Money

[Tobra]

Originally posted by notfarnow
Easiest way to become a slave to work is to be a slave to STUFF, especially on credit.

Before we got married, my wife cut down our discretionary spending by almost 3/4. Killed me at first because I tend to be pretty loose with money, but you get used to it. The upside was having no debt (outside of a mortgage).

It allowed my wife to walk away from her job and go back to school for 2 years with almost no debt. Being able to do THAT is a luxury

If more people understood about the benefits of not paying interest America would be a better place.

I work a lot, but I am a small businessman. For me it is always more about time than money.

[competentone]

Two of my favorite sayings:

Money won't buy you happiness....

....but it can certainly help you look for it in better neighborhoods!

and:

The winner of a rat race....

....is still a rat.

[notfarnow]

Originally posted by Tobra
I work a lot, but I am a small businessman. For me it is always more about time than money.

Lots of small business owners in my family. You grow up really understanding the value of TIME. My dad owned and ran restaurants when I was a kid, and worked crazy hours just to try to keep things afloat. My parents split when I was 6, and it didn't even phase me because I rarely saw dad anyway.

I try to be cautious about work. I work hard and do my best, but I hesitate to be the "go to" guy who stays until the wee hours to troubleshoot. There is always someone willing to do it, and they will be duly recognized and compensated. Fair game, if that's what they want.

[Wrecked944]

Originally posted by notfarnow
Easiest way to become a slave to work is to be a slave to STUFF, especially on credit.

I can't disagree with your point. But may I add a corollary?

Easiest way to become a slave to work is to believe that work will make you rich. In my experience, investing makes you rich. Work just makes you tired.

Or, as one writer stated: A paycheck is just a temporary solution to a long term problem.

[mjohnson]

Wow.

This is _very_ relevant to the mjohnson household.

For the mjohnson household, money gives the freedom not to worry.

My wife was raised by a single mom on an extremely tight budget. Tight as in mom/three kids in a 700 ft^2 house, secondhand clothes and huge debts. She paid her own way through college with track/x-country scholarships and multiple part time jobs while graduating with a BS in chemical engineering (150+ credits) in 4 years.

I'm a middle-class kid, raised in a 1-professional household. I got pretty much whatever I wanted as long as I didn't want much and as long as I was willing to wait/save/earn.

We got married while we were finishing our MS degrees. We both got decent jobs and have progressed OK in our careers.

Thank goodness I married a sensible frugal woman with little interest in luxury or desire to keep up with anyone. We earn in 2 months what her mom did in a year yet our newest car is 9 years old and we live in a 55 year old government-built house worth barely more than we make in a year.

To us, the money we make is a buffer/security blanket from the uncertainties of life. Money is freedom from worrying about handling a kilobuck auto repair or the sudden death of our furnace - two things that would have absolutely ruined my mother in law's financial life.

Speaking of Mrs mjohnson, she is as of last weekend Dr Mrs mjohnson. At graduation, our meeting up with her faculty (my old advisors as well) and our friends that stayed in the Denver area made us recall our earlier days as graduate students (the first time around). Are we, as two decently paid professionals, really living 5 times better than we were in grad school 10 years ago with our meager stipends? Of course not.

Here's the dilemma: I'd love to go back for my PhD but our employer may not be willing to keep me on as a fully supported (at my current salary) grad student. I'm therefore considering quitting my job and becoming just a student. By the numbers her current income and my potential stipend would cover our "fixed" costs easily. While the numbers say so, I'm nervous about losing the freedom that our very positive cash flow brings. Rationally I know that we can handle it but still its sketchy. For us the downside of having money is that our risk-adverse nature makes us not want to potentially lose it. Thinking about it, it won't be a problem, but when it comes to money rational thought doesn't always come easily.

Yes, it is all quite silly this money stuff once you have enough for food and shelter. In school we dreamt of being where we are now yet this isn't exactly a dream. I'm sure people out there that use other orders of magnitude to describe their fiscal lives feel the same way.

meh!

mike
'78SC

[Nostril Cheese]

“Money can't buy you happiness, but it can buy you a yacht big enough to pull up right alongside it.”

