(Happy Throwback Thursday, everyone! This article originally ran on July 3, 2015. Its sentiments are as valid to me today as they were back then.)
Here’s today’s neologism, and it’s a great one: “pre-solvent.” It comes from a comment on a Money Talks News article called “The real reason Americans struggle to save.”
The article cited a couple of surveys that put the fault not in our stars, but in our cards: “Lifestyle spending” and “lack of financial discipline” kept anywhere from 44 to 71 percent of respondents living paycheck to paycheck and/or prevented them from achieving financial goals.
I’d like to point out that underemployment, lack of education and impossible-to-pay medical bills can also hinder the ability to save. But I agree that the “buy now, figure out how to pay for it later” attitude is definitely nudging some folks toward insolvency.
Which brings us to pre-solvency. A commenter named “Y2K Jillian” writes that she and her husband lived paycheck to paycheck for years and loathed the lifestyle. But change happened.
How? “Gradually, gradually.” Which is how I’d bet it happens for a lot of people.
Some of those gradual steps:
- Halting credit card use and paying off existing consumer debt via the “debt snowball” method
- Joining the company 401k (starting with the exact minimum for matching funds, and slowly upping the contribution)
- Putting more into savings
- Keeping a vehicle for 20 years, then paying cash for a newer-model used car
- Paying extra on the mortgage, finishing just as they retired (early)
You may be thinking, “It must be nice to be able to save for retirement, pay off a mortgage and buy a car for cash.” And you’d be right. Sort of.
Although some people are mired in the issues I noted above, others are yoked to that lifestyle spending/lack of discipline — which means they’re not just mired, but slowly sinking. You can’t get ahead if you spend every dime.
But it’s amazing how much money you find in the budget once you’re not eating out four or five times a week, or buying new stuff when the old stuff still works, or doing just about anything without a clear idea of how you’ll pay for it and still be able to save for a rainy day.
‘Our time was worth far more’
About that last: Sure, it’s frustrating when old poops like your grandparents (and me!) harp on the need to be ready for life’s inevitable precipitation.
But if you let lack of discipline keep you from thinking ahead, then you need to accept responsibility for the day when you’re suddenly soaked and have no financial umbrella.
Part of that preparation, by the way, involves steeling yourself for name-calling.
“Funny how many people we know were disparaging about our ‘cheapness’ and ‘poverty.’ We never felt poor, we felt like we were pre-solvent,” Y2K Jillian says.
“We had agreed years ago that our time was worth far more than gadgets and toys.”
(Hey, me too! See “Surviving (and thriving) on $12k a year: The reboot” for more on that.)
Now that they’re retired, she and her husband are still living below their means, and happily: “Just the other day, we picked up some things at the Dollar Tree, and I said, ‘You know, I wouldn’t buy these things at a regular store if I had $10,000,000 in the bank right now.’ And I meant it.”
I’ve often preachified against trying to keep up with the Joneses, especially since they might be up to their hairlines in debt trying to keep up with the Smiths. Or maybe they’re just trying to prove something to themselves: Look at the great life we have! Everybody envies us! (Even though we have chronic anxiety about making minimum payments.)
Time to grow up
I understand that eating out is the new normal, and that people want to have fun while they’re young, and that 24/7 shopping online is a huge temptation.
I’m not saying that you shouldn’t enjoy life. That’s part of why we work: to get the things that make us happy. What’s essential is that those things be part of a workable budget, i.e., one that lets you have fun while saving for the near and not-so-near future. That way you can pay for car repairs from an emergency fund vs. putting it on plastic.
That financial self-discipline lets you can also enjoy life later on, vs. struggling to get by with Social Security plus whatever amount you set aside (if you did).
Taking charge of your finances doesn’t have to be onerous. Think of it as just one more thing that grownups do. We at least attempt to eat right, exercise, pay our bills on time, raise our kids/care for pets properly, donate to the needy and, yeah, have a little fun. But we do it with money that’s in hand vs. plasticizing our pleasures.
