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Home > Wow, when did that happen?

Wow, when did that happen?

December 19th, 2008 at 04:52 pm

So we were estimating our taxes and my DH to help me with this, grabs todays paystub offline and sends it to me. It seems that my estimation of his income was off by about 10k for the gross. As, once upon a time, this was more than I made in a year, failing to notice this is rather remarkable to me.

Part of the issue is that he has a 401(k) and the other part is that he actually pays money for his medical and other benefits. He also has been gaining income so quickly that last year's income is no predictor of the this years.

I have to say though, this is a little weird for me. My family at one point was living on less than 23k. Heck, when we first got married, we were living on 20k. We just brought in 87k and I already know that next year another 3.5k can be added to my side of the equation. Mind you, he will be getting some schooling in next year and may switch jobs but the likelihood of his income going down isn't very high without some serious unemployment time. And for that matter, my job is fairly secure and my job prospects are good as well.

It just seems bizarre to me that we have done this well for ourselves. I suppose its not as big an issue for my DH because his family has always been very successful but I am used to being the poor relations (no, no one ever treated me poorly, I just was definitely the poorest person I knew).

Even to this day, I can tell the people who grew up with money versus people like me by what they say and how they react to certain things. I am pretty sure I have even met more than a few self-made millionaires (I work in estate planning) who have shared my shock at something that was said. Once you have that background, it just kind of stays with you that you could always survive at that level again if you had to.

Sorry for the musing, every once in awhile I look back at where I have come from and the journey here and wonder how the heck I made it. Since I don't know a lot of people personally with the same background (or rather that made it after the same background), this is really the only place I can muse about it.

Posted in Musings | 7 Comments »

7 Responses to “Wow, when did that happen?”

  1. creditcardfree Says:
    December 19th, 2008 at 04:56 pm 1229705803
    1229705803

    Yep...we lived on about $20K when we were first married, too. We've move up and are near $90K now...such a different place. One we are very grateful for.

  2. merch Says:
    December 19th, 2008 at 05:21 pm 1229707316
    1229707316

    Congrats on your journey so far. A lot of it is still ahead.

  3. Ima saver Says:
    December 19th, 2008 at 05:40 pm 1229708415
    1229708415

    I can understand you completely, when I married dh, we were living on about $12,000 a year and did just fine. Now I go to parties with women that spend that much on their hair and nails in a year.

  4. disneysteve Says:
    December 19th, 2008 at 06:42 pm 1229712151
    1229712151

    Totally understand. I earned more in my first year in practice than my father ever made in his career and now I make nearly twice as much as that. She has never said anything, but I think occasionally my mother is suprised by what we'll spend for certain things, but she's never made that much money and doesn't see that we can splurge on something and still be living well below our means and saving over 20% of income. The key is to always appreciate what you've got and to always live on less than you make and save for the future and for emergencies.

  5. Joan.of.the.Arch Says:
    December 19th, 2008 at 08:22 pm 1229718139
    1229718139

    I so identify with your blog entry-- from coming from little, to being surprised one year at how much my spouse really makes. I have never been able to entirely shake the fear and anxiety of poverty, though it is well behind me. Those feelings serve me well in some ways, but also have held me back in some ways, I think.

  6. pretty cheap jewelry Says:
    December 19th, 2008 at 09:47 pm 1229723276
    1229723276

    Interesting and very good comments as well! Coming from a family of 4 kids with one working parent, it would be hard to travel back in time. And my DH with a single mom, she let him keep the change they saved from grocery coupons for spending money!

    And supporting myself through college, classes 3 quarters/work 1 quarter. For a year, then repeat. How did I do it? Well, I remember. Could my kids do that? Maybe I don't want them to. Although they'll have to take some ownership of their education, they can also have a less pressurized experience than I did.

    thx for the good post

  7. Ms. Pearl Says:
    December 19th, 2008 at 09:52 pm 1229723554
    1229723554

    My husband and I lived with my grandparents so we could go to school. We had no money. Thank God for that in the beginning though. Without my grandparents we would have probably been stuck with bad jobs trying to struggle to finish school. My husband came from a poor family of 5 kids. I was an only child, my mom was pretty poor but I didn't notice it because my grandparents were always able to help out.

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