[starbase]

Hi everyone! As I prepare to move back to Asia (and actually, there's lots of little things I'm looking forward to, shhhhh!), I made this post on a thread about real estate and debt free living as a sort of summary of what I have experienced recently. File it all under "Lessons Learned the Last Few Years"!:

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I admire you greatly. I also had a 100k + job in technology, and bought a big house in an expensive area, and had an expensive car (that wasn't my fault, I was happy with my 7 year old Nissan until the engine burst into flames driving across Wyoming, I had to buy a pricey car to keep going to the new job offer that was waiting for me), and I generally threw money all around at pubs and restaurants like it was rags.

Well it finally became pretty unsatisfying, I basically sucked out all the enjoyment you can get living like that (and constantly stressed out about money, too, given the way I was abusing it!), so I sold the house and quit the high paying job, and moved to Asia where I've lived previously.

And I had a ball spending money, for a while, then ended up teaching English in Taiwan for a couple years. And during that time I too developed all these habits that you have, I saved, instead of judging the things I wanted to buy by how long it would take me to earn that much money (which is how I always did it before) I judged purchases by how I could avoid ever buying the same thing twice. So I bought much less and much smarter. I also decided that anytime I wanted anything I thought looked "cool", I would always wait three weeks, without exception.

Well, much to my surprise, after two weeks I usually didn't even want it anymore! I even hung a paper up on the wall and each month put one mark on it for each time I took $20 out of the ATM. I didn't set a limit, I just made marks, but I found I started competing with myself to have the fewest marks possible each month. Some weeks I spent my free time just reading and drinking tea at home because I didn't want to cause any more marks that month! And that was the whole point, saving money!

Then I left Taiwan, went back to India, came back to the US, and now am a little shocked at how outsourcing and illegal immigration has hollowed out a lot of the opportunities that were here just 3 years ago! I'm also over qualified for a lot of labor jobs, and disqualified for my computer jobs because there's a three year gap in my resume.

So it's back to Taiwan for me, where I already have a couple job offers. But none of the traveling around or ease of living would have been possible if I hadn't changed all my attitudes those two years in Taiwan.

I knew saving enough, so as to be way ahead of one's needs, would be relaxing, but I didn't realize the hundreds of little looks, moments, or unexplained comments that used to make me stress out, but now are easily ignored due to wise money management.

Honestly I was shocked at how my marketability has gone down since I've been away, but the lingering bit of money I'm spending to move back to where I have healthy job offers is still that money I socked away those two years ago. I'm a big convert to wise money handling, you don't know all the different rude surprises it can insulate you from, and the "easy living" on credit lifestyle is just so much dust in the wind.

//..end sermon..//

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BTW that thread got real ugly at the end! A vicious cat fight between a house buyer and a financial adviser chased all participation off the thread, so I thought I'd repost my philosophical masterpiece here so someone would see it!

Cheers,

starbase

[Soaring Feather]

Cheers!

starbase, you have learned some very important lessons for living both here at home and in Asia. Asia taught you how to look into yourself. America is a wonderful land, but there is so much shallowness in her people. Not all, of course, though so many of our young have only materialistic values, or the way I see it nothing of value.

BTW good post.