They say you should create the change you wish to see in the world. Allow me to tack on another adage: “Charity begins at home.” Get mindful about your money and you’ll create the change you wish to see in your own life.
Readers: Do you ever get teased/derided for being careful with money? And do you ever get the feeling that the people doing the criticizing are going to be in trouble later on?
Related reading:
- Is it ever too late to start saving?
- Things I no longer buy
- Wealthy people think you could live on less
- Can’t get ahead? Try a “savings challenge”
The only one who comes close is our 20-something son, the one who’s drooling over the Apple Watch. Most of our friends have been through the same trials we have. I keep reminding myself of something a friend with older kids recently said, “You’re only a couple of years away from being smart again.”
I love this remark. Thanks for sharing it.
Tina’s remark reminds me of something that I once heard (possibly attributed to Mark Twain): When he was 14, he thought his father was a fool. When he was 21 he was surprised at how much his father had learned in only 7 years.
I certainly have found that to be true with my own adult children–now that they are in their 30s & 40s they ask me for advice that they never would have sought when they were in their teens or 20s, because what could I possibly know?
I do think that people wonder at my spending habits, or lack thereof. Yet I know that my savings are growing when I hear my coworkers bemoan their bank accounts. The same is probably true for the eccentricities of well off people, generally to stay that way they also have their priorities.
Live the life you want and let others live theirs. Of course, if any of them ask for advice you can give it.
As usual, Donna, your article struck a chord with me. I used to get teased about being careful with money until I started sharing pictures of the fab vacations we enjoy. Fortunately I was able to find a part time job that allows me to eat meals out which is the main indulgence I haven’t been able to give up. My husband was teasing me about it until I started bringing him leftovers. He’s chowing down on some of those leftovers now! I like the idea of pre-solvent. I remember those days myself. Being solvent totally rocks!
With us it was my husband’s brother. He had a larger house and a $50,000 pick up truck. He and his wife constantly let us know they had more money than us. But they didn’t. They just had more expensive stuff.
Now we are all retired and we travel around the world yearly, while they are struggling. I would struggle against the urge to literally thumb my nose, but we don’t see them any more. 😀
I can understand the impulse, but probably it’s best to take the high road here. As in, “We had nothing to prove to you then, and our current happy life now speaks for itself.”
Then again, people who blow through available funds tend to use phrases like “It must be nice!” or talk about how “lucky” you are. Nope, just prudent.
Sometimes living well really IS the best revenge.
The beauty of becoming solvent, something to spur on those who are pre-solvent, is taking advantage of TIME, as in compounding ones’ savings through time and interest earned on those savings/investments.
My favorite comment these days is “It is a different life these days, I need a ….” ( usually upgraded cell phone, better car etc”) . The other thing I notice these days (“these days…sheesh I sound old”) is the use of credit cards to build credit. I have kids in the mindset that in order to build credit “for the future” they need to put everything on plastic. This is excellent marketing by credit card companies, I must say.
The other comment I get alot around our frugal ways is “I work hard so I DESERVE blah, blah, blah”. Indeed you do but you will also be working hard to pay it off. I guess this is why when I tell friends and family I am about to take an endless road trip for fun with my hubby, kid and dog the usual response is “I wish I could do that” or “I am so jealous”. We worked hard like everyone else and the reason we can do it is we saved hard and this is one of the rewards.
When people say stuff like “it must be nice,” it sets my teeth on edge. If I have things it’s because I did without other things in order to pay cash. Gaaahhh….
Bravo for you for figuring out what you wanted — and what you don’t really need.
Thanks for reading, and for leaving a comment.
When people say “it must be nice . . . ” to me, I reply, “Yes, it is! That’s why I worked so hard for it.” Then I grin from ear to ear and walk away.
=)
Niiiice.
