Too Cool For School

[Jake]

I never carry a balance on a credit card, but if you need new furniture or something, 0% interest deals are everywhere. 

This is a good point to call out, especially if you're fresh out of college and not really swimming in liquid cash. Credit cards can be scary, as can financed *things* in general, but if you can get a credit card that's "0% for 12 months" or get 0% furniture financing or whatever, it does open a few doors provided you can absolutely 100% pay it off on time.

I've done it with furniture, a new TV, and maybe some car parts. All cases where something needed buying due to failure or being the right time without the right money. Pay it off on time (or early), pay zero interest, call it a day.

[JPolen01]

True story on the 0% financing. I almost bought the wife a peleton bike the other day because it's 0% interest for 12, 24, or 36 months. Then I remembered she doesn't need a $3k exercise bike.

[Jake]

True story on the 0% financing. I almost bought the wife a peleton bike the other day because it's 0% interest for 12, 24, or 36 months. Then I remembered she doesn't need a $3k exercise bike.

A spin class membership is cheaper and you get to interact with real people 

Good point though... the 0% game works if it's for something you already were planning to buy and/or need. Don't get sucked in to the "OMG I want this but may not use it but it's easily accessible" trap.

[D_Eclipse9916]

This is my biggest issue when people tell me free money.

---

True story on the 0% financing. I almost bought the wife a peleton bike the other day because it's 0% interest for 12, 24, or 36 months. Then I remembered she doesn't need a $3k exercise bike.

The treadmill is crazy expensive too!!!  The ads and marketing department is really good though.

I wouldn't mind getting a really nice treadmill next time around if it had really really good shock absorption.  My wife uses the treadmill for 3-5 miles every single day, and since it's on our "third" floor you can hear it almost through the entire house.  I spent a lot of time researching and went as cheap as possible while still "good" and it was still 700-800 on sale.

[JPolen01]

Not to go too far off topic, but their treadmill is the type that has individual slats rather than a continuous belt. They are extremely comfortable to run on (if you haven't done so I would recommend trying one out), but can be loud. They have a humming almost like the drone of a CVT transmission. '

We spent around $2k on Emily's NordicTrack. Like Jess, she uses it for about 3 miles a day so I am okay with what we spent on it. The Peleton is a bit much though at over $4k...

[Apoc]

 The ads and marketing department is really good though.

https://ftw.usatoday.com/2019/01/peloton...ter-thread

[Sijray21]

True story on the 0% financing. I almost bought the wife a peleton bike the other day because it's 0% interest for 12, 24, or 36 months. Then I remembered she doesn't need a $3k exercise bike.

you can also get a good road bike, a smart trainer, and spend $15/mo on Zwift (i used to do this and will likely get back into Zwift soon). It's a more efficient use of your money and you still get to spin inside at your house virtually with others. When it gets warmer it will give you a bike to ride outside, too.

going on the 0% interest route for items you can afford anyway for the sake of building a credit history is good. i took out a 0% interest loan for my mattress (first big purchase out of college) and paid it off after 4 months from the 18 months i was allowed. I then took out a 24-month lower interest personal loan and paid that off in 6 months. I had credit cards in college, but they were only $300 limits (governed by my mom) and she paid those off early to develop an early credit history. also had an auto loan for my truck that i paid off early. having several types of loans (retail, personal, auto, revolving (aka credit cards)) and paying them off on-time/early will help keep/get your credit score higher so when you apply for the bigger loans (house and car) you won't get unpleasantly shafted by interest payments.

[*insertusernamehere*]

Do the math, don’t be scared, do what makes you happy and live the life you want to live.

All of this.

[BLINGMW]

For me family comes first, my personal happiness, enjoying the moment, and then work. I had trouble finding a job that put my ISAT degree to use at first, worked for Bimmerworld, got married and moved to ATL for 3 years so wife could get a law degree. Worked as warehouse manager. None of those paid well and wife wasn't working yet so with rent and school loans and cheap cars we were neither going into debt nor saving for retirement, and I still had a cheap track car and fun on the weekends. Moved back to Roanoke to start a family. It was only then that I found a starting career in energy management. Now I have my own business, 2nd wife, 3 kids. We still don't make a lot of money, but cost of living is low, my parents live next door, wife teaches piano, we have a garden and family and health and good times. Real life has almost always been better than the stress of school, and I wouldn't have traded any of it for 2x the money living somewhere I didn't want to live or missing out on the people I love.

