, put up siding or whatever until late, late at night. Luck - he was physically and mentally able to do this. His father taught him skills and he has access to tools that made this possible.  Choices - he had to decide to. It was hard. It was tedious, difficult and long. He made many mistakes because it was his first time. I had to be alone, managing the townhome while he was gone until late at night building the house. 

 

We always lived below our means. We have plenty of nice things, but most often they are assets, not liabilities. A boat is an asset. A Coach purse is a liability. I try to push money towards things that count/matter in the long run and spend as little as possible on things that don't. (Clothes, shoes, entertainment, beer, fancy food.) 

 

[lynn]

Eductation without debt, living below our means, staying out of debt, saving and paying cash.  

[LucyStoner]

Because I have a pretty face.

[ThatHomeschoolDad]

Because I have eschewed following my neighbors onto the train to be slowly ground into powder in the city, but instead get to witness, and maybe contribute to my daughter becoming a startlingly strong woman.

[Renee in NC]

Stretched and in debt.

 

Why am I where I am?  Lots of reasons - some positive, some negative.  I could blame my estranged husband, but what good would that do?  I allowed him to do the things he did.  I don't receive child support, and I am still paying some of his bills (phone and auto insurance are joint accounts, and I pay his medical because he NEEDS his meds to stay mentally stable.)  On the positive side, I am where I am because I worked my butt off, got my master's, passed the CPA exam, etc.  Almost all of my current debt is student loans.  They are in income-based repayment with a payment of $0.  Do I regret them?  Some yes, some no.  I couldn't have gotten my Masters without them.

 

Hindsight is 20/20.  I can look back and say, "If I had done xyz, I wouldn't be where i am."  Then again, I wouldn't be where I am, KWIM?

 

I/we made bad decisions in the past.  I make less than perfect decisions most days.  In the grand scheme of things, none of it matters.  I think we (as in society) spend too much time worrying about money.  Rich or poor, debt-free or bankrupt, independently wealthy or on welfare - the sun will still rise tomorrow.for everyone.  We all came into the world the same way, and will go out the same way.

 

I am generally happy with where my life is now, money or no money.

[LucyStoner]

Because I have eschewed following my neighbors onto the train to be slowly ground into powder in the city, but instead get to witness, and maybe contribute to my daughter becoming a startlingly strong woman.

That's a life well lived and more meaningful wealth than anything getting on and off the train would getcha.

[Renee in NC]

After reading Malcolm Gladwell's book "Outliers" I realized how much good luck, being in the right place at the right time, happening to know the right person, plays into a person's station in life. Granted, hard work has a huge part, too (you may have been in the right place at the right time to land that plum job, but it was your own hard work that enabled you to keep it and succeed), but not all hardworking people are able to succeed and become materially wealthy. And yes, sometimes we make our own bad luck through foolish choices, but other times we are truly victims of circumstances beyond our control that makes it very difficult to recover from.

 

Absolutely.  That book made me see how forces outside ourselves help shape our lives.

[Audrey]

Because I have eschewed following my neighbors onto the train to be slowly ground into powder in the city, but instead get to witness, and maybe contribute to my daughter becoming a startlingly strong woman.

 

R'Amen.  :closedeyes:

[lovinmomma]

We are poor. As in VERY poor. I used to be very wealthy (imo). I was a stay at home mom. I left a very promising aspiring legal career to have babies and stay home and raise them. And then there was the divorce. It left me as a woman with 3 young children trying to provide on a very meager income after having been out of the workforce for so long. I had to start at barely above minimum wage. I've been back in school for awhile now, so there is some light at the end of the tunnel. My debt isn't that outrageous at all, but it gets higher and higher every month that I can't afford to even make the $25 minimum payments on a couple of small CCs. I got remarried knowing that I wasn't marrying into wealth, but my husband had a job and was a hard worker. And then he became injured. Several times. What we thought was a shoulder injury is now turning into a 2 year long, in and out of the hospital experience (with a probable degenerative joint issue at the end of that tunnel), sugar coated with an almost $500k medical debt. Loads of fun. Sure I have made mistakes, but I am typically a very frugal person. I coupon. I live meagerly. I still can't pay my bills. Rent. Gas. Whatever. We found ourselves last month having to use the stove to heat the house. Sigh. This is a season. This is a season. This is a season.

