Muse Like Me

When I first decided to study abroad in college I thought that I would go somewhere like the UK or Australia. Somewhere that everyone knew about and would be impressed by. And then I saw the price tag. In fact, I’m ashamed to say it, but the thing that first drew Poland to my attention was the much lower price of studying abroad there. It was so low that it was cheaper than staying a semester at home in the U.S. There were a few other places that were also pretty low cost as well but after some research, I decided that there was no where I wanted to go and live for a few months more than Poland.

I was drawn to the stories and history. I was fascinated by how the architecture was a mix of eastern and western designs. But the more I found out, the more I was drawn too an element that I hadn’t initially thought of – their people. I became intrigued by how a people that had suffered so much had remained so resilient. Through the wars and the communist era, their people had come through it. I wanted to meet these people.

So off to Poland I went. And I was not disappointed. The people were all I could have imagined and more. In Poland I met the nicest, kindest, bravest people I had ever met. They were friendly people who would greet you warmly even when they barely knew you. Being a young woman who had been raised in a rural community in the Southern United States, I felt right at home with the tidings of “Cześć” and the warm smiles. Everywhere I went I could find someone who wanted to talk to me. One night we stayed much too late at a restaurant in Poznan so that the public transportation had shut down. We were at the table trying to figure out how to get home when the waitress offered to walk us across town to our dorms to make sure we got home safe! Talk about generosity! This was the common theme among the people I met in Poland. They really are the nicest people.

This is one of the reasons that I have become sort of distraught with the public opinion I have heard about Poland in the past year. I have started to see a lot of media portraying Poland and the Polish people in a negative light. This criticism has mostly been around the strong sense of national Polish pride and Poland’s unwillingness to accept some of the mandates from the EU around accepting refugees. I have heard people describe the Polish people as racist, bigoted, and fascist. I’m not even Polish and I find these statements offensive! These reports are so different than the kindhearted, resilient people that I met and lived amongst.

I wanted to share my own opinion of these reports because I don’t believe they are warranted. Polish people have a sense of pride for their country. I could see this very easily after I arrived. They are a united people who want to preserve their culture. I admire their spirit in this. They have a rich history going back 1000 years that is often overlooked by the more “mainstream” western countries. You rarely hear about the Polish soldiers that helped the Americans win their independence from Britain in the 1700s. You also don’t hear about how bravely the Polish fought during the crusades with their winged hussar units. They are swept under the rug. They have gone through so much in the past 100 years. In the past 100 years, they suffered as one of the main battle fronts for 2 world wars, and then went through 40 years of communist rule. Since regaining their freedom, the Polish people are eager to show their national pride. They are proud that they have regained what they had previously lost. And I commend them for it. I understand their conservative nature to change, their fear of outside forces. Given their history, it makes complete sense.

So with that in mind, please don’t take the reports of Poland you may hear in the news without a grain of salt. Poland and its people represent a type of diversity that is unusual on a global scale. A country with unity, that refuses to apologize for its existence. That holds onto its history and tradition instead of casting it away like trash. They should be allowed to exist in peace, without unfounded labels that exaggerate and serve to paint them as villains. They should be allowed to be proud of who they are without fear of persecution. I can truly say that when I chose to visit Poland I unwittingly chose a real gem. One that I become more and more proud of every day.

I always hear people talk about how hard it is for them to save money. People are always saying that things cost too much and that there isn’t a enough money to save extra at the end of the day. Now this is coming from people who are making $80k or $100k. That is above the average household income in the United States. This doesn’t make much sense to me because there are plenty of households that make much less than this and still manage to get by. So how do I save money?

For me I’ve forced myself to save by creating an environment where I feel poor. Years ago, when I was in college I lived in a truly impoverished state with very low income and high bills (thanks rising tuition). Even though I was essentially living on about $600 dollars a month I made it work through creative applications. I didn’t feel poor even though by all standards I was. After graduating and getting a real “grown-up” job I was careful to avoid lifestyle inflation. How did I do this? By forcing myself to be poor.