I would highly recommend finding any job in Colorado and moving. Either you love it, or it helps you respect home, or gives you another idea or perspective. Travel some more if you can. All work and travel experience is good experience.

Don't buy things you cannot afford, and if you get married keep your expenses down to where either of you could pay them, and you'll be fine!

[Senor_Taylor]

For me family comes first, my personal happiness, enjoying the moment, and then work. I had trouble finding a job that put my ISAT degree to use at first, worked for Bimmerworld, got married and moved to ATL for 3 years so wife could get a law degree. Worked as warehouse manager. None of those paid well and wife wasn't working yet so with rent and school loans and cheap cars we were neither going into debt nor saving for retirement, and I still had a cheap track car and fun on the weekends. Moved back to Roanoke to start a family. It was only then that I found a starting career in energy management. Now I have my own business, 2nd wife, 3 kids. We still don't make a lot of money, but cost of living is low, my parents live next door, wife teaches piano, we have a garden and family and health and good times. Real life has almost always been better than the stress of school, and I wouldn't have traded any of it for 2x the money living somewhere I didn't want to live or missing out on the people I love.

I would highly recommend finding any job in Colorado and moving. Either you love it, or it helps you respect home, or gives you another idea or perspective. Travel some more if you can. All work and travel experience is good experience.

Don't buy things you cannot afford, and if you get married keep your expenses down to where either of you could pay them, and you'll be fine!

Glad to hear you're so content with life!

Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk

[V1GiLaNtE]

Oooooo this is fun! Let's see...

I left JMU with $25k in student loan debt. I moved in with family friends for about 3/4 months in Herndon trying to figure out where I was going to live. I was fortunate that I didn't have to pay rent. Eventually I moved and lived in a house in Vienna with 4 other people for a year paying $500/month for my room there. It was a good little setup that helped me aggressively pay down my debt. I basically lived like a college person while still getting my 401k match. During that time I spent A LOT of time reading about minimalism, zen/remaining present, and personal finance. It occurred to me that being in debt was stopping me from saving for the future and would force me to work 9-5 until I was 65. After a year and a half I paid off all $25,000. Mind you I was still driving my 98 XJ everywhere (RIP) and not even thinking about a "new" car. Once that debt was gone I set out upping my retirement contributions and finally being able to contribute to a Roth IRA. During that year every extra dollar I had went to paying down my student loans. I hardly went out to bars to socialize and spent most of my time biking, hiking, camping, cooking, etc.

After that first year me and my ex-fiance moved in together for 5 years. We paid about $1100/month in rent each for a decent condo in Dunn Loring which at the time was "far out", but killer bang for the buck. Over the years the salaries increased, I took a $7k loan out and bought my WRX. I had my white jeep and my WRX for about a year until I realized I just could not realistically afford 2 cars, savings, retirement, etc so the WRX was sold. I was paying way above the principle on the WRX because I personally hate debt. I think it was only until 2014 was I finally able to start contributing the full $5500 to my Roth IRA which was a huge accomplishment for me. Over those 5 years I maintained a reasonable mind set on budget/expenses. Around 2016 I bought my 4runner with about $2000 down and a $12k loan. I got a great rate because I had gotten a credit card in college and was diligent about paying my bills. I had a credit score of about 790 at the time and the finance woman was damn near impressed and that's something I'm proud of. When my ex and I separated 2 years ago I moved into a townhouse in Vienna paying about $750/month in rent. During that time I started to begin embracing the "minimalism" thing and sold off a lot of possessions and things I realized I would never use or had not used. I was trying to pair my life down so simply that I could up and move anywhere. To me, I firmly believe in the idea that your things will ultimately own you if you don't get a grip on it. In a society focused on more, it's no wonder people are up to their eyeballs in debt. During this time I was even more aggressive in my 401k contributions, but allowed myself less savings to get myself back on track and discover "me" post separation. I did that for about a year and half until I finally jumped out of NOVA and moved to Richmond where I made a lateral salary transition while simultaneously reducing my cost of living and increasing my working/life balance.

