A Little About Me

From the title of this blog you may think I'm broke, elderly and living on a fixed income, or that I'm a penny pinching miser. You couldn't be further from the truth. I am 20 something MD-PhD student married to another young MD-PhD student. We each get paid a livable salary from our program and we enjoy many fine things in life.

So why do I budegt and look for bargains? It's complex issue with several answers.

First and foremost, our salary is designed to be livable for one person. When you start thinking about having a family you quickly head into the not-livable zone. I suppose the people who designed the program assumed that students would realize they are spending 8 of their prime reproductive years on a students stipend and would marry someone with a high salary who had a company daycare option. They never imagined anyone would be stupid enough to marry another student. Well, we are the sixth or seventh couple to have met and married in the program and plenty others have married students from other programs. So budgeting and deal shopping is our way of making our salaries support a family. I don't have any children yet but would like to think it will be possible one day.

Then there issue of livability. I live in NYC. The prices on items here would make someone from middle America dizzy. So you learn to stretch the dollar a little and find great buys so that you can maintain the standard of life you are accustomed to.

Lastly, I find it fun. To me budgeting and bargaining is not about pinching pennies and denying myself. It is about dreaming of the future I want to have and making that future possible. I'm not in debt and I'd like to stay that way. In fact, I'd like to be able to save up for my retirement so that I don't end up elderly and living on a fixed income. (I bet that's not something you're used to hearing from the average 20-something year-old). It's also a real rush to get an item you needed, and were expecting to shell out a lot of cash to acquire, for next to nothing.

Why the Blog? Because I see people all around me who think there is no way out of their debt, who think that finding deals and budgeting is too much hard work and there's no way for them to make it. This blog is here to tell you that you can do it! And if it's too much work, you can let me find the deals for you. The blog is for motivation as well as comraderie.

So join me, my friends, in improving the financial situation and quality of life in our households.