When I got my first paycheck after college I remember being shocked at how much money it was. I remember some of my friends saying similar things to me when they first started getting a paycheck. Everyone wondered “What am I supposed to do with all this money?” I think most people start off this way when they aren’t used to managing that much money. But people figure it out and the initial amazement at how are they going to spend all this money turns to “how could I afford to save money, I spend everything I get?” This is due to lifestyle inflation. It can start off small, with a new fancy house and a new car, but then it turns to an even bigger house, dinners out several times a week, Uber rides all over time, new clothes, the newest gadgets, show tickets, and last minute plane tickets to cool festivals. And suddenly they need to make more money, because there isn’t any left at the end of the day. After all, its their money, haven’t they earned it?

I had a similar thought, but I knew that I wanted to pay off my higher interest students loans first. I figured that the money I was earning wasn’t really mine since I had so much debt. And I knew I had a lot of expenses coming up. My computer I had used through college was dying, my car was to the point where something broke in it every few months and I was pretty sure it wouldn’t pass an inspection. My boyfriend had proposed, so I had a wedding to pay for. I had $37k in student debt, and I knew that I didn’t have anyone to fall back on if I had money problems. So instead of inflating my lifestyle to my paycheck, I got to work on a budget and money plan.

From day one, I put aside part of my check for retirement. I didn’t want to get used to seeing that money in my bank account. If I never got it, I couldn’t miss it, right? I had heard that many young professionals don’t contribute to their retirement at the beginning because they figure they need to get an emergency find first and retirement is a long way off. But when you take this approach, the few months you were going to not contribute to retirement turn into years and before you know it you’ve lost out on decades worth of compounding interest! I wasn’t going to allow myself to fall into that trap.

After that, I set aside the money for my essential costs, built up a small emergency fund in a separate savings account, and every other penny went to debts. I had in effect, artificially made myself poor. Even though I had a nice paycheck coming in, I never saw it. This allowed me to avoid lifestyle inflation because I physically couldn’t inflate my lifestyle because I had no money to do it.

This turned out to be my savior. Even though lifestyle inflation has certainly happened to us (living off $600 per month is rather uncomfortable) we have kept our spending at about 30% of our income. And we do this by not even considering spending above the budget that we’ve set for ourselves. And it works pretty well. We don’t have to have endless self-control with our money, because we’ve set up our lives so that we never see that money. You can do the same. Here are some tips.

How to Artificially Make Yourself Poor to Make Yourself Rich in Reality

1. Paycheck deductions.
   Whenever you can, make the payments to your retirement accounts come from your paycheck before you ever get it. This makes it so that you never see this money in your bank account so you don’t ever miss it. Depending on your health care plan or what your employer offers you can do this with other expenses as well like health care premiums, flexible spending accounts, or HSAs. My employer even offers an account that deducts from your paycheck for putting money aside for childcare or elder care. Most of these deductions are tax advantaged as well so take advantage of what you can. The goal is to shrink your paycheck before you ever see it for things you needed to buy or fund anyway.
2. Use separate accounts for savings vs spending.
   Have one account that has the money going into it you are actually allowed to spend for the month. Everything else should go into a separate account so that you don’t even think about spending it.
3. Get rid of the extra money.
   If you have leftover money after paying for budgeted items get rid of the money. Don’t just let it sit in your account, tempting you to spend it. Use it to make extra payments to debts or move it into a brokerage account where you can invest it. Out of sight, out of mind when it comes to money.

Hope these tips help you as they have helped me and my family!

Today I’d like to write about happiness. Many people want it, but so many people don’t find it. It sometimes feels like this elusive creature that everyone else has but you don’t. I used to feel that way. I used to be downright miserable. But now I’m not. I used to suffer from depression.

I now have complete strangers comment on how happy I am. Others say that I always have a smile on my face. Am I faking it? No. I really am this happy. But it doesn’t come naturally. I have to work to stay happy.

The secret to happiness is GRATITUDE. That’s right. Happiness has little to do with what you have in life or rather what you don’t have. Happiness has to do with how you perceive the life you do have.