I never feel like I went "full out" on car stuff like a lot of the guys here. Shit I only "allowed" myself to buy a motorcycle over a year ago even though I could afford it for many many years. It was this sense of safety and cushion that I was giving up years of not working. And honestly it's probably because I have an unhealthy relationship with money and I tend to over-analyze and over-think things.But, I have to remind myself that my sensibility has put me far ahead of what is "average" in terms of savings these days. By mainly focusing my money on traveling, saving for retirement, and being mindful of my spending. Over the last 5 years I have traveled to the following countries and never for a minute regret spending the money on it:

- Thailand
- Vietnam
- Netherlands
- Italy
- Canada
- Israel
- Hungary
- Czech Republic
- Costa Rica (October 2019)

I would say over the last 2 years I have "inflated" my lifestyle to a degree and am actively working to reduce my expenses. The biggest thing it took me to realize looking around was you can afford anything, just not everything. I lost plenty of money going in and out of hobbies. Do I regret the loss? Sure, but inevitably if you focus only on dollars and cents there is no point to life. So if you're feeling lost, overwhelmed, in debt, stressed, etc. Take a look around you and ask yourself "why". Why are you doing something? When you spend money on those things do they make you feel good or do you feel a bit of angst. I always stretched myself too thin trying to do a million different things. But as I paired down possessions it oddly opened up money, space, and time to think about what I really want to spend my money on. This allows you to take risks. Calculated risks that you know you have a good chance of coming out on top.

As another point, finance is such a taboo topic in America. So seek out mentors and people who can offer advice or a point of view. Rely on your close friends to push you in positive directions. If you have people in your life that don't really benefit you (and I mean by make you a better person), cut them out. Spend your time with people who are willing to invest in you and vice versa.

[ScottyB]

- Costa Rica (October 2019)

nice....you'll love it. i went for 8 days in 2010, and split it between the central rainforest and the pacific coast. let me know if you have any questions.

[Apoc]

I want to see what you all did, what you didn't, what you wished you did, and everything in between.

I started making me wonder how much free time do you actually have when you get out of school and start your first job. Are you working so hard to impress your bosses that free time is a thing of the past? Or are you sitting at your desk on GroupMe harassing college students over the internet? 

Did you stay in the state where you grew up/where JMU was, or did you take a job in another state? I've been thinking of eventually moving out to Colorado after growing up in VA all my life. Thinking it might be a smarter move to get a job in VA first, then transfer over to whatever state once I get comfortable in my industry. Is this how you get trapped in a state forever though? Do you wish you had gone to a new state right out of college for your first job? 

Was money tighter than you expected when you started budgeting for yourself, buying furniture for apartments, going out to eat with colleagues, etc? Do you wish you had refrained from spending on anything, or maybe wished you had spent more on bars for networking or furniture for your empty apartment? Did you ask for your first raise to accommodate your lifestyle, or was it given to you over time?

Finally taking the time to write my story - 

I graduated with a live-in girlfriend during the 2000 dotcom bubble burst. Jobs were very hard to find, so we moved from Philly into my mom's basement (rimshot) in Nova because we thought DC would have better job prospects (and we didn't want to live in Philly). Both of us started in retail jobs (I was an Assistant Manager at a Funcoland - god I hated it) because the economy was shit, but it's pretty hard to beat living rent free for three years. I graduated with no debt; my now-wife had student loans.

My first real job paid me $50k/year (inflation adjusted or IA). We were able to save some money, but not enough for the $300k (IA) house we wanted to buy out in Leesburg. We got married and bought a house in the boonies around age 25. We loaned money from each of my parents to have a 20% down payment and avoid PMI. We bought a house because we thought that's what you're supposed to do... and because that's what prior generations did. The housing market was bonkers, so we refinanced that house at some point to get money back to my parents and pay off all my wife's student loans. I think I also used the house refinance to pay off our cars, since we could deduct the mortgage interest.

IMO, 25 is too early to get married and settle down in the burbs. It really hurt our personal lives, gave us longer commutes than necessary, and forced us to try and act mature even though mentally/emotionally we were kids. I wish we rented closer to a city so we could enjoy our freedom more. Renting also makes you more mobile, should you want to relocate. I don't regret marrying, because we're still together, but that whole rush to be adult is overrated for me, personally. I promise it had nothing to do with spending the money I'd been saving up for years to buy a motorcycle on her engagement ring.

Around age 28, we sold our $300k (IA) house for $490k (IA) and moved to a 2800 sqft townhouse in Ashburn. I was on my third employer (AOL), not including retail, and had gotten promoted twice there, so the money was good enough that we could afford to be closer and have more space. That house, which we purchased for $695k (IA) was awesome, but we still had no social life or a desire for kids (likely related). We did a 5 year ARM to make the cost of the mortgage reachable for us, but were pretty house poor for awhile. I think we actually got fucked on flipping it to a fixed mortgage 4 years later and had to pay in to avoid PMI. We sold that house at age 34 for $435k (IA) to relocate. We got nothing out of it. After 10 years and two different houses, we had no equity despite our original down payment and mortgage payments... but that was a lot better than many during the housing crisis.