 

You know, it's funny. When I as wealthy I just coudn't wrap my head around this kind of poor. Well, any kind of poor for that matter. I was completely out of touch. It was so strange for me to think about not even being able to afford McDs, or dollar bin items, gas for your car, etc. All issues that I had friends who struggled with. Living life's struggles gives you so much more compassion for others. Now, I think of all that money I would spend so effortlessly on the latest and greatest curriculum, clothes for my kids, gobs of presents, birthday parties, etc and I just laugh.

 

You know what though? Our family is close. We live closely together. We work together to keep out tiny home clean. We dream together. I'm happy.

[msjones]

The two 'themes' standing out to me so far are 1) medical/injuries, and 2) living below one's means.

 

I also see that most people who are currently struggling financially are working very hard, managing to get by, and seem to have hope for the future.  I admire that.

 

Obviously, as homeschoolers, many of us have put outside work on hold for a long time -- that automatically puts folks on this board into a category of sorts.  Maybe it could be called the Money Isn't Everything category? 

 

Glad to hear from everyone.  I find it much more helpful to hear about individual experiences rather than to speak generally -- as in the original Dave Ramsey thread.

[Camelfeet]

Comfy.  Not wealthy.  Its ALL because of luck and DH's qualifications.  

 

He got a job in the middle east that offered a really good package.  We don't quite make 6 figures, however its tax free.  The company gives us housing allowance, transportation allowance, tickets home every year, and schooling allowance. So we are able to save and travel because our total bills are just phone, highway tolls, electric, and internet, and food.

 

We used to live only a bit better than paycheck to paycheck.  Mortgage + being underpaid meant we could not pay down debt fast enough and we could barely save anything.

 

 

 

  

[Χά�ων]

Poor. I walked away from taking over a business that was thriving in 4 states when my son got sick. We were not sure at the time how long he would have at the time and frankly, I did not want to be gone. Now, the cost of medical care with phenomenal health insurance would run in the tens of thousands a year to keep him alive and healthy. The medication and therapy will be needed for the rest of his life. I am at a loss of any type of work where I can make enough to afford the $2,000 in medications a month (again, with insurance) and the co-pays for OT and PT (needed daily) and the specialists and all the testing that is needed, so I will remain poor. But, instead of working a full time job (to get the benefits) and a part time job (to pay the co-pays) I get to spend time with my son and am not having to eat ramen so my son can have his life saving medication.

[fourcatmom]

I have always felt that my family was doing okay until this past year. We have had hard years before but this year has been worse. Late last year we had to move and our rent went up $200 a month, lost our food stamps and I lost my job (due to health) all at the same time. Combine that with constant car problems this year and each month things just pile on higher. I am fighting for disability and hoping each night that sometime in the near future that will happen. At the same time, I feel defeated that I have to depend on that and not myself. I feel depressed that I can't take some of the stress away from DH in getting the bills paid. I have accepted that there are things in which my kids will never have, like a house but I am grateful that we have a home even if it's an apartment. Even though I go to bed with fears about tomorrow, I am also thankful and appreciative for what I have. I get to homeschool my kids and spend each day with them. I have a beautiful relationship with both of them that I wouldn't trade for anything. They are able to have opportunities to participate in a few things that are really important to them, like working with the horses at the barn. I feel blessed that I can drop my daughter off and that she can have the experiences she is having when I have nothing to give in return. So, yes I would say right now I feel like the working poor. I often hear people say how much they hate going to the grocery store but on a good day if I can go and buy my family food and make a meal at the end of the day then it's been a good day. I have literally prayed for bread before and my prayers were answered. I will never forget the day I prayed for bread. I had some ingredients in the house but I knew that with a little bread, I could make a few good meals. I remember walking to the mail box (I had prayed that morning) mid day and there was a notice posted there that the local church would be delivering BREAD at 5pm that day for anyone who needed it. We were there at 5pm and came home with 4 loafs of bread. That church has never been here again, it was only that one day. I love to tell that story, even though I felt that was a low day in our life it was also one of my most fondest memories. I think good things can come out of hard times and I try to see the bright side most of the time.

