After a six-month hiatus, I return to my social experiment!
Why such a long break? Allow me to explain: about a week after I posted that my husband had officially been hired on as a permanent employee after five months or so of working as a seasonal one, he got a voicemail--a VOICEMAIL--letting him know they were letting him go.
So, so much for that.
It was a frustrating feeling, one I'm sure many others can share. We were just starting to get ahead, and then, BOOM! It was back to square one.
Over the next few months, things got busy, with Christmas, the birth of our second child, a new semester, and the omnipresent job hunt. Difficult times, but we did learn a couple of really important lessons.
1. Raise in Income DOES NOT MEAN Raise in Quality of Life
This might seem self-explanatory to you. If so, congratulations! You're not buying into the "keeping up with the Jones's" attitude. But according to my primary source here (The Millionaire Next Door), a direct relationship between money coming in and quality of life is a good way to bring your plans for financial independence to a screeching halt. It all has to do with the goals of wealth acquisition. Are you trying to get rich so you can buy everything you want, or are you trying to get rich so your money works for you?
We (annoyingly) are going for the harder, and more long-term, second goal. That means no frantic spending every time your income goes up--or your job seems to stabilize. We were reasonably good about saving our money while Eric was working, so we were able to survive the next several months, but not everything was coming up roses. Only the boys and I had medical insurance coverage, and Eric had a torn Achilles tendon to worry about. Oh, and as a bonus, our car got totaled in January, meaning we suddenly had to buy a car with the same "value" as our '99 Chevy Venture with 180,000 miles on it. (More on that in a bit!)
Thankfully, Eric's contract with the Air Force meant that, while he didn't have medical coverage or a substantial salary to live off of, he did receive a scholarship that covered the cost of tuition, plus a $450 a month stipend. That, our savings, welfare, and a whopping tax return, were enough for us to eke by on.
2. Online resume submissions only get you so far.
Eric made finding a new job his full-time job. I'll go into more details on that process in a future post, but the main thing we learned was that companies weren't that interested in him based on a sheet of paper. Limiting yourself to only those companies that post their wanted ads online (and take online resumes) seriously limits the job field. This will be obvious information to some, but I know that many of our friends who haven't been able to find a job for an extended period of time have fallen into a comfortable pattern of submitting daily resumes online. I understand that! From November to February (except when our son was born) Eric and I were both hitting the streets. We got a couple of nibbles, but in a college town where employers are tired of working around school schedules and the market is saturated with recent grads in no-technical degrees, we weren't landing a job. Eventually, though, our hard work paid off and we were offered two positions at once--one for each of us! Yes!
3. "Bare necessities" aren't all that bare.
Okay, so we didn't have money to spend on luxuries for five months. You'd be surprised what constitutes a "luxury" when you don't have a job! No makeup. No redbox. No nights off from cooking via the McDonald's dollar menu. Nasty homemade toothpaste. Less frequent hair-washing. No roadtrips to visit family. In other words, no WONDER people think poor people are stupid! Look at us! We're already stressed about making the bills. Add to that the fact that I haven't purchased a new article of clothing for myself for over two years, my hair has seen better days, I'm exhausted from being bereft of my usual support structure of family members and date nights, and I can't even hide the dark circles under my eyes with concealer because I ran out months ago! Oh, and between my two kids, my job, my husband's job, Air Force obligations, and school, our house is never very clean. An ill-kempt slob with saggy, faded clothing and an exhausted, desperate demeanor hardly corresponds with the mental image of "college graduate."
But for all that, ultimately, we're doing alright. Poor in this family is better than rich in many others. We have enough to be healthy. Unlike many we know, we're not struggling under a seemingly endless mountain of debt. Our apartment complex pays for utilities, so we have internet access at home. Really, when you think about it, most of the "necessities" we had to cut from our spending were really vanity purchases. I'm not saying that everyone should cut them out. It took me only one month of frugal living after we'd both found work to return to "normal" spending (still a far cry below what I'm sure I'd be spending if we were making a normal amount of money.) But my point is, life is actually pretty good even on nothing. How many generations back were poor people boiling their boots to make soup? (Shudder)
Anyway, that's it for the major lessons I learned. Stay tuned for more information, as well as how-to's for frugal living now that we've returned to "normal" spending!