We both bounced around to a couple different jobs in our late 20s. They were fine and neither of us killed ourselves for our jobs, but we were both pretty miserable with our lives. I worked 40 hours on the nose for a long time, but never really did anything with friends because they all lived inside the Beltway. That sucked. I had a lot of time to play video games and ride my motorcycle, though. I also raced with my dad for 10 years. I bought the car and paid many expenses, but I would have never been able to do what I did for so long without him owning the truck/trailer and being willing to transport it places. The wife and I found a love of travel and spent all our discretionary income that wasn't spent on racing on travel. Absolutely no regrets there. 

The wife and I started talking about getting the fuck out of Nova in our early 30s. I'd just finished grad school, that I did only because I was bored and AOL would pay 100% with giving me time off to attend. In hindsight, I got really fucking lucky that fell into my lap and I put in the work. It's helped me later on in life. She wanted to go to grad school, so we decided we'd wait until after she was done to move. Amazon emailed me about a job before she was done, so the decision was made for us. We lived on opposite coasts for two semesters so she could finish. That was a pretty terrible experience after living together for 12 years. 

At 34, I took a pay and title cut to work in HR. I did it because of the relocation package and because to weightiest company I'd worked for at that point was AOL. Seattle wasn't on our preferred cities list, but we said "fuck it, free move." I figured I could move out of HR at some point or just go to another company because I'd have Amazon on my resume. I doubled my starting pay at Amazon within the first 2-3 years, so that call paid off pretty quickly. Find a company that values and awards contribution - most of my others did not and it was maddening. My wife never worked full time again, in part because a masters in art history doesn't get you shit for real world jobs. RJ's wife and my wife were classmates in grad school. Ask him about his wife's career...

In the 7-ish years since taking that job, we bought a house (for less than our Ashburn house inflation adjusted), had a kid, and I left Amazon to work for Google. We bought a house because I'd been watching local market indicators and realized we needed to get on the gravy train or forever be fucked. I didn't actually want to own a house. We had a kid because we'd been to 20+ countries, made enough money to buy nice things, and wondered if that was it - had we lived full life by our mid-30s? We never wanted kids in Nova, but that was because of the place. Once we actually liked where we lived and our jobs, we realized we wanted to share the experience. IOW, life isn't about being miserable if you pick people, places, and a lifestyle you like. I still refused to work more than a 50 hour week as routine, even when directly asked by my manager. I told him the job facilitated my life, not the other way around. Now, I'm actively working on ways to move my family overseas on an employer's dime while making sure I'm in my kid's life as much as possible and I don't come home every day angry about something. So far, so good @ Google.

Money hasn't been tight for us for awhile, but I'm like twice your age. We weren't tight on money growing up, but it also became a way for me to lose my independence. All that is to say most every family history has fucked up parts. I got to race with my dad for 10 years, but we have not spoken in two. I tried to quit for years and he wouldn't let me. I'd try to explain how a grown man races automobiles against his will, but it's really complicated. I'd trade every single race for a "normal" relationship with him. Looking back, the things I wish I did differently all center around my lack of mobility and inability to overcome inertia in making life choices that made me happy. Basically, I lived the life that was expected or impressed upon me. I don't recommend it. Whore the shit out of your mobility now and move if you can. If you can't afford it, don't be afraid to sacrifice now by taking a less-than-ideal-job that will lead to your future mobility. It's really easy to get stuck in a job or place, so be mindful of that.

The only other thing I'd say is learn finance. Even now, I work with so many smart people are completely clueless about money. These are people making healthy six figure salaries for years who have marginal savings for retirement. They're uneducated about how best to save, what the market does, how to get the best loan terms, and whole host of other shit that most definitely impacts their financial wellbeing. You don't have to make a lot of money - you just have to make smart choices along the way. Getting lucky, like I did with Amazon's stock price, once in awhile doesn't hurt either.

Oh, and don't have too much shit. Things generally won't make you happy and too many possessions tends to weigh you down. We probably have ~40% of what we owned in our 2800 sqft place and we're better off for it. We use that money to travel.

[V1GiLaNtE]

- Costa Rica (October 2019)

nice....you'll love it.  i went for 8 days in 2010, and split it between the central rainforest and the pacific coast.  let me know if you have any questions.