 

 

[lovinmomma]

I have always felt that my family was doing okay until this past year. We have had hard years before but this year has been worse. Late last year we had to move and our rent went up $200 a month, lost our food stamps and I lost my job (due to health) all at the same time. Combine that with constant car problems this year and each month things just pile on higher. I am fighting for disability and hoping each night that sometime in the near future that will happen. At the same time, I feel defeated that I have to depend on that and not myself. I feel depressed that I can't take some of the stress away from DH in getting the bills paid. I have accepted that there are things in which my kids will never have, like a house but I am grateful that we have a home even if it's an apartment. Even though I go to bed with fears about tomorrow, I am also thankful and appreciative for what I have. I get to homeschool my kids and spend each day with them. I have a beautiful relationship with both of them that I wouldn't trade for anything. They are able to have opportunities to participate in a few things that are really important to them, like working with the horses at the barn. I feel blessed that I can drop my daughter off and that she can have the experiences she is having when I have nothing to give in return. So, yes I would say right now I feel like the working poor. I often hear people say how much they hate going to the grocery store but on a good day if I can go and buy my family food and make a meal at the end of the day then it's been a good day. I have literally prayed for bread before and my prayers were answered. I will never forget the day I prayed for bread. I had some ingredients in the house but I knew that with a little bread, I could make a few good meals. I remember walking to the mail box (I had prayed that morning) mid day and there was a notice posted there that the local church would be delivering BREAD at 5pm that day for anyone who needed it. We were there at 5pm and came home with 4 loafs of bread. That church has never been here again, it was only that one day. I love to tell that story, even though I felt that was a low day in our life it was also one of my most fondest memories. I think good things can come out of hard times and I try to see the bright side most of the time.

:grouphug:  I understand. I get you. It's rough. There are many many days that I am hungry and very really can't eat but one meal that day (my kids can always eat at school). I get it. Just an fyi- some of our local food pantries allow you to get up to 2 bread items per day.

[fourcatmom]

:grouphug:  I understand. I get you. It's rough. There are many many days that I am hungry and very really can't eat but one meal that day (my kids can always eat at school). I get it. Just an fyi- some of our local food pantries allow you to get up to 2 bread items per day.

 

It really is a mixed bag for me in feeling okay and feeling poor. We can't pay our bills each month but we try and we stretch and we sell things and we get by, somehow. I feel good about who we are as a family, my kids, my marriage, my cats. I try to be a good person with good values, raising good kids who care about their community and their neighbors and the strangers at the store. There is always someone hurting and struggling more then you, more then us. My sister lives in a million dollar house with a pool and a hockey court and sometimes I feel jealous that I can't have that but at the same time I feel that I have something with my family that she doesn't have. Even though there is turmoil, there is also peace. I am used to living without things, vacations, fancy dinners at restaurants, but it's about choices too. We have a really cool bird instead of  a wedding ring on my finger. I feel lucky in a lot of ways. Even with this health issue sometimes I feel like it's been a blessing since it's allowed me to be home and I am blessed that we have good health insurance but frustrated that I often don't have the $20 to pay the co-pay to see the doctor. I have worked with little kids who suffer so much, from illness to family choices and they are always so resilient and positive. I think working with these kids has allowed me to appreciate the things that I do have, even if on some days it's just bread.

[swellmomma]

:grouphug:  I understand. I get you. It's rough. There are many many days that I am hungry and very really can't eat but one meal that day (my kids can always eat at school). I get it. Just an fyi- some of our local food pantries allow you to get up to 2 bread items per day.

