So I've mentioned occasionally in other threads that I really don't know anyone who pays what I would consider good attention to money.

Most of our friends make a lot less than we do, but they have much bigger houses, eat out a LOT more (maybe 5-10 times what we do), and don't pay attention to grocery shopping (the whole idea of couponing would be a waste of time or an embarrassment to them & they don't pay attention to prices at all), which means they would end up spending about 2-3x what we do on groceries easily (I remember those days!). One of these couples that are putting their child in a daycare that is $300/month more than ours, but not because it's better: when I told them they should check ours out, that I knew both daycares and had decided ours was a lot better and they would be saving $300/month, they said, It just wasn't worth it to them to have to go visit another daycare. Not worth $300/month for, possibly, 5 years! Our company contributes 9% of our salary to a 401k as long as you contribute a minimum of ONE percent, which is NOTHING, and yet several of my friends have gone for years without "getting around to getting started".

Not taking advantage of that 9% is nuts, of course. And having finally learned how to budget for myself, I guess I know how they can spend so much more than we do: they don't save and they probably go in debt a little bit, but mostly they don't save anything. They would rather go out for drinks than save for their kids' college or set up an emergency fund, and they don't do anything adequate for retirement.

But they all seem very happy and relaxed about their finances, whereas I know I think too much about it these days. I had to learn to think too much about it to get control of things , but now I'm hoping to learn to think a little bit less and still keep control.

So I guess here is my question: since I'm so much in the minority, how do I know they aren't RIGHT? That I should just relax, max the now, and let the future take care of itself? Have you ever wondered about this yourself?

What do you think?

I can relate to this. We've been money-oriented for many years. We started 401Ks in our early 20s, and have always made saving a priority. Meanwhile, we've delayed things that our peers have done: new cars, bigger houses, vacations, etc. Did I feel a little jealous of those things when our friends were doing them? Heck yes. Would I trade it in if it meant sacrificing our financial picture? Heck no. Now that we're older (approaching 40), I see that a lot of what we've done has paid off. We are now able to do some of the things we only dreamed about in our 20s. Plus, we have a savings to boot. It's all about delay of gratification.

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I agree with Kim. Thinks may be looking great for them now, but you know that one of these days it all has to catch up with them. They're gonna wake up at retirement age and realize they have nothing but a bunch of debts.

I feel the same way sometimes. None of my friends went on a spending freeze. None of them were even remotely tempted to. I did it and pushed myself to delay gratification and learned a lot about myself and about what's important. I know that one of these days we'll look back at all the time spent looking at our budget, clipping coupons & shopping sales and know that it was all worth it in the end!

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Stay at home mom to my 3 boys... ages 4 1/2, 2 1/2 & 6 months!

I can do all things through CHRIST who strengthens me. Philippians 4:13

I think for most people, the problem is getting started. My husband is extremely frugal and has always had a saving lifestyle. He is used to sacrificing in order to save. Most people are not willing to suffer at all. My girlfriend is my age (38), unmarried with no kids. She lives in an apartment and makes over $50,000 a year. Yet she still lives check-to-check and has nothing saved for retirement. She spends everything she makes and more.

I understand how people get trapped in that lifestyle; I grew up like that. But at some point you have to realize you might not get married and you will be supporting yourself in your old age. That alone would scare me into saving if I hadn't started and was by myself. I guess knowing we have private schools and college to pay for gets us motivated to do without. My husband makes a good salary but we don't do many things our friends do. We don't eat out frequently, go on vacations, drive new cars, have the newest furniture, etc. I am generally a homebody so I usually don't mind. We eat out once in a blue moon with friends or for one of our birthdays. We used to set goals for our net worth and use things like furniture as our reward. We haven't really done that in awhile because I think we're finally getting past that.

Although, I do envy the Jones' relaxed attitude about finances, just not their net worth.

Oh, how I can relate to your feeling this way and have asked myself this many times. We have family and friends who are in debt, yet they're living their lives and enjoying themselves. Sometimes I wonder if it's worth it. If they were to die tomorrow, they wouldn't have any debt to worry about, and boy did they have fun!

What really bothers me is this. We don't qualify for any kind of grants or special help. We basically have just enough to pay our bills. Meanwhile, I know people who because they make less, get all kinds of gov't and state grants.

Now, I have no problem with people in need getting alittle help, but here's what bothers me. The one family I know own a home twice as much as ours, with 2 more bedrooms. They just got a whole new addition put on, new floors, fence, and all new windows paid for by grants! In the meantime, they've had nice cars and trucks, own a huge HD TV surround-sound, kids all have cellphones and ipods, etc. They get food from churches and WIC and their kids eat for free at school.

My husband and I are just scraping by and need so much work done on our old fixer-upper (the only way we could afford to buy a home). It just burns me up when all these "poor" people get so much help when they're living better lives than we are.

I know of another family who had her church pay a month's mortgage and she collected food from their pantry. In the meantime, they had cable, nice new computer, internet, cars, blah blah blah. Her husband had lost his job and they were, "struggling." But, when he was working, boy did they have fun just spending money on whatever they wanted, including all the newest toys. They didn't save a dime. If I belonged to that church and donated my money to pay their mortgage, I'd gone ballistic! Not when we're scratching and saving and doing without.

Sorry, didn't mean to go on like that. It just seems like bad behavior is constantly being rewarded; meanwhile, everyone who's trying to do things the right way - there's no help and by the way, we're gonna charge more and tax you more cuz you can afford it.

By the way, after writing all that.....believe it or not, I still don't think the Joneses are right! I wouldn't want their debt....but sometimes I wish I had that carefree attitude!

They're not right - you are.

DH works with several men who are retirement age, but have to keep working because they didn't plan. They are still in debt, don't even own their own houses, and drive junky vehicles. I'm guessing that's where a lot of the Jonses will end up someday. We use them as examples of what we do not want to be at retirement. It keeps us motived to save, live frugally, postpone things we want.

I know what you mean about the money issues consuming your thoughts, making it hard to relax, though. I do that, too. I recently read a book by Jane Bryant Quinn (a financial expert) that helps me. She says to list all the financial things people need to do: emergency funds, retirement funds, insurance, etc., and get them set-up. The book helps you figure out what you need. Then, in the future when you worry you're not doing enough, or doing something wrong, you can look at the list and relax, knowing you're doing all the right things.

One tough fact is that life isn't fair. We would like to think that we will all be rewarded for our frugality and that the Jones' will pay in the end. It isn't necessarily so.

Many people who "strike it rich" took big risks. I am averse to big risks. Fewer of us will make it, but also fewer of us will starve in our old age.

Rather than dwell on the differences, I like to focus on my own family's stability and enjoy whatever good qualities I see in those around me.

Cathleen

Yes, I think I have reached the point now where I can't really do much MORE to improve our finances, I just need to keep doing the same things and let time do the rest. But I guess I had to devote so much mental energy to it for so long to get things figured out and get on that track that I still have this big space in my brain devoted to it, so I worry at little things.

Yes, this can be hard. We've multiple times recently been in situations where we are asked to help people who waste more money than I could imagine on my worst days, before I learned how to budget. It's one thing when the people who need help have been hit by a disaster. It's harder when you're asked to help someone like that, who has spent money so rashly while you were economizing and denying yourself the things they bought (after all, if you wanted your money to go to waste, surely you should have first dibs on being the one to waste it!).