Here's how I plan on doing it for 7 days.

https://www.nomadamerica.com/

[Senor_Taylor]

This thread has me feeling good about my situation graduating with student debt and not moving back in with my parents. Really makes you realize that comparing yourself to others is dangerous, especially when you don't know all of the details.

Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk

[V1GiLaNtE]

This thread has me feeling good about my situation graduating with student debt and not moving back in with my parents. Really makes you realize that comparing yourself to others is dangerous, especially when you don't know all of the details.

Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk

Yes. Take a break from social media for a month and see how you feel after it. I bet you'll stop thinking you need to buy this or do that.

[JPolen01]

This thread has me feeling good about my situation graduating with student debt and not moving back in with my parents. Really makes you realize that comparing yourself to others is dangerous, especially when you don't know all of the details.

Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk

Yes. Take a break from social media for a month and see how you feel after it. I bet you'll stop thinking you need to buy this or do that.

^^This. I recently found out a guy I follow on Instagram that I've met a handful of times doesn't even have a highschool degree. But he has a Land cruiser, e60 m5 with a built motor, mini Cooper s on te37s, Honda grom, and a rhd 318 wagon. Living the social media live courtesy of his parents. Made me chuckle. Looking at his Instagram you'd never know it's all a front.

[ScottyB]

Here's how I plan on doing it for 7 days.

that's the best way there is. we rented a 5-spd Jimny (just for transportation, not overlanding) and i adored it.

i'm sure you've done your research and you've been to other 2nd world countries so there's probably not much advice i can offer other than, if possible, learn all the spanish you can. that was my biggest regret - because most costa ricans (some call themselves "ticos") are so friendly they'll want to get to know you but most don't speak english well unless they're tour guides or taxi drivers.

pura vida!

it's all a front.

it usually is. found this out myself with certain people over the course of many years once facebook really took off.

social media can be great but also insidious. always run your own race.

[JustinG]

I wanna play.....although my shits boring.

Grad 08, bought house, married in October. Married to the person I've been dating since 11th grade. Haven't traveled the world, grew up 45 miles from my current house, but staying local is big for both of us.

Buying a house in 08 was a mistake, "the housing market isn't getting any worse" just kidding....

Job market was shit, I worked for Enterprise Rent-A-Car straight out of school making $37k, cause they offered me a job.

That lasted 9 months, then I got a job selling Incontinence supplies to home health groups in Texas over the phone. 18 months later (2010), I got fired for not meeting my sales quota.

Life sucked, not my relationship or personal life, but my career and perceived self worth. Then a turn for the better, as I was hired on as a contractor with Capital One 3 months after being let go, life was good. Then after 2 years got hired on as an associate. "Holy shit you work for Capital One that's awesome!"

Had kid in 2012. Life was great, although my career was meh. Then we decided to move where the kid should go to school at end of 2015. January 2016 we sold our house and we signed on new house, then the next week I got laid off, THE DAY BEFORE I LEAVE FOR A DISNEY VACATION. Shit got low fast.

Meanwhile, house is being built, I'm searching for jobs so we can actually afford house we just signed a contract to build. Then 30 days before close (June 2016), my wife's contacts her current, now previous, employer came through. I was interviewed and offered a job.

3 years in and I have never been happier.

I'm 34 and just got to a point to where I'm happy with my career path. I never struggled with the personal life stuff, just career.

I guess my advice is pretty lame, and I'll say don't worry, it'll work out, just do you, and 9 times outta 10 you'll come out alive.

[Steve85]

If you’re graduating on your first try at college, you’re way ahead of where I was. If you’re thinking about not graduating and don’t have a solid plan, get one. If you’re afraid to leave the comfort of what you know to go after something you’ve been dreaming about, do it, it's OK if it doesn't work out like you planned, most things won't.

I went to college immediately after graduating HS in 1990, dropped out after two years and moved back home, Olney MD. I sure as shit thought I was too cool for school. I went to a community college and got a degree in Automotive Science, read mechanic school. I also had a lot of free time and the only people left in town didn’t have much direction either. Hookers and blow without the hookers was how we passed our time.

