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All cars are not luxuries, some are. A brand new $30,000 SUV with leather heated seats= luxury. A $9995 two year old Chevy Aveo with windows you roll down manually and no power locks= necessity. I drive the latter. When I got it, my (then 10) year old son kept ranting about the "Low tech" car... lol. He had never had to roll windows down manually before.
Ok, I've been pretty financially comfortable (while married, two incomes) and have had it get tighter and tighter every year since my divorce. Since the divorce, between insurance, taxes and interest rates, the mortgage payment has gone up $450 a month. My income? It's gone up 2-3% a year.. which doesn't add up to $450 a month. The utilities have gone up, gas for the car has gone up, the cost of my benefits has gone up. I have had to tighten the belt a little more every year. I'm taking home less money each year too, because of the higher cost of the benefits. The longer I work, the less money I make. That makes it tough to stay ahead.
I do have a retirement fund through work, and a very small pension benefit. I'm planning to start investing more next year for my retirement so I can actually retire someday. I've learned all kinds of tricks to save money .. from taking lunch to work every day, to freezing LOTS of food so that I don't throw as much away, to learning all kinds of things that can be made from ground beef/turkey. We never eat out anymore, unless it's the dollar menu at Wendy's or Taco Bell, because I feed the kids cheap then. Oh yeah, and on those days, I generally skip dinner. I shop the sales, buy the generics and buy our clothes at cheap places like the Old Navy outlet and, for my son, Walmart. I can clothe that kid for an entire season for $120 there! The 13 year old girl is more expensive. Both kids are in braces.. luxury? Depends on who you ask. Payments for those are done in January and I'm going to feel rich after two years of payments to the orthodontist. It's definitely NOT easy. Things are changing for us, through difficult circumstances, but my first priority is going to be to eliminate debt, second priority, save money. I am actually going to do what they recommend and have 6 months salary in savings. It is a big relief.
I have co-workers who make a lot more than me and who have husbands who have make twice as much as me, so they are making more than three times my salary. They complain about being broke. I sit at lunch and listen to them talk about how broke they are while they're living in huge houses with new vehicles and wear all designer clothes. Sometimes I want to go off on them. One of them even gets all ticked off when we get our annual bonus (usually around $350 after taxes) because "they give us so little, they might as well keep it". I have told her that I'll take hers if she doesn't want it! That's' a lot of money to me!!!
Reality is, we, as a society, spend what we make. I'm not going to be one of those people anymore and I'm so glad.
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