What the heck is wrong with people? Rant warning!

[disneysteve]

So Steve, are you not going to elevate your expenditure at all now that you will be making 2-3x more than before? It's not like you have no savings or an empty retirement account...

Well it won't be quite that dramatic a jump but I know what you mean.

Yes, we will certainly spend more when I earn more. I'd be lying if I said otherwise. However, we absolutely will not spend 100% of the additional income. I'd be surprised if we spend even 50% of it. I'd guess that 25% will be more likely. The rest will be additional savings and debt repayment.

That's the part that people generally do wrong. They get a raise of $500/month and they find a way to spend an extra $500/month. Wrong! The far better way to go would be to increase savings by maybe $300/month and allow yourselves to spend an extra $200/month (just throwing out an example). If people did that each time they got a raise, they'd be in great shape. They'd have the best of both worlds - a steadily improving lifestyle and steadily rising savings.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

I've found the same to be true. We went from making $40k combined to $120k jointly overnight, DH got a job and we bought the house we wanted and had a lifestyle we liked. Everything else was saved. Suddenly 5 year later a kid came and our $120k was 1 income now and not much changed from the same lifestyle pre-kids.

Turns out the same lifestyle we have now with $0 income pretty much. A little scaled back on eating out but house cleaner, insurance, preschool, etc. So we are on the same budget.

I'm curious as to how it'll work out soon. But given our past habits, I'm going to guess we'll live about the same as now no matter how much we make. And the only thing that will change is our mortgage which will increase our monthly liabilities. But otherwise we'll just be the same.

And i don't see us driving even used luxury cars. We're just more likely to buy the exact same two cars and live with them, although I do keep lusting after a minivan but can't justify it.

[Nutria]

I do keep lusting after a minivan but can't justify it.

Minivans truly are God's gift to mothers. Dual remote-open slide side doors, and the fold-into-the-floor rear and middle seats on Dodges are too useful for words.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

OMG i know a couple of friends got the stow and gos recently. I am looking at it a lot. Oh well. what a dream.

[GoodSteward]

I have a friend who makes me mad with how he feels about us. I have always made more than him, but we are only talking around 10k a year until more recent times. He also has been given things we haven’t had access to thanks to government support. He got approved for more house than we did seven years ago with a government subsidized loan and NO credit. Ours was based on income and credit, both were better than theirs but it put us into normal-loans-only territory. They based his off his bill payment history. He ended up buying a brand new 4 bedroom home the same time we bought a used (3 yr old) 3 bedroom home. He was able to buy 40k$ more house than we could, and did, making a fair amount less a year. The most they have ever made was in the 30s I believe, and we were making in the 40s at this time. His wife is now pregnant with number four, and he had a back injury a few years back. The case is over, and he has spent the settlement, has no income of his own, and his wife wasn't even working 40 hours when she went on short term disability due to pregnancy issues making even less. They make around 20k a year, if that, right now. They spend credit cards up during the year, and then use their 7-9k$ tax returns to pay them back off, mostly, just to return to them again the following year. Now they are too deep in debt to do that, and are carrying the debt through the year.

Recently, I had an all in one computer I wanted to give them to help them out. His reply was he didn't have room. He then said didn't have a nice extra building like some have. That made me so mad. The back story here is that we have a 14x20 building that was given to us that a neighbor started building. His house went into foreclosure, and we found out he built it on our property accidently. The bank was going to move it, but decided to just give it to us instead. We eventually moved it closer to the house and finished it as an office for me, and a homeschool room for my wife and kids. Our house is 1300sq ft, and the building is an extra 260sq ft. His house is a 1700 sq ft, and has admitted his fourth room is full of junk. ARRGGG….don’t come complaining to me about not having something as nice as we have when you got a bigger nicer house than we have that you couldn’t afford, shouldn’t have qualified for, and don’t take care of, pay 60$ a month for internet, 70-100$ a month for satellite, have 2600 movies/tv shows on Vudu (and counting), two cell phones, new tvs (bigger than ours), get full government medical for the whole family, spend hundreds of dollars on your kids to play sports(credit card), spend over 3k a year on Christmas using a Fingerhut account, and you want to call me on having an extra office building I did the labor on, and I have paid for that cost less than the tax refund you get every year!? I just wanted to help them out with a free used computer. He rejected it, and insulted me at the same time. Thanks.

I recently told my wife I really want to get new friends who are not always broke. Broke people have a victim complex. Everybody is better off and should help them. Noticed I said broke, not poor. Broke is by choice, poor is by income (normally).

Oh, and we have an 07 Sienna we bought used and LOVE IT. We have 3 kids, and one on the way (still researching this...anybody know how this works and what causes them? ). The van is absolutely awesome. We have 14 cup holders, and plenty of room to spread out. People can have their SUVs, I’ll take my van anytime.