What exactly makes life so expensive? AKA Why do we need six figure incomes, again?

[corn18]

This is a great thread. It is really easy to let expenses grow with income (I let them grow faster than income). We were pretty poor when we got married. I seem to remember being happy, well fed and all my needs being met with no worries. But for the life of me, our "minimum standard of living" is now 10x those days. Part of that is inflation, most of that is our sense that we "deserve" to live the "high life". I am not happier now, and for a while there I was very unhappy. I am back to happy but long for the days when we gave each other electric socks for Xmas, slept on a mattress on the floor and didn't have a worry in the world. It's tough to go back.

I am going to attribute most of the issue you have raised to culture, at least in the U.S. Keeping up with the Jones's is the goal, even if the Jones's are worth up to their eyeballs in debt. I think they call it consumerism or something like that.

Tom

[ExcuseMyIgnorance]

From my own personal experience, always being in a "learning mode" and "getting outside of comfort zone" can be quite "discomforting". I literally wasted my 20s in doing a job that didn't require much innovative skills beyond a point. My domain knowledge was solid, and I enjoyed being relied upon by people as an expert, but ultimately, not learning new skills was going to make me rot. I should have been constantly learning and going up - I only started doing it in my early 30s. Even after losing my precious years, I was able to double my salary in 5 years and my career is still trending up.

The best thing one can do is literally utilize every day in learning and honing skills from the age of 22 until the age of 35. Forget marriage. Forget kids. Even put serious dating on back burner. Nothing is more important than you having tremendous in demand skills that you can leverage to get any position you want. Success will easily follow after that. If you missed dating during this time, almost any man/woman in your dreams will follow your success once you achieve it. Unfortunately, most young people have it the other way around - they are wasting too much time in buying gizmos and finding perfect dates when they are far from perfect themselves.

You've said it much more bluntly than I would have but I agree with you. A set of marketable skills will spearhead a great life. Everything else will just fall into place. I've never wanted to get married until I consider myself a financial success. I'll get there before too long!