[mklady]

My husband's parents are constantly hounding us about why we don't have the extra finances to take care of unexpected expenses. Then they hound us about why we have "bad luck". They want to know why things always go bad when we can't afford to take care of them. Well, duh! They're unexpected and when you're paying your mortgage, car payment, insurance, cell phone, home phone and cable, and getting food and necessities on about $3000 a month, you don't really have extra to save. It's so frustrating, our health insurance increased by $1200 this year. Hubby gets a raise in April and then the insurance increases and his take home ends up lower than the last year in January. It's ridiculous. We don't live an extravagant lifestyle, but we do try and do things once in a while as a family. I hate that we're not saving any money but I also hate the thought of us pinching every single penny. We have at the most about $180,000 in debt and that includes our house. Most of the people we know are double that. I don't know, it's frustrating because we are responsible, the bills come in and we pay everything, we just don't have enough to go beyond that. No vacations, no brand new furniture, no new cars and so on. If we want to do those things they're going to have to be financed and that's just not something we want to get into. So, alot of times we do without. Our biggest expense is that we get takeout alot, but sometimes I have to wonder if it isn't cheaper as opposed to buying everything to fix that one meal. Someday soon I'll have little to no mortgage and that will make a world of difference.