LOL, you sound like the kind of person I would love to toss back a box of wine with and spend the evening getting all psudeo-psychological. :)

That ‘boy’ of 20 is part of my 2nd biggest pet peeve…Kids who are so spoiled/overprotected that they cannot function in the real world, and suffer from inflated entitlement. No doubt the parents will not let him play for change because they think ‘Precious’ might be abducted.

One boy we know, whose parents are on the edge of losing everything, was so excited that his parents bought him a new guitar. But then he said that he was upset that they only thing to eat in their house was ketchup. I made him a sandwich and gave him some fruit “for the road”. I suggested he take that new guitar, go downtown, and play on the sidewalk for money (he’s 20, not a little boy). He said his parents won’t let him, he prefers to wait for a record company to discover him through his YouTube videos.

I learned a long time ago that if you’re going to help someone out, and you have no agreement for what you’ll get in return – then you probably won’t get anything except the self-satisfaction that you helped someone out – and you should expect no more than that. To think that they volunteered to do so many things for so many years that somehow they are owed money now for it – I think they were really misguided. They have scrapbooks of all their news articles and photos and such – but that doesn’t help them with their other needs – needs they are just now starting to pay attention to. It’s very sad.

He especially tried to ‘keep up’ with his boss, a man who made more money, had a wife with a great job, and they had their own side business. I remember explaining to him there was no way we could keep up, and his fury that we ‘work hard’ and ‘deserve to live well’.

Fast forward 15 years….The boss went to jail, for embezzlement (even he couldn’t keep up with all of his wants!) and my EX-boyfriend is still satisfying his immediate wants, in his mid-40s, and as a result is sued by a creditor once a year or so. He lives in a house in need of some maintenence he is always putting off, and he confided that he ‘stopped givng to that stupid 401k years ago’.

In short, he (and others from his circle like him) are a mess, but look great from the outside, throwing money around like it is an easily renewable resource.

It helps me pull back and realize that yeah, my life might look a little boring from the outside….I love to read, garden, sit in the sunshine, walk my dogs, and other free or nearly free activities. Yet my bills are paid, I have money in my 401k and Roth (not as much as I’d like, but I am getting there) and when I had a recent emergency, I had an emergency fund I could tap. Of course, now I am rebuilding it nearly from scratch, but that is what it was for!!

Sometimes, when in the grip of a burning ‘want’, remembering this story helps me step back and put into perspective what happens when you let your wants take over.

When my job loss happened, I had been worrying more or less constantly—not able to sleep well, at least—that our office would be moved abruptly so that I would have a long commute through bad traffic. I worried about that more or less constantly, and then the office was abruptly closed altogether: no job at all, and I never made once that commute that so worried me. As I said at the time, it was if I was all worried about what socks to wear to the big party, and then I was not asked: worried about the wrong thing.

So when I lost my job, and my worry engine started up with worrying about that I would starve and become homeless and all, I decided that I would shut down that engine until I missed two meals in a row for lack of food. In the meantime, rather than worry, I would think about constructive steps to take.

I never even missed one meal, and that resolution did shut down a lot of worrying. When the worry would begin, I would think, “Wait: have I missed a meal yet? No? Then forget about that.”

The freedom of NOT having a job has allowed me to spend more time w/him and look into places where he might be able to live w/assistance. He cannot live w/me because of all my stairs.

I am able to cover my basic bills (utilities, food, internet, gasoline, auto maintenance, health care & Rx…..) on a small pension from my late husband. It is 1/2 of my former take home. I am going into savings for BIG bills like real estate taxes & auto/home insurance. That is about 10k/year more but I am ok since I have a BIG EF.

Do I miss being able to buy clothes/shoes whenever, get mani/pedi when I want, eating out? Turning up the heat when I want? Sure, but that is NOT a priority in my life right now.

If I had not lost my job I would likely have had to take Family Medical Leave anyway and would be in EXACTLY the same financial position.

Yet again….Trent is using an example. I didn’t see Trent use the word “everyone” anywhere in his post. Why must you “always” assume that he is lumping “everyone” into a certain category just because he making observations that are quite often true.

but then I got hungry.

Also, though I understand commenters’ reactions to Trent’s admittedly frequent comparison to others, I do think it can be a fair statement. I recall a time that a friend was lamenting another friend’s seeming financial comfort/wealth as evidenced by 2nd friend’s material goods. Come to find out, years down the road, friend #2 was in over her head w/ debt and only later (like maybe a decade later) “grew into her lifestyle”. IMO, had friend #1 realized that friend #2 was in so much debt, it would have refocused friend #1 on things she could control & getting her own financial house in order even though it meant she’d have to sacrifice some goodies.

The big thing for anyone in Ashley’s situation is to make smart substitutions and creative splurges. Kelly has some great ideas above. It’s actually amazing what you can do when you get creative.

Another idea. A lot of the joy in eating out is being able to focus on the company of friends and loved ones rather than preparing the meal and the cleanup. Why not host a dinner party?

A couple of points about Maslow’s heirarchy:

At the upper end of Maslow’s pyramid is the quest for self actualization.

I think that for many of us in America, our basic needs are met so we seek out higher levels of fulfillment. For many of us, unfortunately, this means material possessions and spending. I’m not saying this is the case for Ashley, but we live in a materialistic society in which we are indoctrinated daily into a culture of more spending.

When we quit associating spending with happiness, we’ve made the real first step in the higher levels of Maslow’s pyramid and can begin to find fulfillment in the little things.

Once a person knows who they are and where their priorities lie, it’s not so easy for them to be influenced by media or advertising. The grass doesn’t look greener on the other side of the fence because once you know who you are, you’re not looking at others to compare yourself against.

I don’t think a lack of “critical thinking about others” has much to do with things, at least not once you’ve discovered who you are as a person. Once you have realized who you are, there is no need to compare yourself to others, or the image of others.

You are able to just be happy for others in their success instead of “critcally thinking” about them by trying to convince yourself that there must be some underlying negative aspect of their lives that you aren’t able to see. You won’t care because it’s not important. You can be happy for them instead of fantasizing about some short-coming in their lives in order to make yourself feel better about your own.

Love yourself first. Be who you are at a very basic and fundamental level, and everything else will fall into place.