Loyalty and Your Self-Worth

Darling and I came to Texas under the assumption that he had a lucrative non-profit job lined up. Days after our arrival (by train, by the way, with nothing more than we could carry), we discovered that we had been misled. The job was not so ethical as we thought.
The subsequent mad dash for employment landed us with two decent, though certainly unexciting, customer service positions. Now I've worked customer service for six years now, but Darling is a college graduate with a background of international banking. He's constantly amazed by the low-pay and nonexistent benefits. Yet he is blatantly hesitant to try and "move up."
This is a common ailment among the working poor. Even when one has the skills and experience to earn more pay at a better company, it is hard to make that leap. Hard to update the resume, to fill out the applications, to put one's self worth on the line and risk rejection. I am convinced this is the reason that wages have been stagnating so long now, because too few people have the courage to demand appropriate pay or move to jobs that offer them.
Are you unhappy at your job? Search for something better. Staying loyal to an undeserving company does more than hurt your income and your self-esteem: it hurts the economy as a whole. Until workers recognize that the qualified labor shortage gives US the upper hand, we will never get the treatment we deserve.
I know I'm filling out applications this week.

The Greatest Resource

When Darling and I first started out, with our single income and studio apartment, we didn't have a budget so much as a forced routine. I scrounged around for change to make rent and begrudgingly spent the $15/week on groceries at the nearest box store. Every week we had the same list: eggs, milk, cheese, bread, oatmeal, pasta, and tomato sauce.
We were too poor to make use of conventional cash saving methods. A man selling newspaper subscriptions told Darling that we would get $400 worth of coupons with the publications every week. "That's like a whole other income," he insisted. We received a trial paper and looked through the $400 worth of coupons, finding only one that applied to our consumption habits: 99 cents off cornstarch. Everything else was too expensive regardless of discounts.
Even the most promising financial advice books in the library were disappointing. Authors seem set on informing consumers how to cut back on expenses, but not how to get ahead when there is no money in the bank.
Looking back, I realize that what got us out of that particularly bleak time was the support of people around us. A farmer I worked for on the weekends started paying me in potatoes and salad greens. A co-worker informed us of a Mennonite bulk food store that gave us twice the food for half the cost of the box store. Another co-worker loaned us a car to get there. We found friends who enjoyed staying home and watching movies and playing board games as free entertainment. By the time I was making more money (I was making a dollar more an hour by the time Darling was able to work) our standard of living had not only improved drastically but we were saving a little money every month.
If there is no money, look for ways to get by without it. If you can't get enough hours at work to make a living, volunteer and meet people who might be able to offer you side jobs, excess garden produce, or connections. Community is the most valuable resource any human will ever have, take advantage of it.

Financial Picture

We started out with $22,128 in debt. This was the cost of my student loans as well as our immigration lawyer's bill and a family loan. We started making payments roughly nine months ago, because that is when Darling was legally allowed to work and our various grace periods were up.
Our savings was decimated by the cross-country move, but a tax refund re-opened the account. What we have saved is slotted for a trip to England in August, so unless we start an aggressive investment campaign soon, we will once again find ourselves with few assets to fall back on in an emergency.
I get paid $7 an hour, Darling $8.
By painting this financial picture I illustrate not only where we are but how far we've come. Today our debt is $17,566, and our lawyer is completely paid as of this month. We've made slow, steady progress over our short pay-back period.
Take a long, hard look at your financial picture. Is your net worth, like mine, in the red? Or are things doing better than you thought? Even if the news is bad, at least you can look back on it nine months from now gauge how you're doing.

The Begining

"I intend to do everything wrong,"
I wrote those words several months ago in Virginia, where my husband and I had spent the first two years of marriage. That day the words seemed poignant and rebellious, today they are stupidly true. Somehow between then and now all of my notes and plans and journals for this blog disappeared, and I am left with those six words. And the title, "The 20 Year Challenge."
The challenge is to prove what I've suspected for several years now: the Credit Industry is an unnecessary evil. Not only credit cards and loans, but student loans and mortgages. Having found myself over $20,000 in debt without ever having touched a credit card at the age of 20, I decided there is something rotten with this situation. Friends of mine who have never managed their own checking accounts argue that their shiny plastic cards are the norm and the only way to ever own houses, afford children, travel, or manage retirement. I believe this is not true. I believe that with proper money management a couple can drag themselves out of debt and poverty and achieve the ever-elusive American dream without employing credit.
In 20 Years.
No, this won't be easy. Darling and I both work customer service. He is a British immigrant and I am a college drop-out. We are environmentalists who will spend a little more for an organic or local product and never go to Wal-Mart. Therefore, my goal of being debt free in five years, owning land and building a (eco-friendly) home within fifteen, and having invested responsibly enough to retire in twenty may seem far-fetched.
But just because something is difficult doesn't make it wrong.