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I spend as little as possible for a number of reasons. First of all I am in my early 30's and ever since being in the job market things have seldom been stable. I graduated during the dot-com and by the time I moved to Cali it was all over and we were in a recession. I worked for 3-4 years at crappy retail jobs making minimum wage until I landed something. After that experience of barely squeaking by each month I still live almost exactly the same. I know what a dollar is worth.
I now do pretty well. But the problem is that where I live- the Bay Area- the cost of real estate is so high that what would be considered a very good income elsewhere is just so-so here and if you want to buy a house, well good luck: You will blow all of your income on it. Thus the long term game plan is to save save save and then move out of state where houses a affordable. Then afterward we would buy a house and basically have no debt to speak of. We already have some retirement savings thus whatever we would save in our new location would partially go towards saving for retirement.
As is now, we barely spend anything. We drive rather old, high-mileage beater cars. We still have a crappy TV found on the curb. In fact most of the furniture and stuff we have in our rental is curbside crap-some of which is surprisingly nice. We rarely eat out. I taught myself how to repair cars thus I've replaced the brakes, clutch, radiator, and a few other things in the car. Most of the clothes comes from Goodwill. I could go on and on. But at the end of the day the only thing I care about is saving money so we can move out of here. Reason being- there is a lot less available work in other places in my field. I very well might have to change careers and would likely make a lot less. Then again- if we owned our house outright and had no debts... then who cares?
That's impossible. Doing what you're doing is actually quite risky. This statement indicates that you're not of aware of the risks you take, which is often the riskiest path of all.
Honestly, if you're serious that you'd kill yourself if you were out of work....I'd say you've got some serious psychological / emotional problems. I don't mean that as an insult or attack, just something you might want to look at.
BTW, my friend who only worked sporadically for 5 years also thought about killing himself. I don't understand what's so hard about having some kind of cushion to fall back on so that a person won't want to kill himself. Seems like a less stressful and more enjoyable way to live, IMO.
True. But for a lot of people, if you have some level of disposable income, there is nothing wrong with spending on occasional wants. As long as doing so does not involve spending money one does not have.
I don't have a problem with that. We all spend money on things that are not absolute needs.
But as Jean Chatzky detailed in her book The Difference, 69% of people live either payday to payday or are going further in debt. This was based on a survey of 5000 American households before the recession hit full force in 2008. It's sad and unnecessary that so many people live like that.
if the time comes I cannot work, though, I'll end it. There is no other reason to live except work.
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