How broke AM I?

I am uncomfortable with our finances. Does that mean we are destitute? No. I know there is still a rock bottom below us. Does that give me any comfort? Not in the least. So where does that leave us?

Well, we rent our apartment. We do own one car, but I did have to take a loan out on my 401(k) to pay it off. This wouldn’t be so bad if my income wasn’t the only one coming in. On my tax return we brought in $75,000. However, if you look closely, only $46,000 of that was actual money moving to our bank. How can that be? Well taxes took about $10,000 and the rest were employee perks. Now I am not complaining at all about these perks. My work is great to their employees, but a lot of the benefits come in ways of restricted gift certificates and taxed reimbursements. They do bring a good tax return once a year but that don’t help with the daily bills the rest of the year.

What else do we have? Well, when there were two incomes that gave us the freedom to buy wants and think about our financial future. So, I began investing in the stock market for both my company and other companies while having a growing savings to potentially use for emergencies and maybe a down payment for a house. A few years later we have only one income but nothing else has shrunk. We still have some stocks, but the savings is down to $3000, and our credit cards now have standing debit on them when they were paid in full before.

Is any of this mean we are poor? By comparison to where the poverty line is, of course not. We are still paying our bills, for now. We still have a buffer though I have had to cut back from investing in our future to save us in the present. In my mind I worry that all I am doing is scooping out water with my teacup as the boat we are standing in is filling up with buckets of water.

This all brings in anxiety from a childhood where my family was kept afloat for a while by my grandparents who took pity on their grandchildren when their parents couldn’t make ends meet. Even then looking back we weren’t totally penniless but that doesn’t mean money wasn’t a constant presence and need. This caused feelings of uncertainty of what we could do today not always being the same the next day.

I learned to just spend any money we had because we lived by the thought that by doing so, we at least gained a little bit of happiness now. Besides the telephone bill was still going to bounce because it cost us $100, and we were spending the last $40 we had for that fleeting moment of joy right then. Again, not to say we are at that point, but I can feel that mentality creeping in when I make quick decisions which I dread will end up sinking our boat even quicker.  

Changes must happen or else we might as well put on our life preservers. But first we must find the holes in the boat…….