My favorite holiday is Thanksgiving. I love gathering with my family with delicious food and seeing everyone. But my favorite part is right before we eat. We all hold hands and say what we’re grateful for. Many years ago back when I was unhappy I never knew what to say when it was my turn, because deep down I wasn’t thankful. I felt entitled and neglected by the life I had and truly wasn’t grateful in a real sense for anything. Now when its my turn I have to cut my list short and only say a few things I’m grateful for because my real list is a mile long.

How to practice gratitude in your everyday life

You can start off small. I did. I remember looking out at this field on the side of the road. It was such a pretty shade of green and the grass was the perfect length and I realized that I thought it was beautiful. And I thought about all the hard work someone had to do to get that field to be its current state that I could enjoy it. Someone had mowed it, perhaps planted the grass too, hard work had gone into making that. And now it was a nice field for me to walk in, or play sports in, and generally enjoy. And I felt gratitude to those things that led that field to be there.

There are things like this you can be grateful for everyday! The world is full of amazing things that other people had to do to make them that way. Every time you turn on a light (electricity!), every time you eat (no famine!), every time you have running water even those are things to be insanely grateful for.

Doesn’t money affect happiness?

Yes, money does seem to make a difference in happiness levels overall. But that seems to be because there’s a threshold where you have enough to take care of your basic needs. After that, money doesn’t really matter in happiness. There was a study that found that people only became happier for emotional well-being up to $60,000 to $75,000 a year in earnings. After that more money didn’t make people happier. In fact they found that happiness could even decrease after $95,000 in earnings a year. More importantly they established that the cause of this unhappiness was due to people tying up their self-worth in status and financial earnings. In other words, they were unhappy because they compared themselves to others and focused on what they didn’t have instead of being grateful for the things they did have.

Overall, I believe that I found the secret to happiness and the secret to happiness is gratitude. Pure and simple.

This post is going to highlight an unpopular opinion. Pets are extremely popular. These days people are putting off having a baby longer and longer. So it makes sense that we would fill our lives with adorable friendly critters. A lot of people say that these pets are less responsibility than a child and while that is true there are a lot more similarities than you would think. Let’s get started.

1. They wake you up in the middle of the night.

I still remember my shock when my college roommates decided to adopt a cat. My shock was mostly over the loud yowling noise that this cat made right outside my bedroom door. At 2am. And then again at 5am. And then again at 8am as I was trying to sleep in after a night of troubled sleep from all of the yowling. I had heard that babies could wake you up every 3 hours and that you got no sleep once you had kids, but a cat? Sure, he was cute. But not that cute. And then again just the other day my co worker was talking about how he had had to get up at 5 am and one other time during the night. I heard another one of my coworkers reply sympathetically, “Yeah, its so hard when they’re young.” Imagine my surprise that they weren’t talking about a kid, but instead they were talking about his new puppy. Yes, babies cry and wake you up at night but at least its temporary. Its not like they do that forever.

2. You have to clean up their poop.

When a dog poops when you’re going for a walk or you’re in the dog park you can’t just leave it there, you’ve gotta scoop it up and throw it away. When your cat uses the litter box, you have to empty it. I even had to clean up the poop of my little rat when I cleaned her cage. With babies yes you have to change their diapers. But then around age 2 they get potty trained and you don’t have to clean up their poop anymore. With pets, you’re cleaning up their poop for their entire lives.

3. They’re not your flesh and blood.

It’s one thing to take care of a small helpless individual when that thing caries your genes within you. There’s something instinctual about continuing your genes. You can watch the child grow and develop and you see little pieces of yourself in them. With a pet, all of this care you give them isn’t going towards continue your genetic line.

4. They destroy your stuff.

I’m always hearing my friends complain that they’d like to buy nice things but then they sigh and say they can’t because their dog would destroy it. Another one of my friends is always having to buy new shoes because her shoes are always being chewed up by her dog. But I think the most shocking story was what someone’s cat did. They had left their wedding dress hanging up in their closet. When they came back the cat had completely torn the wedding dress to shreds. Wedding dresses are not cheap. Children will also destroy your stuff but not to the degree that a cat with sharp claws and a serious texture aversion/obsession.

