I'm trying to make changes too, actually. I took a good look at my spending habits and I need to cut my dining costs, pronto. It's easy to do when I eat at home, but my boyfriend has expensive restaurant taste, and we usually split the check. It got very tense last night when the bill came and I suggested that next time I really only wanted to order a glass of wine, and not the entire bottle, as is our (his) habit. He believes I should be saving more money, too, but apparently only when I am out with other people. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Wheat toast:

Meara and Vortex, so TRUE. I live in the Bay Area which is admittedly hell for housing costs. But still, most of my friends managed to buy here.

I was just thinking.... I never received any "You must be successful" pressure from my parents. None at all. And I grew up in an area with few wealthy people (except maybe some farmers who had all their wealth tied up in their land). Our family doctor drove a Cadillac and I thought he was really rich.

I'm going to start bringing in my lunch to work starting tomorrow. I'm stopping by the grocery store tonight to fill up my fridge, and see how much I can save from doing that.

I'm already $100 over my planned savings in the first three weeks of my Plan, but that won't last unless I reduce my food budget.

But isn't that true for most people who own a house. The house is essentially the savings plan and, in many ways, retirement plan?

I guess that's true, I just don't tend to think about it that way since my parents had it so different.

Okay, I think I'm gonna pack up one more box and then get out of here. I've just spent an hour and a half culling most of the crap out of my file cabinet. The desk will have to wait for next week.

I live in the Bay Area which is admittedly hell for housing costs. But still, most of my friends managed to buy here.

Yeah, but maybe they have crazy-ass mortgages. Or are just generally living way beyond their means and accumulating massive credit card debt. It's hard to tell.

People are constantly calling in to Dave Ramsey owing tens of thousands on credit cards and cars for no good reason. Even though they make 50K or whatever, they just had to have a 35K new car and 4-bedroom house, even though they couldn't really afford it.

My parents definitely wanted us all to be happy, and they equate happiness with a career you enjoy, a paid-for house, and a family if you get one. They've resigned themselves to neither my sister nor I giving them any more grandkids except by marriage, but wouldn't mind it if I got married to someone I loved (neither would I!).

I'd been envying my coworker, with whom we used to share a nanny, because they have a fancy house that they renovated, and kids were in private school, and the own art, and he races cars as a hobby, and I couldn't figure out how they did it on his 35-hour a week as an architect plus her 9-month appointment as an academic librarian salaries. Well, it turned out, their entire salaries were going to the mortgage and the private schools. Everything else turned out to be consumer debt! She's the one who said stuff like, "we cut back drinking wine and now we're only drinking 2 bottles a week and saving so much!" Now that they are seeing a financial planner, they are seriously considering selling the house and buying something smaller to repay the debts. And they aren't doing private school any more. And I'm not envious, either.

People are constantly calling in to Dave Ramsey owing tens of thousands on credit cards and cars for no good reason. Even though they make 50K or whatever, they just had to have a 35K new car and 4-bedroom house, even though they couldn't really afford it.

This is where I'm way ahead of most people I know--my car should be paid off more than a year early, and my credit card is down to $200 as of today. (The only reason it was over $0 was because I finally got renters insurance last week, so I feel much safer right now. You never know when a fellow renter will fall asleep with a candle or cigarette lit and burn down the whole building, or for that matter if a tornado hits, my top-floor apartment would be the first to go.)