I had a boss one time who was on the phone with her remodelers all the time about the high-end kitchen she was getting installed. When I quit, she said “it must be nice being able to afford not to work!”
And the thing was, it was! I bet her kitchen was nice, but I really enjoyed not feeling stuck in my job.
There’s a lot to be said for not being stuck. (Ask me how I know.)
I think of it as the old Amy D. thinking – by doing this myself I am making X amt. of dollars per hour. I also feel that young adults had everything in their parents home: multiple tvs, cell phones paid for, comfy bedroom, their car insurance paid for, etc. that makes young adults reluctant to move out on their own. Then there is the Millionaire Next Door chapter about “outpatient financial assistance” or close to that. Parents giving their adult children money and the adult children just assume they will get it and spend their own money on “stuff”. People on the school playground back in the day thought I was so “lucky” to be a sahm. Not lucky, I worked for it. Thank God for Amy D.
I got a copy of “The Tightwad Gazette II” at a yard sale for 50 cents. Amy would approve.
And I’m with you on the lifestyle-to-which-they’ve-become-accustomed thing: When people move out on their own it can be a shock just to see how much it costs to buy dishes, a broom and toilet paper, let alone high-end phones and wi-fi and other modern “essentials.” It can be easy to fall into debt for the things you think you need.
It’s a dangerous thing to assume your parents want to subsidize your lifestyle.
It’s great to be 65, own everything outright, and realize that one doesn’t need stuff to be happy. I seem to be the envy of my friends!
Looking back, I never seemed to the outside world that I was cheap. I used the in/out method of stuff, I drove nice but older cars, I had five smashing outfits for work and a couple of leisure wear outfits for weekends, I used coupons and shopped sales, and never, ever paid full price.
My daughter made an odd comment once. She claimed that a friend must be rich because she had 5 VCRs and we only had one. Hmm. We lived in a nice middle class neighborhood and her friend’s family lived in a rent-subsidized apartment in a lower class area.
Thankfully she is now more like me and watches her money carefully. She has learned that to do so is empowering.
I love the comment by Vicki, “the reason we can do it is we saved hard”. I too have saved hard and had to defend my savings against all threats, foreign (extended family members, sales people) and domestic (my family). It takes a lot of time and large and small repetitive sacrifices to save money. And once you have savings, those who didn’t work hard to save want at it.
I prefer the company of frugal people. They understand the value of two years free community college and don’t tell me I am short changing my daughter. College is for education, not a life experience and debt stinks.
Sorry Cathy gonna disagree with the college outlook. Sent both my DD’s to 4 year schools where they worked hard, earned their degrees in 4 years and thanks to their “4 year college experience”(IMHO) are doing well in their chosen professions. In this neck of the woods I can’t count the number of kids who went to Community College only to find that their credits did not transfer AND it took them 5-6-7 years to get their degrees IF they finished. NOPE…I’ll live with holey socks, discounted meat and old cars so that my kids could get a good education with no debt when they came out….
Well it is two years later and my daughter is signed up for community college. We have very carefully checked with the 4 year university about what will transfer and have planned her schedule to make a good transition. If you don’t work upfront with both schools you can easily make schedule errors and have to spend 5-7 years getting a 4 year degree. She qualifies for American Honors at the community college which increases the number of classes that transfer. She is going to live home and the goal is to get her a good education with zero debt at graduation. Then we will think about the Master’s degree strategy:)
Congratulations to your daughter on her graduation and her entry into higher education.
I don’t remember anyone making fun, though to be fair most of our friends have been through similar financial straits and understand frugal living.
But when I left my job to attend community college full-time in 2005, at age 35, I got a lot of envious comments from my mostly 20-something classmates. “You are so lucky!” and “I wish I didn’t have to work and go to school!” Well, I was lucky to be able to do that. But the same people also talked about their dinners out and movies, their new laptops and vehicles, the vacations they were going to take. I didn’t talk about eating all our meals at home, treating the kids to the dollar menu once or twice a month as something really special. I didn’t mention our older vehicles and computers, or dropping my son off to school and parking at the college to read my assignments because I didn’t have gas money to go home for that hour. I didn’t bring up my well-worn wardrobe, mostly gifts or thrift store finds.
