Standard of living

A key point of fiscal management is living beneath one’s means. Thus having a cushion for emergencies, investments and savings. I think my ability to do this exceptionally well stemmed from being an immigrant that had two extremely hard working parents. They worked multiple jobs simultaneously and were able to do things for four hungry kids that I would never have been able to do nearly as well. Seeing them work 16 hours a days so that we could eat made helped me understand why I could not have a lot of things that I wanted as a child. I think that cleaning other people’s houses for money at the age of 6 also helped me with this appreciation. As I got slightly older into my mid elementary school years I stopped asking for things because usually the answer was no and I understood why. It was simpler to not desire things I did not need.

My good friend in college called me the king of owning nothing. I left college with 8 boxes that I shipped and a carload of stuff. In retrospect many of those boxes were books from college that I probably did not need. When I left St. Louis I had 2000 # of stuff in my one bedroom apartment. The mover asked if I was a bachelor, I asked if it was that obvious. He said that the average one bedroom apartment has 5000# of stuff. I left my 3 bedroom house in California with 2500# of stuff. Now I have a chainsaw and other interesting lawn tools, saws and other stuff that I have very little use for in a townhouse. Alas, I am amassing more and more junk.

In California my ex-girlfriend had bought me 2 folding chairs with cushions because she thought I was too Spartan (though she did not say so). Apparently the uncushioned folding chairs I had were not good enough.

I know used to I have a very high tolerance for not having comforts or pretty things. These are things that many would consider necessities, the same people may never have lived a Spartan lifestyle though. My life seems to be transitioning to one that requires more…luxuries. As I travel more and more of the world I have seen a lot of hostels with a vast range of lack of amenities. The ones that are heavily lacking bother me much more than they used to.

When I got to Cincinnati I lived in a very bad part of town in a dump for a few weeks. I was forced into this situation because I was waiting on a real estate deal and did not want to pay $2000 a month for temporary housing, this was one of the few places that would allow me to go month to month. I cut and ran before the month was over accepting the loss as sunk costs. The bathroom with the ceiling falling on me while I was in the shower and the banging pipes that woke me up every night were too much for even me to deal with.

This weekend I bought a $40 leather chair and I really like it. A few years ago I would not have done this unless a girlfriend asked me to. A few years ago my butt would not have gotten stiff from sitting on the cushioned folding chair. I started wondering what has brought about these changes. Am I getting soft? Perhaps I am just getting old.