Standard of living

[ailbhe]

Every so often, when I am particularly pleased with my life or my house, I remember the NCT coffee morning in my front room, where everyone lamented having to go back to work, and when I said "It's one reason we bought such a small house, we wanted to be able to manage on one salary." The response? It would be lovely, but they couldn't cope with the drop in standard of living.

I've often wondered whether they'd have said it if we'd been in one of their houses, which were all slightly more than twice the size of mine, and considerably more, um, groomed, whatever the grooming equivalent for houses is.

But then I go and sit in the garden and eat bagels again. So that's ok.

Comments

[ai731.livejournal.com]

We're currently living on savings, because my freelance work has pretty much dried up, and my other half hasn't gone back to work yet after his most recent job-from-hell experience. So I should feel poor, but I don't. I do feel insecure, because we're using savings that won't be available if there is another big emergency that we have to pay for (we're currently paying for the "new floor in the flooded basement" emergency). But I see all the "toys" that my friends have (iPods, GPS devices, game consoles, really big TVs) and I don't need or want them, so I don't feel poor. I would really like us to be able to go away on holidays next year to celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary. I will feel sad, and probably poor, if it turns out we can't afford to do that.

[ailbhe]

We have SUCH a really big TV! It's really important to Rob even though he almost never watches it (like, less than I do). It's funny what people latch on to.