Do you remember when you had freedom (no kids) and disposable income? I’m talking about that fabulous gap where you were a grown up with means and very little responsibility? I do. There seem to be cycles when it comes to disposable income. Or there have been for me anyway.
Student = poor.
First job = still poor, but making it.
A promotion = Yay me! (Fewer Ramen Noodles).
Another promotion = You can eat out. Often.
Another promotion = Things are really good. You can eat out and go shopping. Whenever you want, because you have very few responsibilities.
You get married and buy a place = Disposable income is still there, but it’s less. That’s okay, you have your place to show for it. You dedicate the remaining disposable income to it, while you think about buying stock in The Home Depot. Your place is fixed up and things level out.
You have a baby and pay for child care, formula, baby stuff, whatever = and there it goes again. Buh-bye money. You eventually re-adjust to lack of funds and make it work. It’s like that experiment with the glass of water where it looks like the glass is full, but little by little you can add more water to the glass and it doesn’t overflow. You just displace air bubbles you can’t see and somehow it works. (Listen to me wax eloquent on physics!)
Then your kid needs a sibling, right? = And anything that’s left pretty much evaporates (there’s no more air in your glass of water).
But that’s okay, because the glass is more than full.
(Okay, so it’s full of needles, but there is no connotation intended there. This is just the best example I could find).
I’m with you on the cycles, though the one that stands out most to me was when I went from the poverty of a student to being hourly employed and earning lots of overtime and feeling quite flush, to being promoted into management and taking a salary reduction as the pay was less than the hourly rate with overtime! I never got over that. I think you can make a parallel with lack of wealth and lack of sleep – they seem to cycle at the same time almost…hoping to get a lot more of both in the future! But my glass is most definitely half full.