I didn’t envy them their lifestyles (well, maybe a little…) but I was annoyed that they attributed mine to luck instead of choice, and seemed oblivious to the sacrifices our family made inorder to support our choice.
One of the books that was a “kick in the head” when I was younger was the Millionaire Next Door. DH and I soon decided we wanted to be the “stealth millionaires next door,” because we didn’t want to deal with the envy. We’ve been careful, hardworking, and lucky. We’re close and hoping not to screw that up as we near retirement age.
The other most important book financially for us was “Your Money or Your Life.” The idea that our purchases could be measured in our life hours made me very frugal with spending AND working. Financial independence is where it’s at. Again, close . . .
Thanks for the reminders to think about these things. I’m teaching my kids that debt sucks and savings equals choices. I’m sure they’ll experiment with the “dark side” of trying to buy enough stuff to be cool a few times before they realize that we’re right, same as I did.
What a timely article….A couple of month’s back I was complimenting my neighbor on his new truck purchase. As my truck is approaching it’s 13th B-day and I WAS considering a new truck I inquired as to the price he paid….His reply…”mid $30’s”…”a good deal”…YIKES! Fast forward a bit and just caught up with the same neighbor who shared that he’s …”beat” as he has taken a part time job to make ends meet…aka…make the new truck payment. I’m thinking some repairs to my truck should make it last another 13 years…MAN …”mid $30’s”… my first house was $41K… and had 2 apartments!
I’d be willing to work extra for an emergency or for some really big goal such as rental property or paying down debt. But to take on extra work just to get a nicer truck is not in my worldview.
To each his own, except…will he be too tired to appreciate the vehicle? Will he consider it worth the trade-off, i.e., hot wheels vs. overall quality of life?
I’ve had the same trusty automobile for 17 years, and like it: 360K miles and going strong. Until new cars become much more fuel efficient, I’m keeping my current car.
It is amazing the cost of new cars. I have upgrade cars every 3 years since I started driving. I currently have a car with 36K miles and 10 more payments…plans have changed and I am driving this for another 4 years to put that car payment into my retirement accounts. I love the fact that yours is 13 years old and you are still driving it…maybe my 8 year goal isn’t to short!
Is to short!!!
Funny to see what your plans were a few years back 🙂 I ended up paying off that car and helped my son by selling it to him for $5K and I went and got the new car. I put myself into a nicer car and took out a 4 year loan. I really felt that I could make the payments easier on a new car than he could at this point in his life. My goal is to keep this car for the next 8 years…only two more to pay and then drive it until it drops. We will see what happens….
That was a kind thing to do for your son — and I expect you can drive it for another eight years.
Thanks for weighing in on your previous comment. It is interesting to look back, isn’t it?
I don’t know that I’ve ever been teased about frugality. My mom looks askance when I mention that I shop at Goodwill, but she doesn’t say anything. I’ve gotten a couple of “It must be nice” comments from neighbors but I just look at them and say that I’ve saved and earned my way into everything that I own (in my neighborhood, it is rare for a single woman to own one of the units).
I have kind of the opposite problem, though. So many people my age, as you state, are just living on the edge and I’m extremely worried about their future. I just grit my teeth when they talk about “I bought this” or “I’ll just put this on the credit card” and hope that when they are ready to make a change, they know to come to me for advice…
…and you’ll be ready to give it, i.e., you’re leading by example. The question is, will they be ready to hear it? Or do they think you have some magic formula or two simple steps to make everything all better?
Being careful with your money is simple but, as SonyaAnn points out elsewhere in the comments, it isn’t easy.
Good for you for paying your way — and for letting people know that nobody did this for you except you.
