I know we've talked over strategies for how to not spend money when friends have money to spend in the past. I think it was Lilty who asked for advice, last summer.

It was me, and you guys had fantastical advice. Since then I got the new job and am making more, but I seriously need to be better about spending so things can change. So, after a quick foray through Quicken, here it is.

Salary: 34K Rent: $340 Debt: $22,500 (Quicken doesn't include my car since it is worth approximatly what I owe. That would be another 7K)

Wow. This is like therapy.

My own weird issues, Jesse, which I sometimes place on others.

I was just saying.

We're contemplating refinancing our house with a 5-year interest-only mortgage.

Just the interest on our house is 2,426.04.

We can never, ever, ever retire.

Don't get me wrong. I am ridiculously comfortable. But when I look at my finances, I'm terrified: they depend completely on having two computer-industry salaries. Pretty fragile, that.

What bugs is the, "we'll/I'll pay." Just makes me feel like a leech.

I kind of get you on that. With very close friends, or once in a long while, it's cool, but it's not exactly comfortable. And it's less so when it's not that I completely don't have the money, i.e., flat broke, but I'm trying to keep a handle on costs for a couple of weeks or something.

And I'm one of those who will sometimes offer to pick things up if a friend doesnt' want to spend the money - I know it doesn't feel that way from the offeror's side. But that doesn't make it any more comfortable when I find myself on the other end.

Hey, Lilty Cash -- are you named after the almighty buck? Just curious. I really like your user name -- for some reason I always want to say it out loud when I see it -- but I've never posted with you before. I've just been lurking in Press.

In another, she's a 30 year old whose parents pay her rent. I wouldn't mind being the former, but would rather not buy anything ever than be the latter.

Yeah. It's weird how some people just have no issues with letting their parents pay for stuff well into adulthood, and then there are people like me who feel vaguely mortified when Mom sends a birthday card with two $50s inside.

When Chandra Levy disappeared, one of my minor fixations was how she paid for her apartment (which was in a very nice building) on her reported salary. It made more sense when I read somewhere that it was mommy and daddy.

My friends and I (and now Hec and I) wobble back and forth between the cheap nights at each other's homes and the occasional splurgy meal. I know very, very few people (that I'm not related to, which would be a whole other set of posts) who have had consistent, steady income growth over the last decade; mostly, myself included, incomes have fitfully bounced up and plummeted down at bizarrely random times.

Almost everyone I know has either treated me to nice things I couldn't afford or been treated likewise by me, or more likely both. None of us have any real idea what we owe each other or who's in whose debt, and none of us worry that much about it. Which is a huge relief, and very beneficial to our collective sanity.

I also envy Steph's rent.

You know, I took pics of my purple wall and new curtain.

Didn't post them because I live in a box, which is sort of more than embarassing sometimes.

We can never, ever, ever retire.

Betsy, are you committed to that particular house after the kids leave the nest? The move my folks made to a cute one-story over Dad's mobility issues had the pleasant side effect of knocking about 20% off their monthly expenses.

ION, Porn in teen magazines!