The Worth of a Dollar

Here's something that's been on my mind lately: Money. Why? I'm not really sure. My concept of money has, it seems, changed over the years. I wondered why the other day. Here is a summary of what I've thought up:

Growing up: We were always on a tight budget growing up. Going out to eat was saved mostly for family trips and on the last day of school (our report card dinners). Having a dollar for a garage sale-ing Saturday was a big deal!

First Married: Ha! What person doesn't have money issues when they first get married?? I think it's a prerequisite as it really does define and hone your relationship. If you can get through that first little while (or the other 'little whiles' that happen along the way) then you can get through anything together! And it makes you stronger, right? I remember that Devin had around $4000 saved up in his bank account and I couldn't believe that much even existed!! My mom sent me some money right after we were married, and I kept it in a 'slush fund' for a rainy day. One day, Devin asked me if he could use that money to pay the rent... I asked him why he needed to use the slush fund to pay rent when he had $4000 in the bank! He said he was afraid to let the balance go below $4000! Haha ha ha ha ha ha!!

First few years: Well, after we drained our bank account (yes, of course it happened!) we really don't know how we subsisted! Devin was going to school and working part time. I had little baby Josh at home with me. We went from paycheck to paycheck and prayed a lot and paid tithing in order to cover all those other expenses that happen. Then one day, our bank called and told us that we'd won a drawing that we didn't know we had entered and where should they put the $1000 that we had won? WOW!! We won a THOUSAND DOLLARS!!! We were filthy rich!! We didn't touch it, as we knew that someday we'd really need it, and we did!

We didn't find a job after searching and searching and searching, so we sold everything we had at a yard sale (making around $300--exactly the amount we ended up using for the following journey), packed our car, and drove away! We could do it, too, because we had a THOUSAND DOLLARS!!! We'd get to wherever it was we were headed to, find a job in a few months, and be set! (Of course, it didn't work out that way.)

We ended up in Ohio/Pennsylvania area. No job for 4 months made our THOUSAND DOLLARS go away. Then, still no job made Devin apply at Subway where he made around $600/month. Pretty fantastic wages for a computer guy! :) He worked there for a year, and during that time, we ended each month with 25 cents or less in our bank account, but WE DID IT!! We didn't starve. We had a roof over our heads. We even managed to save up for our very own mobile home (ok, it was seriously a trailer in a skanky trailer park, but it was OURS!!!) and paid the $300/mo plus utilities! How did we do that? Dunno. But we did. Houses there cost less than $100,000. The idea of paying more than $50/month for food was completely beyond my comprehension. (Ok, so I still don't pay much more than that...) Every single penny was accounted for.

First Job: I call this the first job (after Subway) because it's where even more changes in our concept of money occurred. With Subway, we were still super duper penny-pinchers. Had to be. With the first job, all of a sudden, we were RICH!!! We made almost $2000/month! I just couldn't believe that that was possible! How silly of people to be able to make that much money!! And because of that, we bought...(drumroll please)...a $100 vacuum cleaner!! WOW!!!! We couldn't believe we'd spent that much on any one thing! It was almost liberating!

First house: THEN we went and bought a HOUSE!!! WOW!!! We got a 15 year loan, and while the house payments were $900/month, we just let our eyes bug out for a moment, took a deep breath, swallowed a few times and signed the papers. We were on our way!!! No more worries!! (Except for all the new flooring that we had to put in pre-move in, the new water tank, etc.) Already, our idea of the worth of a dollar was spiraling.

Virginia (a clincher): Why would I call this the clincher? Well, we were very happy with our $900/month mortgage. It made things tight, but we made it every month, with at least $5 to spare in our bank account. Then, Devin was losing his contract, and it was time to move on. We were headed to Virginia, and our first look at the costs of living there almost made me pass out. Seriously. Rent was $1200/month? For a small apartment?? Our rent ended up being almost $1800/month, which was quite the deal. Twice as much as our 15 year mortgage. *sigh* Things just went haywire from there. Everything was more expensive. Taxes, food, rent, everything!! Everyone around us had to pay more for everything. What a culture! We were still tight in our finances, but it was definitely different now. We could understand paying more for things, and it wasn't as shocking. Suddenly, paying $200 to have your carpets cleaned didn't sound as much as it used to. Paying $150 to register your car was just another day in the metropolis.

Overseas: Then came the overseas move. We lost all sense of money with this one. We took out a loan from ourselves (basically pre-payment) of quite a substantial sum, and spent it all in our preparations. However, we paid it back to ourselves within six months. It no longer phased us to plunk down over $1000 while shopping, because we did it regularly in order to have our stores up for the next couple of years. (We don't do it now, of course...) With a change in currency, you also lose the idea of what money is worth.

For our next move, they've given us A THOUSAND DOLLARS clothing allowance since we're going from the equator to the arctic circle. Now, if you'll look back here, the first time we won A THOUSAND DOLLARS we were filthy rich and made a trip across the US. This time, people say "Well, the thousand dollar clothing allowance isn't much, but it's helpful", and we understand. (Although, we've managed to keep pretty close to that.)

Funny how something can mean one thing, then a few years down the road mean something totally different. The one constant in life: Change!--and how much money really and truly constitutes change?