Beating Broke

Personal Finance from the Broke Perspective

The Struggle with Enough

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If you’ve read any of the more popular personal finance blogs, books, or attended any of the seminars, one of the more pervasive themes is the idea of enough. Heck, I’ve even written about it before.  Just what is enough, or how much is enough.  They’ll tell you that you need to find your “enough”, and then hold yourself to it.  Instead of using the inflated “enough” that the Joneses next door use, you’ve got to take a good look at your finances and find your own “enough”.  Now, a show of hands, how many of you have actually found what enough means to you, and held to it?

I can’t actually see your hands, so maybe a show of hands wasn’t the right way to measure the tally.  But, I’d bet that only a few of you actually would have put your hands up.  Why?  Because, you struggle with enough.  I do too.  Enough is an arbitrary measurement.  What you think enough is today isn’t necessarily going to be enough tomorrow.  So many factors go into what we believe enough is, and many of them change regularly.

A few years ago, if you’d have asked me what enough was, I would have told you that it was having a good paying job, a nice house with room for my family, and enough leisure time to enjoy the benefits of having those things.  Today, my answer is a bit different.  I quit my job a few months ago, and have had no other income besides what a part-time job and a handful of small sites provides.  We still have my wife’s income, but, compared to what we were making before, it’s a fraction of what it was.  Today, enough has a totally different feel to it.  And, we struggle with it.  Just like I’m betting you do to.

Enough money does © by Michell Zappa

The struggle is rooted deep into our psyches.  Growing up, we’re inundated with commercials touting the latest and greatest toys.  As adults, the only difference is the price of the toys.  Instead of a “Castle Grayskull Playset“, we want to have the newest credit card with all the fancy bonus miles, the new car with the rearview camera, or the house with the dedicated room for a library or mancave.  And that doesn’t even begin to touch the use of money as a security device.

People fear being broke.  A quick reminder that the name of this site is Beating Broke, will tell you that even I am not immune to the fear of being broke.  I’ve got a small secret to let you in on though.  Like “enough”, how you define “broke” makes all the difference in the world.  For some, being broke means making less than $100,000 a year.  If that’s the case, my family is way beyond broke.  Even when I still had my job, we were a full-time income away from making $100,000 a year.

What does broke really mean to you?  To me, broke is a place where you have tons of debt, and your income is the only thing keeping you afloat.  You’re stuck in a job you don’t like, so that you can make money to pay your bills.  The funny thing is, I feel less broke now that I don’t have a full-time job, than I did when I had my job.  Part of that may be straight up delusion, but it’s true.  But, I think a good part of that also comes from changing my definition of enough.  Instead of the good paying job, nice house, and leisure time, my definition of enough is something that feels a little bit more like satisfaction.  I’m satisfied with just barely making enough to pay the bills.  I’m satisfied with finding free or low cost activities that will entertain us.

And yet, we struggle with it.  For the last few weeks, I’ve been struggling with the idea of getting a new full time job.  Partially because the income from this and other sites hasn’t scaled to the degree that I thought it might.  Partially because with the amount that I’m making we teeter on that precipice of being able to adequately pay our bills.  And, partially, because we still struggle with the definition of what enough is.

What is your definition of enough?  How has it changed over the years, and do you feel that your definition of enough is enough?

Would You Be Better Off Single (Financially)?

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There are, undeniably, some benefits to being married.  Both financially, and otherwise.  But, are there benefits to being single as well?  Would you be better off single?

One of the biggest financial benefits to being married is the ability to have two full-time incomes coming into the household.  Using both incomes, we have the ability to save more money for retirement and for emergencies.  But, we’ve still got to have the ability to see each other once in a while, so we have a limited ability to extend our work hours to increase our incomes.  Being single, you have the ability to work 10-12 hours a day, and increase your income through overtime, or through a second, after-hours job.