 

I've done the one meal thing too, far too often.  But my kids are home so I make sure they get the food first and if there is enough I eat some.  You'd think I would be far skinnier, but cushings does that to you, makes you nice and round.  I was so excited when I started working at the diner because I get 1 free meal per shift.  There has been days that has been my only meal, but man was it a good one.  Then I got the second job and have finally been able to go grocery shopping twice in the last 2 months and fill a cart.  What an amazing feeling, to do something so mundane, to actually fill a cart, and then come home and fill the fridge/pantry and know we would be eating well again.  For 2 years I barely had $20 a month for food, our food bank you can only get assistance twice a month, so we really struggled.  I don't think though that without that struggle I would take such pleasure in going grocery shopping and actually realizing I could buy what we need, not just the ramen that was on sale kwim.

[Laura Corin]

We are okay but not where we expected to be.  Husband lost his job (department disappeared)  when he was 54, and it turns out that no one wants a 54 year old with his background.  He has done all the right things: networking, pulling in old favours, moving down to London.  He has found some consulting work, but we are not at break even.  He continues to look for more.  We were expecting that he would have another ten years of work to allow us to get the boys through university and to continue to set ourselves up for retirement.  Should we have know that this could happen?  Well, we knew it could happen, but we couldn't predict that it would happen to us in particular.....  So this goes down as chance/circumstance.

 

We are okay though - I don't want to go into details, but some planning, saving, frugality means that we are not in a desperate circumstance.   I put all this down to having parents who gave us good habits of saving, made sure we got decent educations, and strove to give us stability to launch us safely into adulthood.  Oh, and the NHS.

 

L

[Guest]

Absolutely.  That book made me see how forces outside ourselves help shape our lives.

 

Fascinating. My take-away from that book was virtually the exact opposite.  :laugh:  To me, it was an eye-opener on how people use or fail to use opportunities to their benefit.  Wasn't it in that book that he speaks about the man with the highest IQ in America (or something to that effect)? He was this brilliant mind, full of promise, but quit college when some moderate obstacles cropped up. (Car broke down, mother didn't apply for scholarship renewal, etc.) That was such an important story to me. Also the "10,000 hour rule." Illustrates how fixity of purpose pays off. 

[Wheres Toto]

I would put us as struggling, but working our way up at this particular moment.

 

Things are looking up because I basically had a great job fall into my lap right when we needed it.  Full benefits without paying a ton for them, work that I enjoy, good people to work for, I have to work all day Monday through Friday but I can work from home if I need to for a sick kid, a salary that is higher than what I made the last time I worked for a salary 8 years ago.  I can not emphasize how much sheer luck was involved here.  I had an agency call me out of the blue in response to a resume I had sent in months before (that they didn't like because of that 8 year gap), I interviewed on a Wednesday, started as a temp on Thursday, and was hired full-time permanent less than two months later.  While it wouldn't have happened without a lot of luck - being given a shot at a job that uses exactly my skill set, is my exact degrees are relevant, and is the kind of work I enjoy -  I've also kept my skills and knowledge current so that I could still handle the position when the opportunity arose.

 

We are struggling mostly because dh was laid-off last year despite having a contract.  He started his own business with a co-worker which should have gone very well but their prior employer decided to not fulfill the terms of the deal they made to break their employment contracts.  So, the business hasn't done as well as it should have. It's kind of limping along, there are a few opportunities in the works but we don't know what's going to happen with them right now.  Dh may also get a job offer from a company he is doing some consulting work for.  He is VERY good at what he does (analytical chemist), a hard worker, and very intelligent so I don't think we will be struggling for long.

 

We do have quite a bit of debt that we really can't do anything about right now but even if dh gets back to his old salary, I will continue working.  The odds are against dh getting benefits as good as the ones I have, plus we want to pay down that debt, pay/save for college, save for retirement, and take a few vacations.

[Crimson Wife]

Upper middle class on paper but very stretched. Definitely not where we thought we would be 7 1/2 years after DH received his MBA. Thank goodness we had one good year before the economy tanked that allowed us to pay off his grad school loans. His industry has been an absolute mess since fall '07. Every 15-18 months his position has gotten eliminated, though most of the time he was able to land another internal position because they recognized he is good at what he does.

