[onewhippedpuppy]

Good stuff. I like the Dave Ramsey philosophy, "live like no one else so you can live like no one else".

My brother-in-law and his wife make nearly 50% more than my wife and I do, and they are broke. Two junk cars, one still with a loan. Small house not big enough for their family but in a fancy neighborhood, I believe he has a second mortgage and is heavily leveraged on it. Takes money out of his 401k. Carries a balance on multiple credit cards. EVERYTHING is financed - tv, furniture, etc. They barely get by making what is very good money for the midwest. It's really sad to watch, my wife has tried to give him advice but I don't think they are willing to make sacrifices. The funny thing is, he thinks we are "rich" because we can do things that we want to do. Guess he doesn't notice our relatively common clothes, paid for cars, house that we totally remodeled, or meals at home every night.