The horrors of MTV Cribs

[M]

Best of all I have a partner who is a soul mate like I never had before, and she is a... I won't bore you with more gloating

No need... we've seen the pics.....

[Bella Fortuna]

I know how you feel, Dev... when I was married and had combined earnings we were doing quite well - not extravagant but certainly comfortable and able to have a cushion for emergencies or a bit of extra indulgence in a holiday or hobby or something... yet I was miserable (even if for totally unrelated reasons to finances).

Now I'm single, and making more money than I ever have in my life... and yet I've never been poorer. It scares me to death. Thanks to a poor economy, even though I've been able to finally buy a house of my own, I'll have to do without the extras in life, some things that people would call essential... and even though I'm terrified at not being able to make ends meet, in other aspects of life I'm much happier.

[Lozzer]

Perhaps those of who feel guilt or miserable because of your money would feel better if you shared the burden?

[M]

So you spent a night sampling £8,211 worth of vintage wine?

Something not adding up here......

[devogue]

So you spent a night sampling £8,211 worth of vintage wine?

Something not adding up here......

Not my wine.

I have mentioned how this dichotomy bothers me, how I find it difficult to balance my love of the good things in life and my relative wealth with the total poverty of many of my fellow humans - Seraph addressed this very thoughtfully.

[Animavore]

When we rented a two bedroom house ten years ago it was a wonderful little home - we felt safe, happy and pretty carefree.

Devogue, I have that sneaking suspicion that if you were renting a two bedroom house and living on the smell of an oily rag, like you were ten years ago, you'd be a damn sight unhappier just now than you already are, especially with three children in tow.

Speaking for myself, I lead a carefree hand-to-mouth existence until my early thirties. Sex, surf, drugs, food and shelter was all I wanted, and I lacked not. Happy days. Nothing fazed me. Even getting told to move out of a house because the new owner wanted to move in was just another adventure.

By the time I reached the mid thirties the lack of spare readies had somehow become a bit of a nuisance. I found permanent employment, then a sub-contracting opportunity, and before I knew it I was under 290,000 of non-current liabilities (excluding the truck lease). 18 years later I became a bum again, but with a difference this time: I own a spacious house outright and I have money to spare. Best of all I have a partner who is a soul mate like I never had before, and she is a... I won't bore you with more gloating, I think, except to say that I feel no need whatsoever to keep up with the Jones' either.

Material comfort does not cause unhappiness. Lack of it at least encourages it, though.

^^^
I've been assuming my life pans out this way.

[devogue]

When we rented a two bedroom house ten years ago it was a wonderful little home - we felt safe, happy and pretty carefree.

Devogue, I have that sneaking suspicion that if you were renting a two bedroom house and living on the smell of an oily rag, like you were ten years ago, you'd be a damn sight unhappier just now than you already are, especially with three children in tow.

Speaking for myself, I lead a carefree hand-to-mouth existence until my early thirties. Sex, surf, drugs, food and shelter was all I wanted, and I lacked not. Happy days. Nothing fazed me. Even getting told to move out of a house because the new owner wanted to move in was just another adventure.

By the time I reached the mid thirties the lack of spare readies had somehow become a bit of a nuisance. I found permanent employment, then a sub-contracting opportunity, and before I knew it I was under 290,000 of non-current liabilities (excluding the truck lease). 18 years later I became a bum again, but with a difference this time: I own a spacious house outright and I have money to spare. Best of all I have a partner who is a soul mate like I never had before, and she is a... I won't bore you with more gloating, I think, except to say that I feel no need whatsoever to keep up with the Jones' either.

Material comfort does not cause unhappiness. Lack of it at least encourages it, though.

All very fair points.

I hope when things get easier and I am in a position to move off the treadmill that my current feelings about money and wealth prevail.

[Twoflower]

Yes well, life is dramatically unfair. But would you rather the toughness of life boil down to income disparity or having to fight for existence in a natural world which couldn't care even if it wanted to? I'm on the lower scale of income. My family subsists on my mother's £10,000 income and state benefits. It ain't no fun most of time, and we get into a lot of trouble when we give in to greed. Credit card companies have a way of getting you back in the worst ways imaginable Count yourself lucky Devogue and keep every penny for yourself. If I had money then I probably would too.

I know what you mean Lozzer.

Ten years ago I had money which I pumped in to my own business - it did really well, but I could only afford to pay myself £12,000 per year. That was okay, though, because I was a single man and as long as I had a packet of smokes and a beer at the end of the day I was happy.

When I met Mrs Dev she was on benefits and working cash in hand for a pittance - we rented a house and spent our money on cheap booze cigarettes and having a good time. I couldn't drive, she had a clapped out Nissan Sunny. We were extremely happy.

Ten years later and my earning power has increased vastly, we own two houses, we have ISAs and pensions, money in the bank and over £20,000 worth of wine investment. While I drive a Totota Corolla back and forward to work Mrs Dev drives the main car, which is a very swish MPV.

We own both of the cars outright, we have no loans or credit card debt, our three children want for nothing, we can splurge at Christmas without dreading the bills in January. Ten years ago I would drink wine at no more than £7 a bottle - now I regularly splurge out £100 or more.

In other words, we are fucking laughing, living the dream - but here's the thing...

I know that I will sound like an unbelievably spoilt and sickeningly disingenuous twat, but we aren't as happy as we were ten years ago. Nowhere near.

I've thought long and hard about why that is, especially because ten years ago I would be amazed and delighted if someone told me how "well" I would be doing.

I think the answer is that we are now on a very nasty treadmill - we have to keep working harder, keep pushing, keep hoping the wheels don't fall off our mortgaged existance, we worry about losing face, losing what we have worked for even though we have to keep working harder to hold on to it. While we mindlessly enjoy our material trappings...oh, I've just got the meaning of that word...we are genuinely trapped.

When we rented a two bedroom house ten years ago it was a wonderful little home - we felt safe, happy and pretty carefree.

Now we live in a four bedroom detached house with all the mod cons, beautiful furniture and fittings (we've spent a fortune in the past two years renovating it) and do you know what we think about whenever we do any of this work? - how impressed a potential buyer will be when we eventually come to sell the house...

Money, assets, money, assets... be careful what you wish for...

My parents were in the same situation when they first got married. Neither sets of parents would help them out with anything and they were pretty much broke 100% of the time. Both parents say it was difficult but they learned a lot from the experience. Now after selling the business they owned for 20 years my mom works because she wants to not because she has to, and my dad "works" meaning he has 2 jobs that equal about 50 hour weeks total but he loves it so much that he doesnt think of it as work. Both parents say they have been poor and they have been well off and well off is less stressful but they wouldnt trade the poor years for anything in the world.

[Trolldor]

After spending all that time in Wagga what made me happiest when I got home was not the two HDD wide-screen plasma televisions or access to free digital televions or the two xboxes and forty odd games, or the playstation 2 and another forty odd games, or access to internet I didn't have to pay for.
It was seeing my dog run like a crazy nut around the entire house waiting for me to open a door when he saw me and having a Fairy Floss flavoured ice block. I realised just how much unnecessary crap we have in our house.

[Jesus Christ]

Sometimes I just don't think I can take the sheer inhumanity and unfairness of this fucking world, of a system where so much wealth can be concentrated in so few hands. I have been talking for some time with Mrs Dev about selling our assets above and beyond our house and giving them away - she thinks I'm fucking nuts and I should shut the fuck up - that relatively speaking it's a drop in the ocean, but it's not really - not when you consider how little is needed to remove fear and give another human being a bit of dignity and hope.

Listen to your wife, my son. I said something similar once, though much more eloquently:
At around the 2 minute mark.