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Money Can't Buy Me Love, But Love Can't Buy Me Health Insurance
New York, 11:35 AM
Mon Dec 7
33 posts in the last 24 hours
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Money Can't Buy Me Love, But Love Can't Buy Me Health Insurance |
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01/08/09
01/08/09
The Victorian novelist Anthony Trollope deals with this issue over and over in his amazing, wonderful, and surprisingly feminist novels. His conclusion seems to be: marry for money and you'll regret it, marry without regard for money, and you'll regret it.
Not optimistic, I know. But probably true for his era. Yet another reason to think a girl's gotta have her own salary.
01/08/09
THIS! This is how I feel. I wouldnt marry someone ONLY because of the money, but I know myself well enough that money is a HUGE issue in life and relationships, I couldnt commit myself and my life to someone where money or the lack thereof would control our lives.
01/08/09
I've recently realized that some of my dreams (lots of travel, a big house, an expensive car) will probably never be realized, especially if my bf and i get married in the future (which we probably will). We both work in non-profits, which doesn't doom us to lives of poverty necessarily, but I'm already not able to keep up with the Joneses- i.e. friends from college who got six figure jobs right out of school.
But that's ok with me...as long as I'm able to put food on the table and keep a roof over my head (and the heads of my future children)I'm satisfied. My bf and I have discussed finances and we're both earning way under our "earning potential" but we also live below our means. We're very passionate about our work and each other and I honestly could not be more satisfied.
And yes, sometimes I covet more vacations and a bigger apartment, but at the end of the day, it's not worth a job (or s.o.) I don't adore.
01/08/09
All those stats about women making less than men - I never fight for my salary. I have an incredible job and I guess my career is taking off, but I am not using money to keep score. I know I make enough for me so I just feel silly negotiating for more. I just think I'm lucky to have a job I love and I have a hard time caring about the superficial part of it. But, I work hard and I want to retire well, so I know I have to be smart and try to get what I can, but I don't want to be greedy.
01/08/09
period
01/08/09
That said, I am now the breadwinner in the family, and we are starting to think about having kids. It is definitely a reality check that I don't really have the option of staying home for a year or two to have kids because surviving as a family for long on my husband's 30K salary would be difficult. And since there still is that societal memory of the stereotypical 50s family where the husband supports the wife floating out there, I'm not surprised when some women are disillusioned when they realize that if they want to be wealthy they are going to have to do it themselves. And certainly, while possible, it is more difficult to survive on one salary today.
01/08/09
I know he's never going to rake in the big bucks, and neither will I with my public relations degree, but he's awesome and makes me smile and laugh everyday so I've decided I'll live frugally.
Hopefully he decides the same because we have different financial points of view, i.e. he doesn't have one. I try not to think about that part.
/ big sigh
01/08/09
01/08/09
I come from a family of academics and while those (leftist) philosophies made for great dinner table conversation; I do remember feeling like the poor cousin on a few occasions every now and then.
I decided a long time ago I wanted to be "wealthy" not just "comfortable" and that is my life's goal. It's not for everyone but let's be real.
As a Guy - being wealthy allows you to punch your own ticket in a singular way.
Rightly or wrongly; You get a better physical selection of mates, you can provide for your family - if you choose to have one - in a proper fashion, and society does not judge you as a fuck up.
At the end of my junior year, I seriously contemplated going into the family business - and getting a PhD in economics. I decided to take the money, glamor and rampant job insecurity of finance in NYC.
5 1/2 years out of school, I know that the kind of life I want, I will never have on a Professor's compensation.
I am not asking anyone to settle but I do think it would behoove us all to be very clear about what is important to us. Don't wait till you get your degree to figure it out, it is a jungle out there.
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Is this a class thing? Because even though my father won the bread and my mother kept the home, we were lower middle class, and it just never occurred to me that I wouldn't be supporting myself my entire life. And that if I wanted to do something creative, I was going to have to find a way to support that, too. Maybe girls from more privileged backgrounds have more of an expectation that their well-heeled prince will come.
I'm gobsmacked by this sentence: "there are women in your book who married for love and thereby entered poverty ..." Uh, no, because marriage is for love and companionship, not income. The women entered low-paying professions and thereby entered poverty. (Just to clarify, I am NOT defending the extreme income inequality of the U.S., the erosion of the middle class, or the crappy salaries paid to teachers, social workers, et al. I am saying that it's not the place of marriage to make up for those economic problems. )
01/08/09
01/08/09
I don't want to seem ranty, but it annoys me when people assume that just because I go to private school I want to end up as some kind of domestic housewife. Also, my boyfriend is a college dropout who is dreaming of his (crap) band making it big. But I love him anyway, even if I need to pay for most of our dates :)
01/08/09
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01/08/09
I am a 'creative' person dating another 'creative' person, and we're both from lower middle-class families. Until recently, we both had day jobs and did the fun artsy stuff on the side. I recently quit my job to write full-time, but I'm freelancing, so I'm getting paid. And I did it by lining up enough clients so as to make enough income to pay my own billz - I have no expectations or delusions that my boyfriend would want to (or should) take care of me.
Interestingly enough, both the boyfriend and I were in previous relationships with creative people from the upper class. His ex and mine both had extremely wealthy parents. And both his ex and mine seemed to expect that we'd one day give up our artsy ambitions and turn into business scions and support THEIR creative ambitions.
Anyway, it's nice to be on the same page as someone, and I'm okay with dying 'poor.' But it'll be a consequence of my actions and decisions; not because I was 'foolish' enough to marry a man who can't lift me out of poverty.
01/08/09
If I end up marrying him, I'll tell you how that goes.
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