For the last year or so, all things considered, I've felt pretty well off. With my editorial assistant's salary, I can afford the gas to get me to work and grad school; I can pay my rent, my phone bill, car payment, the electric and the cable; I can afford a monthly Netflix fee; I can buy the overpriced deli items at Whole Foods on occasion; and every now and then, I can splurge for a facial or a massage.
When I first started my job, my salary felt like a million bucks. Then I got my first paycheck and cried when I saw how much is taken out for taxes. But still, I can afford all of the above-mentioned things. I'm not poor.
My generation, for the most part, can afford to go out to dinner, to buy their friends a round of drinks, to purchase all the Simpsons box sets and newly releasing DVDs they want, but there is no way in hell that we can afford to buy a home or even a condo. At this age, our parents with their foot-just-in-the-door salaries could buy a modest home. They could afford to have children. (Not that I want children now, but if I did, I would have to wait anyway, because there's no way I could afford it.)
Maybe I would be able to afford a house faster if I didn't spend money in Whole Foods, or on Netflix or facials. But what's a good balance between saving for things that seem such a long way off and allowing myself little luxuries that will make me happy now? I want to buy a house, but I also want to eat spinach and garlic stuffed portabella mushrooms at $4 each from Whole Foods every now and then. I don't want my life in the present to be enjoyment-barren just so someday, in the far off future, I can have a house or afford to fly to L.A. to see friends.
3 comments:
Well said. I want a house, but I don't want to be trapped there when I get it. I'd like to go to the movies once in a while, and out to eat, and have nice jeans, too. I don't think I'm being unreasonable. I don't want a mansion, I want a simple one-bedroom condo, a mere 500 square feet of space. Why is that too much to ask?
It does seem out of hand. For me to get my own place means I have to get a 2-4 family home. And still then things are still on the edge of being affordable. Everyone of my friends are looking into it now....and it just seems like so many of them just jump into it and are able to afford it...how I wonder.
It doesn't matter what a bank will give you, it matters what you can afford to take. If Dave had taken that $425k mortgage he was offered, he would've, by my calculations, been paying about $2,500 a month. Could he have afforded that?
When you hear about people working two or three jobs, this is why.
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