Ultimately, not only are you doing YOURSELF no favor, you are doing him no favor, either. What happens when you finally break, and leave him, when he has no habit or skills at actually applying what he makes to his bills? My own mantra, very late in life, is that I will never again support another fully functioning adult human being – especially one who has a job! You shouldn’t have to, either, unless you have BOTH decided that he’s a stay-at-home dad and you’re the wage earner. But for you to work while he plays … no, no, no.

To Minimum Wage~~If you’re a real person, please e-mail me ~~~ I’ll try to help you find some solutions to your situations ~~I like to help others & know that sometimes a person can just feel that no one wants to truly help , if they have been discouraged for long~~~I’ll tryto encourage you e-mail~~stargazer43008@yahoo.com ~~post me your living situation , wages , etc, & i’ll try to help ~~Lisa

[...] me, reading JD’s post on his review of the book “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” transported me mentally to the time of 1901. I would strongly recommend that we should all read [...]

[...] at Get Rich Slowly shared some excerpts of personal finance advice from a 1943 literature classic. I found myself immediately transported mentally to the setting and could feel the words of wisdom [...]

I just put this on my waitlist at the library.

When I was flush I spent so mindlessly – I would have just Amazon’d the book. Now I’m willing to wait for the library to loan it to me – they have DVDs too. I am learning so many good new habits from being, well, not poor, but less well off.

A tip for folks needing computers, at least if you’re in the PDX area – FreeGeek lets you earn a refurbished PC in exchange for 24 volunteer hours. I bet there’s something like this in some of the larger cities.

If you have a choice between getting X amount of information or 2X for the same amount of money, does X ever make sense?

Hydes

If you are legit, why do you bother coming on these sites, when clearly nothing anyone can suggest will ever work for your situation? Sounds like there’s no possible way to make any changes, so I guess you’ve got it all figured out. Sounds like most of us are tired of reading your posts, anyway.

And, to get on topic, this books sounds wonderful, and I’m going to Half Price to try to find a copy. I have a hard time denying myself things that I think I need. I try to stop, take a step back, and evaluate whether I really need something, but I don’t always do this. I think I usually know the answer, and I don’t like it, so I buy on impulse and feel guilty later, but I never feel guilty enough to return what I’ve bought. I’m trying to detach myself from material wants more. I try to think “Okay, so you buy these shoes you think you HAVE to have, and how has your life improved? Are you trying to impress someone or be someone else? Are they going to change your life somehow?”

I’m always going to love things I don’t need, but I’d like to get a handle on it and set a budget and STICK to it. I think a shift in my own attitude will make me happier than if I just deny myself outright, without coming to terms with the root of it.

[...] think the answer would be a little of living as a warrior, a little of living life as Katie and a little of back to the farm kind of [...]

I don’t have cable or satellite or even a television, I don’t have a VCR or DVD or an iPod or an XBOX or a Wii or air conditioning.

My cheap old PC doesn’t even have sound. Sheesh.

Piece by piece.

Step by step.

It isn’t pretty, but we get there.

I managed to amass over $2000 that way before my husband got mad and demanded that I put some of it towards our bills. I regret ever telling him about the account and IF I ever get married again I will not be giving my husband access to my bank accounts. I would be happy to open a joint account with him to pool money to make sure the bills were paid but he doesn’t get a dime of what’s mine otherwise. I learned my lesson.

Nowadays I’m starting over with not-a-lot and have worked out a budget that I think I’ll be able to follow closely starting next month. It’s going to involve savings in some form or fashion. I’m long past due to have some kind of emergency savings in place again. Like Minimum Wage I don’t make a lot, but I’m willing to use the resources I do have.

Additionally, the wife is permitted to work outside the home as long as her primary wife-and-mother duties are met. Whatever she keeps is hers to do with whatever she wishes. The husband’s income, however, must first go to support the family, including the wife. Sort of the opposite of what you’ve described.

Of course, there is compensation in the inheritance laws which state that if a parent dies, the sons get twice what the daughters get.

I’m not Muslim but I thought that was kind of interesting.

One of the other qualities of successful immigrants (and other successful people I know) is the ability to work with other people to move toward a goal. I’m not great at this part either, but I’m working on it.

(If I’m feeding a troll, oh, well. Hey, I was happy to hear that s/he is trying to do something. It’s a nice change from the passive whining. Obstacles happen. It’s what happens after life craps on your plans that matters.)

I’d love to take a few things out of the storage unit and sell them but the storage unit is located in a place I cannot get to.

More specifically, you have to go down a steep hill to get there and I have a balance problem and cannot negotiate steep downgrades.

I also pick up aluminum cans, pop cans are worth a 5-cent deposit here. There have been times when I lived on fumes and collecting returnables provided food money. (Boxed mac-and-cheese, but it was food.)

Now if I had the money I would hire someone with a truck and move everything from that storage unit to one I could get to. (It would take at least three trips with a pickup.)

I don’t have a camera so I cannot take pictures.

Obviously I have a “startup capital” problem. If I had the money I could move the stuff to another place. If I had the money I could rent a normal-sized apartment where I could keep the stuff at home and avoid paying for the storage unit.

in the interest of application, I’m having trouble wrapping my head around the actual star bank.(I have a dark closet; the story is sweet; I find at least 5 cents a day on the street…)

any one handy ever made one?

I think the lesson that you always set aside savings no matter how much or how little you make is an important one.

Pace yourself. When it’s over, you’re quite sad.

MW and I have had this conversation on my site and dare I say he/she is committed their current way of life rather than making a concerted effort to get out of whatever situation they happen to be in…