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!

Gah. This is so fucking self-indulgent of me, but I can't resist. I almost did it first, and that would have come off better, but oh well.

Salary: $11K
Rent: $0 ($285 in utilities)
Debt: $450

If you count the household, double the salary. Oh, and if you count the tax check coming due, add another $1000 to the debt. Actually that's the fun part of being your own company -- our gender salaries are absolutely equitable. And 50% of the company's executives are a minority! Shouldn't I get an award?

In 2001, we were making $100K. Had we not stepped away in October, we would have both been unemployed immediately that year.

So, anyway, we're thinking pretty hard about moving, possibly building (straw bale!) so we'll need to up our salaries by about a grand a month. But that's a lotta work, so we'll see.

Hey, Lilty Cash -- are you named after the almighty buck?

Actually, it's a Wonderfalls reference. When I found the Buffistas, I just thought up something that made me giggle. I didn't actually imagine I'd stick around. I've been thinking I may change it to just Lilty, though. Or something more related to my own name or something and not so completely random. But I've found myself sort of endeared to it.

Porn in teen magazines!

"Result of human error," they say? Someone's getting their ass fired.

About the friends thing, well, clearly it's an issue for us, and probably worse because if our friends are well off, they're probably supporters of ours, which makes things awkward anyway. So they almost always pick up the tab for us, which makes us feel skeevy, but then if we try to pay, they feel like, are we splurging their support money by taking all our friends out, or what?

We do have one wealthy couple who are close friends who let us pay as often as they pay for us. It's just that we pay at the pizza joint, and they pay at the $30 a plate breakfast buffet.

Rent: $340

I want to know where and how Lilty lives.

You know, I used to do layout and design for a weekly trade paper for a living, and I can't figure out how that mistake could possibly happen unless someone copied the URL to send someone else, forgot, and pasted that one by mistake. And then no one checked the copy. Which, stupid. It should never have made it out of the office.

You know what's funny, the no-money-talk philosophy is so deeply carved into my soul, I'm reading this entire conversation from the hall, even though I told my own salary (of course, it was 9 years ago).

When Teppy's salary specifically became a topic, I thought people were pretty gutsy to be speculating on whether she made more or less than they'd suspected, based just on her saying she was an editor and her friend made 3x as much. Now, I didn't skip over any posts intentionally, but I had to go back to see that you posted your salary at all, Tep. The only salary I remember is Allyson's and that's because she posted it first, so it struck me. Everyone else's is gone gone gone from my brain. I can't even tell you who else did post their own salary, even though I know lots of people did. My brain is refusing the information, with lots of harsh whispering like, "Cindy, that is NOT your business."

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

I hear you, Betsy, and we're on one tech salary albeit from a Financial Services company.

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

Leeches do not drive to their friends' homes with Draino and macaroni & cheese simply because their friend needs it and can't go out and get it.