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Money is such an odd thing....when we were newly married, we did not have much money...and when the kids were little, and hubby was in the full time army, money was never abundant, but we were always happy...

And when my older boy was sick, even tho his primary care for his treatment was in the military hospital, still the out of pocket expenses we incurred were high, and even the military hospital charged about 7 dollars a day, which is cheapie...but our son was in the hospital for 8 months so that came to about 1600 dollars...

And then when he needed a bone marrow transplant, the army, at that time would not pay for it...so we had to petition the state of Washington to pay for it, which finally they consented to...but we had to put up the first $5000....

And then after he died, I could not work, and the hubby left the army at the end of enlistment(long story why), and jobs were not plentiful, so we had to live on unemployment and welfare for a few years, so the hubby could go back to school, which he did..

And then when we finally appeared to get our footing, next it was taking care of my mom and dad, and getting ready to send Andy off to college...4 yrs of Cornell tuition was really a trial, and left us pretty well broke...

Today, years after all of this, our house is paid for, we have no real bills, our savings are increasing, ,and we are financially more secure...but are we more happy than those early days, when the boys were young, and we were just scraping by? I dont think so...

For as I look back on it, not having much money, and having to make do, with what we had on hand, and being a close family, tryng to enjoy life without a lot of money, we were indeed sublimely happy...I think, that the journey, towards becoming more financially secure, is the real fun part...once you actually have the money, it really does not make one any happier...

I am just now, in my later years, beginning to realize this...I think, the ones I feel sorry for, are actually those who are born rich...there seems to be little to strive for...of course, I see this only from the perspective of one who has never been rich, nor ever will be...the whole world of the 'rich' is a world I will never know, and I dont know that I want to know it...

I think real struggle is what builds character..just my own silly opinion, yet there it is...

hi sweetie
I think westy may see it the way you do
(I don't want to put words in his mouth tho, he posted a few times about the struggle which builds character)

I don't know what to think now
our lifestyle together in nyc was spartan
bill always worked full time, but until he got job as technician at NYU the jobs had no benefits and paid poorly
Because I was a writer, I did not want to go to work
(I only worked part time)
so I accepted that our spartan lifestyle was trade off for luxury of not having to go to full time job
and be home (I liked being home)
and have time to write
also I started to not like jobs too

when we moved to tucson I began to read new age books and that changed everything for me

it seemed to me God wanted to give us every joy and happiness and all we had to do was ask for it and accept it
nothing was asked from us except to love our brother

there was nothing about the virtues of hard work or character building
altho I did have the impression we are here to learn unconditional love

so now I think money is a lovely thing
and I would love to have it in abundance and for everyone to have it in abundance

the books convinced me that abundance is natural and scarcity is not
and that money is energy and all energy is love
Love, Palo