It is difficult to remember how you once made it on a previous salary amount. At the end of this past year I took a percentage decrease in my salary in order to remain employed. Yes the times are that bad. If you are insulated from the turmoil that is this economy, count yourself very lucky, I face it every morning and it makes going to the office very difficult.
At the same time I am realizing that I have no clue how I made it on less money. I have to figure this out rather quickly or face a deficit of my own, and unlike the State or Federal government, I can’t simply borrow or print my way through it.
Of course, at the same time as my salary is going down, expenses are going up. Imagine my dilemma. On top of this, I am loosing weight, which is a good thing, but it also will eventually require new clothes. And so the choices arise.
I had just, in the past 12 months, reached a place where I felt I could live a little. I wasn’t worried every time a bill showed up. I didn’t hesitate to go to the market. I would go buy a new pair of pants or a new pair of shoes or a new shirt and not worry about it. And now, here I am, back to feeling like I can’t do anything without fretting over it.
So now I have to go back and constantly ask myself the question, do I really need that? Can that wait until later?
It is difficult not to look to Washington DC and say, thanks Bushy. Thanks for taking the stable life I knew and turning it into kayos. But that, while true to a point, is an oversimplification of the truth. If rather than simply spending as it came, I had been putting away a little I might not be in the tight condition I’m in, so I must take some responsibility. Of course Bushy has ruined the overall US economy, that is clear, but my own pain is somewhat of my own creation.
It’s tough learning life lessons at age 46.
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