I did pretty well in the auto program though and landed an internship (paid) at Land Rover North America working on the executive fleet and the training fleet vehicles. Pretty sweet gig until BMW decided to buy LR and the MD HQ was going away. I met a guy that owned a bunch of dealerships in L.A. and he brought me on as a Service Writer. I moved out to L.A. which ended up being horrible for my habit that was getting worse. After about a year, I lost my job as a writer but they let me stay as a mechanic. A few months later, they let me go from that too. It took me a month to tell my parents. Rock bottom, mid 20's, no real friends, 3000 miles from home, no job, no future if I keep on this path.

I moved back east to my parents and got clean. They had retired and moved to Bryce Resort while I was in CA so I wasn’t around any of my old friends which helped a lot. I worked at the resort in the golf shop and ski rental shop. I was 26 and making 7.50 an hour despite every opportunity one could ask for. After a few months, I moved out of the parents’ house and into a 300/mo studio condo at the resort. Mom was like, we love you, but we are retired and you need to GTFO.

Then I met a girl and we got along pretty OK so we decided to get married. She was 7 yrs removed from a divorce and had two girls 8 and 12. She was a paralegal living in Arlington and working in Annapolis for an application service provider (USi). Between salary and alimony she was pulling about 90K. The problem was for years immediately after her divorce she was making less than 40K in Arlington with two kids and had some loans to make ends meet.
 
I got a job at a Chevy dealer about 30 minutes from Annapolis in Howard County, MD and we bought a place in Millersville, MD that was just about between the two. I was making either 17 or 19/hr as a flat rate tech, mostly struggling to record 40 hrs since the new guy gets a lot of warranty work.
 
After a couple years, her company went from going public during the dotcom heyday to getting delisted and bought by AT&T who wasn’t going to need the old company’s in-house legal team anymore. I was tired of working on cars and had started back at community college getting my math skills back preparing for either engineering or finance.  I could go anywhere but wasn’t the breadwinner, and we needed to be within x miles of the girls dad. My wife landed a new job, new career path, in Leesburg (paying 30K/yr less) so we ended up in Winchester. I continued at Lord Fairfax Community College and kept a solid GPA to get automatically accepted at JMU.

My wife excelled in her new role as a corporate insurance broker and was pretty quickly getting closer to where she was. I was commuting to JMU for a finance degree. In order to get through quickly I ended up taking COB 300 as a summer class instead of doing an internship which I think hurt when it came time to find a job but oh well.
I graduated with a very solid GPA but struggled to find anything commutable from Winchester, first job was in a NFCU branch making about 33K, I was 35. I was applying all over the place and then got a call about a year later out of the blue from a small IT integration company Apptis, looking for a proposal pricer. Didn’t know what that was but it was just close enough (55 miles each way) and I knew it was a stepping stone. Came on board at 42K, yay for my salary exceeding my age!

I worked hard to learn this govt contracting stuff and my boss really appreciated some of the excel tricks I brought that made his job easier. He was generous with promotion and merit increases. It was a 1500 person company until we were bought by a 50K person engineering and infrastructure firm, URS. Working from home became more of a thing with new management especially since the CEO wasn’t literally down the hall anymore. The proposals got a lot bigger and more complex so pay quickly rose as well. URS was bought by another similar firm, AECOM, of equal size. I just passed ten years with the company and have no real reason to leave. I recently took on a new role in Price-to-Win so they continue to support my growth and desire to try new things.

I guess the lesson here is; if you have your heart set on something, go for it. Because, if it ends up not being right for you, you can change paths. I did, with little to go on and was a complete fucking mess when I started over. My wife has had to reassess and restart 3 or 4 times now and does quite well now.  Don’t waste your time “settling” or waiting in hopes you’ll figure it all out or the perfect path is going to become clear. If you really want to be in CO, go. VA will still be here if CO is not a good fit and you’ll learn a lot about yourself, it’s important to do that.

We are probably spending more of our income than we should right now relative to saving. But the girls are now 26 and 30..it goes..so fast. We are blessed that our teenage boys still like hanging out with us so we do shit together and some of it is expensive. But in four years, they are in college and moving on with their own lives as they should. I’ll sacrifice a few latte’s during retirement to have this fun now. 

I guess it all looks honky dory on social media, but I just assume my long distance friends are dealing with or have dealt with, the same shit that sometimes makes life suck a little bit. I know the local ones do, we talk about it all the time. I go back and forth on sharing the things that were/are really hard, will it help someone else? Is it right for me to put it all out there without permission from an adult child? And yeah, I'm still ashamed and embarrassed by some of the things I really screwed up in my life so I guess I'm lucky most of it happened before social media. I doubt I would have shared the shit show part, maybe I will soon.