Together Time 106/365As a single person, there’s no arguments over where the money should go, how much of it to save, or whether a person can survive on a diet of rice and beans.  Frugality can be taken to extremes that are usually off limits to the married.  Want to live in a one room shack with limited heating and cooling because you’re at work more than you’re at home?  If you’re single, you can do that.  Being married, especially if there are children, makes that a near impossibility.  Want to take up a bike lane living lifestyle?  In North Dakota?  If you’re single, that’s probably possible.  Married?  With kids?  Think again.

Being single also helps you save money.  There are no Valentines gifts or anniversary gifts needed.  Why buy a fancy bedroom set when a mattress on the floor will do the trick?  Your dining out bill is easily cut in half, or more, since you don’t need to eat at those fancy restaurants. Taco Bell and Dominos will do just fine.

Without the restrictions on your time, you have free rein to do what you want, when you want to do it.

Are you single?  Are you better off financially than you would be if you were married?  Are you married?  What do you think?  Would you be better off, financially, if you were single?

photo credit: SashaW

Shopping for a New House

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When we decided that it was time for a new house, (read this post for the reasoning) we knew that we had to be smarter about it than we had been when we bought our first house.  We weren’t going to just jump into it and make a rash decision that might cost us down the road.  What we discovered when we started really talking about it was that we had a slightly different idea of what we wanted in a new house.

One of the biggest reasons that my wife wants a new house was because she feels (rightly) that our current house is too small for our growing family.  Between the two kids and the big dog, we just don’t have room for all the stuff.  Yes, stuff is just that.  Stuff.  It can be gotten rid of, but it seems to just re-accumulate.  There are certain luxuries that we allow ourselves, that some people would just call stuff.  Will it cost us money to keep those luxuries?  You bet.  Are we willing to pay that price?  You bet.  While I’m sure there are some who can live on $7,000 a year, and do so enjoyably, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m not one of them.  Call it what you will, but I like my stuff.

3D Realty HandshakeBut, I also like my space.  So, for me, one of the biggest things I want in a new house is a sizable yard.  It doesn’t have to be huge, but a small postage stamp yard isn’t going to cut it.  We’ve got a dog, and he needs room to run, too!  Yes, there are parks in town.  Yes, we could go to them and run and play there.  But, it’s easier to just do that in my own back yard.  I imagine that part of that is from my experiences growing up where we always had some land to play on.

We’ve got other requirements, as well.  The kitchen has to be comfortably large.  It doesn’t need to be one of those huge kitchens you see on the home remodeling shows, but it needs to be large enough that two people can pass each other without one of them having to practically stand on the stove to do so.  It was a mistake we made in buying the house we have now that the kitchen was just too small and makes any combined activities pretty much a n0-go.   Also, as our family grows, we’d like to have more than one bathroom.  It wasn’t so bad when both kids were in diapers and could go wherever they were, but now that they’re both out of diapers, it makes it very difficult to get everybody ready and out the door in the mornings.  Impossible?  No.  But damned difficult.

So, with a few requirements in mind, we set about looking for a new house.  Luckily, most of the realtors in the area are pretty good about taking enough pictures to really help you get a good idea of what the house looks like before you go and see it, and we’ve been able to weed some of the less than desirable ones out before we wasted our time to see them.

We quickly weeded through the available houses, and came up with only two that were even close.  The one was a bit older house, but had the land.  It’s failing was that, despite being bigger than the house we are in, it was configured all strangely, and all the extra room was in all the wrong places.  The second house is on the edge of town.  This was a bit worrisome to my wife because the town isn’t known for it’s excellence in snow removal, and there’s a chance that, being on the edge of town, it might get even less attention than the rest of town gets.  It does have a large yard (2+ acres), and has plenty of room inside.  We found ourselves slightly excited by our first visit.  Enough so, that we went for a second visit.  And then made an offer.

The owners countered our offer, and we took their counter, so now, we’re in the process of getting all the ducks in a row and buying a house.  We will need to sell the house we are currently in, to use the funds from the sale for a larger down payment.  God willing, we might be able to close on the house and be moved in before Christmas.

photo credit: lumaxart