5. They are expensive.

The average amount spent on pet ownership per year in the U.S. was $1,191 in 2015. That’s pretty expensive. Let’s assume that you had a dog. Dog breeds can live anywhere from 10-15 years depending on the breed. If you do some back of the napkin math that could be $17,865 over the life of the dog! But of course children can also be pretty expensive as well. But also you get tax credits for having kids when they’re young and there’s even a chance that your kids will help take of you one day when you’re older! There aren’t any tax advantages for having a pet that I know of. Veterinary care can also be very expensive. Child healthcare doesn’t have to be that expensive either. Just for example, with my husband’s health insurance it would cost a big whopping $0 dollars to add a child to our health insurance policy a year because we’re already on a family plan with the 2 of us.

6. You can always change your mind.

Everyone talks about the financial responsibility and commitment that having a kid is since you have to take care of them for 18 years. People argue that with a pet you can always get rid of it if you decide you don’t like it. But I have good news! For a limited time you can return a baby if you decide you don’t like it! Most states have safe haven laws that allow someone to drop off a baby with no questions asked! In Nebraska for a time you could drop off a child of any age. With pets at any time you can surrender your pet to a rescue, post a craigslist ad, or rehome them with a fiend or family member. Of course, giving up a child or a pet is always a serious decision not to be taken lightly and always with the best interest of the welfare of the child or pet.

Overall, having a pet is quite a responsibility. For many they can be great sources of fun and can help you relax. But they also can be very time consuming and quite a hassle. Even my little rats take quite a time commitment! Between playing with them, making sure they get exercise, and cleaning up, they take a lot of my free time. And while they are adorable, maybe my time would be better spent doing other things. My intent with this article is simply to highlight that there a lot more similarities between having a pet and a child and in a lot of the circumstances the cons of having a pet are a lot like the cons of having a child but without the best pros of having a child. But both pets and children sure are cute though!

A new term has come up in the last few years is FOMO. FOMO, or the Fear Of Missing Out, occurs when someone is overcome with anxiety that they could be missing out on social events or experiences that others are having. According to reports, FOMO is crippling and affecting the Millennial generation like a plague that they just can’t shake off.

With the prevalence of social media in our society today, its easy to see all of the cool things that everyone is up to and feel jealous or even envious. My social media page is full of posts from people going on weekend getaways, friends smiling together in bars, people taking awesome trips all over the world, cool food that’s in restaurants. Someone else is always going to a concert, attending a play, a sports game, buying a newer bigger house, or wearing the newest trendiest clothes. It’s hard to get away from reminders that someone somewhere is doing something cool that you’re not doing. When looking at these reminders or hearing theses stories its easy to get caught up in feelings of inadequacy, because maybe you feel your life isn’t as cool.

FOMO can make you try to keep up with the never ending cascade of things that others are doing. The other day, I logged onto my Facebook and within minutes I found several friends talking about awesome trip to New York City. I even felt jealous for a second and wished that I was the one taking that cool trip to new York City over weekend. I wondered was I squandering my time by not going to all these places? I had went from being perfectly happy and content to questioning why I didn’t have an awesome photo to post about my weekend.

But I can’t look at it that way. Because my life is not a performance to be judged on how many likes I can get or how cool of a reaction I get when I tell someone else what has happened in my life. Its important to focus on yourself and what makes you happy.

I can see that in some of my friends that FOMO has overtaken them. It just hasn’t brought them to new places though. Its brought them to a race where they can never keep up. Because there will always be another cool restaurant to eat at. There will always be somewhere else to visit, another great game or concert. There will always be the newest trends, and a new model of the iPhone. They can never keep up. And the worst thing that FOMO has done is that it has drained their wallets. It has robbed them from a future of financially security and in some cases, it sets people up for a lifetime of crushing debt, trouble saving, and living paycheck to paycheck.

So I implore you. Say no to FOMO. It is more important to focus on every day joys in life. Fear of missing out? No not me. I’m not afraid of missing whatever the newest craze is. I’m more afraid of being a slave to a job and being financially dependent where I don’t have the freedom to try new things. I’m afraid of not taking a moment out of each day to stop appreciate all of the wonderful things I have. At the end of the day, all of those things are just a distraction. A distraction from the simple things in life that don’t cost a penny.