perspective...

[Permanent Temp]

I do make more money now an hour but being a temp means I haven't changed much. What I can afford is better but I am fully committed to beefing up my retirement savings and paying off my debt.

For instance, I started off at a fast food restaurant making 7.25 an hour. I couldn't afford much. I spent money on somethings I wanted to do as a teen and saved money to buy a car. Which I paid $500 for. Then I moved out and paid more bills but saved everything left over.

By the time I graduated with an associates degree I had saved 2.5K despite having to pay rent and utilities with help from family and friends for rides places (my car had an accident along the way and I decided it wasn't worth my while to try and get a new one.)

I have always scraped by. I needed to come up with another $400 before starting my four year degree so I got a restaurant to hire me in order to come up with the money before the due date, I worked there a few weeks and then transferred over the job to a similar restaurant to where I went for school.

At that point I had also somehow started racking up credit card debt which I didn't free myself from completely until last year. I had to quit work entirely for a year in order to put in all the hours required to pass courses but once the harder courses were over I picked up low hour campus jobs to be able to pay at least my min credit card balances and my cell phone bill.

To this day I am still a temp and live with a mentality of: Could you afford your expenses if you lost your job tomorrow?

I got a little complacent for a while at my last job but I still made good choices. I was going to take on a new expensive hobby but realized I could pay off a high interest credit card if I put the lump sum there. I asked myself the question and realized I couldn't afford make large payments on my credit cards when my assignment ended.

I don't think it was until I was promised a better job, having the offer taken away from me, being laid off and then scrapping by on unemployment and taking a minimum wage part time job that I took on my old if you don't the cash than you don't need it mindset again.

I had a few slip ups but I've come to my senses every time. If I were to secure a full time job I would just keep living like the next day could be my last day at work. It has served me well as I have paid off a lot of debt and let me save for retirement, emergencies and wants. I might allow myself to spend a little more but only if I have the cash on hand.

If I made more than I made now at my next job I would just siphon as much as I could toward debt and retirement savings on top of saving as much as I could to make sure could pay for my wants in cash.

I would keep the system I have now and reevaluate every few months to make sure the money is going to where it will serve me well. If something came up that I wanted I would figure out whether it would derail my goals or not and either put off the purchase or find a way to save to have it sooner.

Of course if we had children that would affect it as well as I would have to up my expenses by a lot.

[vaughan]

Completely agree

When I was down, jobless, and broke about 3 years ago, the amount of money that I thought I needed was completely different than how I feel now.

There is almost no way to explain how different amounts of income feel to people who don't have them.

[bigdaddybus]

I still remember spending 4 months in Haiti while I was in the military, 1 pouch meal (MRE) per day, 2 bottles of water per day, and 2 hot meals per day from make shift mess halls. Then going out on patrols, weapons buyback operations, and seeing hungry, begging people everyday.
When I returned to my wife in Hawaii I felt like the richest man with just american basics (clean place to live, healthy food, and family and friends) I swore I wasnt going to live an excessive lifestyle after that, but as the years tick by and society influences take hold things changed.

My wife and I now save considerably more per year than we earned per year when we started out. Hows that for persective?

[corn18]

My daughter has moved out and decided to make a go of life on her own and forgo college. She was working 3 jobs @ $9 / hour and made barely enough to cover all of her expenses. She is bouncing around trying to find something that doesn't require more gas to get to the job than the paycheck she takes home. She stops by when she gets hungry. I wish I could say that she is being stupid with her money, but she seems to be making it work. Tough for me to imagine her being hungry and very tough not to step in and help her out. But she needs to figure this out.

For perspective, I make more in a day than she makes in a month. At least before taxes.

Tom

[dawnwes]

We went backwards for a while and it really made us buckle down.

We both worked full time for a long time. We didn't have kids until our 30s. We had newer cars, ate out a lot, travelled a lot, and just generally spent money.

Then we decided to move across the country, DH's salary went down considerably, and I stopped working completely.

It was a huge change all the way around.

When DH's salary started going up, we have tried very hard to keep our lower cost lifestyle. The surplus has gone in to saving for purchases, college funds, and general savings. Oh, and we went from a 30 year mortgage to 15 (at 2.37%).

It is hard when you see the $$ coming in. We have eased up a bit, but we are trying very hard not to go crazy.

Dawn

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Yes it is crazy when the first paycheck you ever made was $124, and now that's not even taxes.