Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Getting Married and Living Together- Ah Expenses!

gar1976 · 09-14-2004, 08:37 PM

Regardless of getting lower insurance rates or paying less for gas, those are (in light of the circumstances) very small costs.

The real problem is your income. Working at starbucks will not get you a comfortable living. You guys are facing the typical dilema of rushing out too quickly, while not being able to support yourselves.

You will need to either a) get full time jobs and go to school at nights [rough going]
b) Live at home [and given the other threads, this might not be a viable alternative]
c) Have one spouse work full-time at a "real" (ie, desk/office job that might suck) while the other completes their degree, and then do the opposite later. Problem is, if one spouse gets a degree and then you split up - someone gets screwed.
d) Get roommates

While quibbling over small, yet important points, the big picture is being missed - how to make up for $12-15k of a cash flow deficit? You either need to cut expenses (can't be done on the current budget, that's about as lean as you're going to get) or make some more money. This is where you will need to make some hard choices, and dreams get shoved aside for the time being. My wife and I endured years of roommates and cheap apartments to get where we are now.

But most importantly, make your degrees count. While degrees in fields like history, english lit, womens' studies, etc. are cool and all, you can't do shit with them. But get more schooling. And schools have a vested interest in making all their degrees seem like there are tons of jobs just waiting for them, take a look in the want ads of your paper. Not much there for a lot of the liberal arts degrees. Take some cool classes, and in a field you want to make a living in, but do your homework as well as to putting your degree to work for you.

09-14-2004, 08:37 PM	#38 (permalink)
gar1976 Custom User Title Location: Lurking. Under the desk.	Regardless of getting lower insurance rates or paying less for gas, those are (in light of the circumstances) very small costs. The real problem is your income. Working at starbucks will not get you a comfortable living. You guys are facing the typical dilema of rushing out too quickly, while not being able to support yourselves. You will need to either a) get full time jobs and go to school at nights [rough going] b) Live at home [and given the other threads, this might not be a viable alternative] c) Have one spouse work full-time at a "real" (ie, desk/office job that might suck) while the other completes their degree, and then do the opposite later. Problem is, if one spouse gets a degree and then you split up - someone gets screwed. d) Get roommates While quibbling over small, yet important points, the big picture is being missed - how to make up for $12-15k of a cash flow deficit? You either need to cut expenses (can't be done on the current budget, that's about as lean as you're going to get) or make some more money. This is where you will need to make some hard choices, and dreams get shoved aside for the time being. My wife and I endured years of roommates and cheap apartments to get where we are now. But most importantly, make your degrees count. While degrees in fields like history, english lit, womens' studies, etc. are cool and all, you can't do shit with them. But get more schooling. And schools have a vested interest in making all their degrees seem like there are tons of jobs just waiting for them, take a look in the want ads of your paper. Not much there for a lot of the liberal arts degrees. Take some cool classes, and in a field you want to make a living in, but do your homework as well as to putting your degree to work for you.