We’re just really lucky that what is living just within (or sometimes just over) a lot of our neighbors’ means is well within ours. We’d be doing OK on half as much money because we do have frugal tastes and habits, but I know a lot of people who get by on half of *that* and it’s really difficult. What we do is easy.
And it really is just luck. We’re all one bad illness or accident away from being low or no income.
Great post!
We still scrimp and save. We have worked hard not to have credit card debt and use them only for the miles. We are in the thick of it now(saving for retirement) and it is getting old. Sorry to say. We have an emergency fund. WOuld I like it to be more, sure but there are other things to pay. We pay way extra on the house and max out Den’s 401k. It has been tight for years. I see everyone moving up and I feel left behind. I know a frugal soul isn’t supposed to say that but boy does that fresh new house smell entice you. Den and I had a talk and we realized that if he quit putting money in his 401k and we put it towards a new house, we too could swing it. And then the new house didn’t seem so great. When would he have the money to retire? Never. Maybe it didn’t smell so great. I’m sure that when Den can retire we will be so grateful to our younger selves but the struggle sucks. Ok I feel better that I got to vent.
Hey, sometimes you get irritated seeing the goodies everyone else seems to have. Knowing that you could have them but are choosing not to is some comfort.
Or so I keep telling myself. 😉
But seriously: I think you and I are both pretty happy people, except that sometimes we wish we could fly somewhere on a whim/buy a car instead of fixing the current one/treat our loved ones to something startling. We get over it, eventually. “Frugal fatigue” is sort of like a 24-hour virus: awful while it’s here, hard to remember in a week.
Recently divorced I had to pay to keep my house. Fortunately, because I had reduced the time of the first mortgage I could afford the second. Still it angers me that I made all those sacrifices to help someone who stole from me to begin with. Now, I am saving, but not as much as I would like. I loaned some money to my daughter, but I am happy to know she will pay it back, she always has in the past. Thinking of putting a new apartment in my house which is too big for us now. However, I’m having trouble finding decent workmen, i.e. reasonably priced and not drunk or crazy. I worry about retiring alone. My daughters assures me I will not be alone. I never wanted to depend on my children. Hopefully I wont have to.
I’m sorry you had to go through all that. Have you considered sharing the home with other women? According to the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), 4 million women over the age of 50 live in households with two or more women of the same age group.
This article from the AARP describes the pros and cons of such a decision:
http://www.aarp.org/home-family/your-home/info-05-2013/older-women-roommates-house-sharing.html
Great post (as always!) – I appreciate the encouragement it gives to those of us who “save where I can so I can spend where I want” (my favorite retort whenever someone bugs me about being frugal). Being called lucky also sets my teeth on edge, because luck has very little to do with it. It comes down to choices, big and small, on where you spend your time and money. And when the “stuff” hits the fan, as it does for everyone at one time or another, being frugal gives you the ability to ride it out, even if it’s just the skills you have to make do with less.
I think there is some luck involved and that it is important to remember that when we are engaging in self-congratulations. Luck to be born with a certain level of intelligence, luck not to have a major mental illness that makes every day a nightmare, luck to have someone who instilled a good work ethic in you, luck to be literate and thus have some choices in jobs…No one makes it alone. No one.
I agree:
http://donnafreedman.com/if-youre-so-smart-why-arent-you-rich/
Amen!
Amy D. really helped me too, although my kids were almost grown at the time. We had always tried to live below our means,but had ongoing credit card debt, installment loans, etc. I started paying off our debts using the “snowball method” and within a year we were debt free. Now we have no debts, a paid for house and car. We have had a few breaks along the way which has helped a lot. BTW, my granddaughter and her husband are the most frugal people I know!! They have a young family and are determined to stay out of debt-learned from the mistakes of some of the parents! We gave them a money management book for a wedding present, they actually read it:).