David Lee Roth

[notfarnow]

Originally posted by mjohnson
Here's the dilemma: I'd love to go back for my PhD but our employer may not be willing to keep me on as a fully supported (at my current salary) grad student. I'm therefore considering quitting my job and becoming just a student. By the numbers her current income and my potential stipend would cover our "fixed" costs easily. While the numbers say so, I'm nervous about losing the freedom that our very positive cash flow brings. Rationally I know that we can handle it but still its sketchy. For us the downside of having money is that our risk-adverse nature makes us not want to potentially lose it. Thinking about it, it won't be a problem, but when it comes to money rational thought doesn't always come easily.

Mike, go for it. By being frugal, you guys seem to have the luxury of flexibility...take advantage of it. My wife left a good paying job to do here second degree, and we've scratched by for the last two years so she could go back to school. It goes by so fast.

In 5-6 years, which do you think you'll regret more? Having missed the cashflow, or having missed the opportunity?

[Porsche-O-Phile]

I have to agree. I had a bit of a spiritual experience this past weekend. I visited a long-time friend of mine who I'd not seen in several years down in Key West, Florida. He's been living there for about nine years and he's been bugging me to pay him a visit for that entire time. I finally got the chance (at the tail-end of a week-long business trip to Lauderdale) so I did.

This guy lives simply - he owns a computer, his clothes, two shelves full of books, some cooking supplies and a futon. That's about it. He rents an apartment which he shares with a few other guys for about $500 a month. He works waiting tables and tending bar at a few places, but his passion is practicing magic at a place called "Frank's Magic Bar" (those who have been will know it). 95% of his income is cash. No worries about tax or alternative minimum tax or the real estate market or any of that crap. His biggest worries in life are when his girlfriend will get out of work and hoping another hurricane doesn't hit the island this year. Simple, unpretentious and a beautiful existence in its own right. I actually quite admire this guy for his ability to live so carefree and simply. Good lesson in that.

He may not be wealthy in terms of income, but he's truly HAPPY. That counts for way more, IMO. I'm giving serious thought to a rearrangement of priorities in my own life (like I said, it was kind of a spiritual pilgramage). I used to think much more like he does - that personal happiness needs to come first and money/material things a distant second (or even lower on the list). Somewhere along the line, I guess I lost sight of that. Perhaps it was born out of a difficult time my wife and I went through when we were barely scraping by in the wake of a layoff - don't know. Point is, it wasn't the right way to respond.

Money is fun and good, but past a point it creates more problems when it solves. I really do see some beauty in living simply and getting off the ratrace treadmill. I have to blame southern California for some of that too - this area is so awash in materialism and overzealous pursuit of material things it's difficult to ignore. I have to give some serious thought to prying myself out of this place and putting myself somewhere where the priorities are a bit more in line with what I know in my heart to be true. The difficult part is I literally JUST got a huge promotion with long-term partnership potential. I have to reconcile this. Maybe there's a way to do both with a simple change of attitude, but I honestly don't know. When one lives in an area where the cost of living is higher than anywhere else in the country and a friggin' shack costs a half million bucks, it's difficult to not worry about money. I think it might be time to look at ditching. A few months ago I'd have dismissed that idea outright "not an option", but I'm seriously wondering. . .

Sorry for the long post, this subject just hit close to home right now. I'm working out my own life/income balance priorities and thank goodness I had a friend in this world that was able to (perhaps unintentionally) be a sort of spiritual guide to me in order to show me the path I have been on up to now is really only one of many.

Money CAN lead to happiness (possibly), but isn't it ultimately easier to simply go after happiness first without the risk or circuitous path? That's the question I grapple with.

[notfarnow]

My wife's philosophy is that you should ALWAYS live paycheck to paycheck. As soon as she has extra income and finds she has extra cash, she increases her payments against loans or contributions to retirement savings. I've never met anyone else like her, she is a machine.

Her parents overspent horrendously and spent their lives aquiring stuff and living miserably, and I guess that affected her. She's a bit obsessive cumpulsive about it, but it keeps me on the straight and narrow. Also helps me save for toys, whenever I want to blow cash on something, she reminds me I'm supposed to be saving for a 911.

[KFC911]

Originally posted by Porsche-O-Phile
.... I really do see some beauty in living simply and getting off the ratrace treadmill. I have to blame southern California for some of that too - this area is so awash in materialism and overzealous pursuit of material things it's difficult to ignore....

Your friend sounds like he is on the opposite end of the spectrum, and you can easily find a balance somewhere in the middle imo. With you profession (you mentioned it in another thread some time back), you have options and I suspect that some day you're going to look back and think "Why didn't I do it sooner?" Good luck!