When I was rich (making $31,000 a year)

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A colleague of mine recently had a brilliant insight. “The richest you’ll ever be,” he said, “is when you get your first full time job.” That was certainly true for me. I moved to New York when I was 23, and got a job at a nonprofit making $31,000 a year. I took home $1,000 every two weeks, and I couldn’t believe how wealthy I was. Every two weeks, they just cut me a check for $1,000! Even if I went on vacation or was out sick!

 

The year before, I had been a freelance writer in Minnesota, and I had made about $15,000. That was enough in a city where you can rent a nice room in a nice house for $300 a month. When I moved to New York, my rent grew to about $650, but since I was making twice as much money, that was fine. I even managed to pay off a few thousand dollars in credit card debt. And I owned a car, so I was paying for insurance. Now, the idea of paying for a car even on my current salary seems laughable.

 

After that first job, every raise is a disappointment. I don’t mind paying more in taxes now that I make more, but I must admit that each time I get a raise, I’m always surprised at how little of it shows up in my paycheck. And my expenses, of course, have grown in the last four years. (Over at Money, Matter, and More Musings, and at My Money Blog this is called “lifestyle inflation.”) I was lucky enough to get out of college without any student loans, but not so with graduate school. My rent is now almost $800, I have about $200 in student loan bills, and I pay about $85 for a gym membership. That’s over $400 a month in expenses I didn’t have four years ago—and I don’t consider any of those expenses extravagant or even expendable.

 

Have you found yourself feeling poorer, even as you earn more money?

 

 

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Filed under budgeting, lifestyle inflation, saving, spending

Tags: budgeting, saving, spending