 

Part of why we are stretched is geographical- the S.F. Bay Area is insanely expensive. We've been trying to get out of here for years, but unfortunately most of the jobs are either here or in NYC (which would be even more expensive). He has been a finalist several times for positions in cheaper cities, but unfortunately none of those ever panned out into an offer that made sense to take.

 

Things that have helped us: hard work, living frugally, recognizing the real estate bubble and not buying into it, me holding down FT employment when oldest DD was an older baby & toddler (as much as I hated putting her in daycare), DH going against his parents' wishes and attending Stanford rather than Penn State, DH re-applying to grad school after he was wait-listed the first time around, and luck.

 

Things that have hurt us: having a child with costly medical issues, my choosing family over career (I don't regret it for a second, but we would be SO much better off financially), DH lacking the family connections that many of his colleagues have (he once got laid off because his firm had to cut 1 of 2 positions and the other guy's father was CEO of a major client), and earning W2 salary income that is taxed at a ridiculous rate while friends who do similar work but at a venture capital or private equity fund receive capital gains income taxed at 15%.

[Crimson Wife]

Fascinating. My take-away from that book was virtually the exact opposite.  :laugh:  To me, it was an eye-opener on how people use or fail to use opportunities to their benefit.  Wasn't it in that book that he speaks about the man with the highest IQ in America (or something to that effect)? He was this brilliant mind, full of promise, but quit college when some moderate obstacles cropped up. (Car broke down, mother didn't apply for scholarship renewal, etc.) That was such an important story to me. Also the "10,000 hour rule." Illustrates how fixity of purpose pays off.

I saw it as a moral about how success requires BOTH hard work AND being in the right place at the right time. One of DH's frat brothers was a dot-com millionaire by 25 because he landed a job at one of the few startups that became wildly successful. Was he any smarter or more hard-working than all of our other friends who wound up getting laid off 1.5-2 years later when the bubble burst? Nope. He just lucked out to wind up at Paypal rather than one of the failed dot-com startups.

[fourcatmom]

I've done the one meal thing too, far too often.  But my kids are home so I make sure they get the food first and if there is enough I eat some.  You'd think I would be far skinnier, but cushings does that to you, makes you nice and round.  I was so excited when I started working at the diner because I get 1 free meal per shift.  There has been days that has been my only meal, but man was it a good one.  Then I got the second job and have finally been able to go grocery shopping twice in the last 2 months and fill a cart.  What an amazing feeling, to do something so mundane, to actually fill a cart, and then come home and fill the fridge/pantry and know we would be eating well again.  For 2 years I barely had $20 a month for food, our food bank you can only get assistance twice a month, so we really struggled.  I don't think though that without that struggle I would take such pleasure in going grocery shopping and actually realizing I could buy what we need, not just the ramen that was on sale kwim.

 

This! I feel so accomplished when I can go to the grocery store.

[LibraryLover]

If it was 1965 or whatnot, we might be Mad Men rich. Since one can't buy a nice house in CT for 5K anymore...we are plodding along like most of the middle class (what is left of it, at any rate). I am thrilled to be middle class, given this inflated economy. We are middle class because my husband's parents were incredibly thrifty and generous. We also attended college when it didn't cost 50k/yr.

 

Not to be underestimated: we are white, and we have excellent, cheap insurance, including dental.  We've never had to use our much of our own money for health care. I had to have surgery and was billed $15.  My dh had kidney stones; his treatment was $100, One of our children had a significant injury this summer.  Thousands of dollars of medical care cost us $100. Another child was born with a birth defect which required surgery and years of EI and therapies. I don't remember getting a bill. That could have wiped us out before we were 35.

 

I can't say that we've been super 'thrifty'. Sure we buy used cars, and don't 'blow' money on things that don't matter to us, Yes, we went 30 years without cable. However, we have 'blown' plenty of money on education and activities. In fact, any debt we've ever had has been 100% education/experience related. No cool cars or McMansion, but plenty of music lessons, tutors, private school, college etc.