I’m feeling a little frugal fatigue right now, and we’re not even that frugal. 🙂 We’ve been living in a pricey centrally-located apartment for 13 years. The “frugal” part is that we have not had long commutes, so our auto expenses have been much lower than those of most people we work with, and we’ve been in the apartment so long that the rent is about 60% of market. We don’t eat out very often, we hardly ever travel, we drive older cars (2005 Matrix and 2010 Insight), we rarely avail ourselves of the countless enticing, but expensive, activities in our big city.
Nevertheless, we are moving this summer, because the last rent increase took us over what we were willing to pay for the living experience (not great). Our savings are not what they should be at 51 and 57. It’s been a long time since I made a decision about something to do without considering the cost. In the big scheme we are rich: I can go to the grocery store and buy whatever I want. But on the personal level, there is an ever-growing list of things I’ve said no to, and I’m tired.
Practicality can be a bitch.
I have a friend who still sneers at the word “budget”. For years if I have said things like “well, I’d like to buy that but it’s not in my budget right now” I’ve gotten laughed at. Her mindset is that only people who don’t have any money are on a budget.
She has no savings. I have a feeling I will have the last laugh.
We have always been careful with money and are now retired. We can barely make it because of fixed income and rising prices, and I wonder how others are making it. We can’t always assume people manage their money badly when they struggle. People find themselves in difficult situations all the time that they have had no control over. Try to act financially superior to the single mom trying to hold it all together. She knows more about how to make a dollar holler for mercy than you ever will.
Hey, I used to be that single mom trying to hold it all together. I was so broke I did all our laundry (including diapers) on a scrub-board in the kitchen sink after working all day, and we lived mostly on oatmeal, spaghetti and Great Northern beans.
It’s absolutely true that some people wind up broke for complicated reasons. As I point out in Your Playbook For Tough Times:
“The financial advice from ivory towers – and sometimes even from popular bloggers – too often has the same underpinnings:
If you’re in money trouble it’s probably your own damn fault.
You must be shiftless and/or stupid.
But you can fix things by cutting back on lattes/selling toys/getting a side hustle/using the envelope system.
“Those last few suggestions aren’t bad advice as such. Yet core issues like being born into poverty and/or an economically depressed region, stagnant salaries, lack of education (or its opposite, high student loan repayments), tax increases and health problems can’t be solved with a handful of coupons and a brown-bag lunch.
“And even if you did make some poor financial choices, what difference does that make now? Self-recrimination won’t get you anywhere. It just plants you more firmly where you are, i.e., mired in fear and self-loathing.
“Or maybe you were left holding the bag due to divorce, job loss or serious illness. Believe me: I know just how much that stinks. But unless your fairy godmother drops off a winning Powerball ticket, you have to play the hand you were dealt.
“During my own difficult times I’d sometimes wonder, “Why me?” Ultimately I realized the answer was, “Why not me?” Stuff happens. Life happens. It’s not personal. Maybe it’s unfair, but it’s not personal. So I worked to fix what I could and made my peace with the rest of it.”
I am very concerned about people who planned the best they could for retirement, only to have a wild card wreck everything — or to be nibbled to death by rising prices, tax increases and such. Heck, I might become one of them, too. Plenty of folks who think they have the money in place might be knocked flat by a major illness or an act of God.
Thanks for reading, and for leaving a comment.
Once you finally decide you don’t want to live your life this way anymore and you are going to take charge of your finances and spending, it can be tough when it seems like the rest of the world is out having fun while you’re at home being sensible. But once in a great while something happens that puts it all in perspective. Like when your endlessly extravagant sister tells your Mother she’ll have to talk to her “rich daughter” about that – and she means you! Whoa! When the heck did that happen? I must have been out shopping at goodwill and missed it:)
Hope it was half-price day at Goodwill when that happened. 😉
Now: Here’s hoping you don’t one day have to have “the talk” with your endlessly extravagant sis. You know, the one that includes the phrase, “I’m afraid I can’t help you without jeopardizing my own retirement.”
Of course, you can help with stuff like the names of pertinent PF websites (like this one!), titles of books to borrow from the library and a chance to shadow you while you live a perfectly satisfying yet frugal life.
And I agree that while it seems the rest of the world is having fun, we can learn to find fun in different places.
Thanks for reading, and for leaving a comment.
My husband and I are the most frugal in both our families and it never really bothered me until last year when my sister and mom started pressuring us to take the kids to Disney World before they get too old (my daughters are 5 and 8). We had planned on going within a couple of years, but since we live on one income it takes awhile to save up for something that we considered an extravagence, but apparently my family thinks it is a necessity. My sister’s family has been there twice (her two boys are 5 and 2) and they are going again this summer without the kids. They live on one income as well, but my brother in law is able to work overtime often and that is how they pay for it. I’m not sure how much they save, but I’m pretty sure we have them beat in retirement and emergency savings after the looks I got when I told them “although we have this X amount in the bank, we wouldn’t feel comfortable using our savings to fund our vacation” after they suggested we use our emergency savings to pay for the trip. My parents then offered us a loan so we could go this year. A loan for a vacation??? My parents saved their money when we were young and now have a comfortable retirement, of which I am happy and thankful for, but the thought that a Disney vacation is that important seems skewed to me.
Seems pretty skewed to me, too — and what you and your husband are doing sounds pretty smart.
Keep doing what works for you and to heck with the naysayers.
Hi Emily, If it gives you a little support, we saved for seven years to take our three children to Disney! We started saving when our youngest was one. As we saved for so long, we were able to rent a house and a car for three weeks and it was a magical time. As our children were a little older (8, 12 and 16) they fully appreciated the holiday and we still talk about it now. Do not be pressured into going until you are ready and your kids will remember it.
What Jo said! And thanks for sharing your experience, Jo.
When I divorced, I met other single women who convinced me to join a church singles group. I did. It all involved around spending money. Going out to eat or going to Chattanooga for the weekend and renting cabins and eating out all the time were beyond my means. Eventually, some told me I was unfriendly, a snob, and not fun. Well, no, I had bills to pay. Every last one of those women had multiple marriages after that and many lost their homes gotten from their marriage. Not one of them except me went to university.
I was exhausted after five solid years of driving to university every semester, mini term, and special classes, so I took a year off and got a menial job to relax my body and brain. I did enroll in a local junior college in an interior design class. One of the students yelled at me because I was just lucky that I took Latin in hs and knew what “bipedal” meant. She hurled these accusations at me all the time. I was bullied every day in class and the instructor just laughed!
When the year was up, I just went back into my program at the university. One day, about three years later, I met this woman hanging onto her bartender bf. She proceeded to tell me she had finished the interior design course, but bartended as well as doing design projects. Then, with her superior tone, she asked me what I had done after I dropped out. She expected bad news from the loser who dropped out, in her opinion.
You should have seen her face as I told her I had gone on and gotten the Masters degree and had taught for a junior college and worked on a federal research project. The woman could barely swallow, but when she did, she was speechless except for “oh” and left looking defeated.
Her lifestyle and attitudes destined her for failure. Oh, she decorated with the ducks with blue ribbons around their necks, not exactly a high “designer” look.
No, through the years I have not been able to afford trips, lots of fancy restaurants that my friends tell me about, and I am now driving a 17-yr-old car that is in good shape still because I take care of it. I never buy trendy clothes. I have clothes that are 30-yrs-old and do not look dated. I have China, silverware, and crystal. But, I have never had the latest phone. I have tools for gardening, a lawnmower, dehydrator, breadmaker, lots of things for yard and house. However, I never buy gadgets that soon become obsolete. Oh, my two expensive 100-foot garden hoses are 30 years old. I did pay lots, but people buy cheap hoses every year and have spent much more than I.
I have been this way since I was a child!