How Do They Do It? What Am I Doing Wrong?

I just don't get it, it seems that on shows like House Hunters , Property Virgins , And My First Place seem to be populated by so many people my age, and they have budgets that I could only dream of! I don't get what I am doing wrong I scrimp and save, I stuff the vast majority of my paycheck away into savings each week with automatic transfer! I live less then extravagantly I'm about the most frugal person that I know, and have absolutely no debt.

Yet I am still at a loss for how all these people I see on these shows not only have higher budgets then I do but seem to have so much saved up, I have been saving most every penny I could scrape together since I was young and with the goal of buying a house since I was in in my early teens in high school. I have been seriously shoving money aside and living well bellow my means since I got my first job after graduating HS in 06. Yet even a modest condo in the area I live in is still so far out of reach. And its not like the pay and benefits of my job are bad ether. I currently make $12.90 an hour (and work 40 hour weeks, with my pay increase to over $13 a year by the end of the current 3 year contract) I have Blue Cross Blue Shield health insurance threw work, a great plan for a very low monthly deductible from my pay check, I have a 401(K) and Union pension. Matter of fact I have better benefits then my brother, and only make a little less then he dose and he is a certified welder! My income is not off of what the average income for the area is, matter of fact I make as a single person about half of what the average income of a family and about 2/3 of the average household income, so my pay is not out of line.

How ever if you use conventional ways of figuring out how much house one can afford I can't even afford a studio condo! but along the same lines if you use the same figures based on average and median incomes even for families in the area a family making the median income can't even afford the median priced house, heck they would be hard pressed to afford lots of the condos here ether! I just wish I know what the secret of those on the shows was as most of them seem to be so much further ahead and also living less frugally then I am! It just feels kinda hopeless at times, like my dream of a little place of my own (like a 1 bed condo) are just not realistic.

I guess the only think I can do is keep saving, I mean luckely my parents are in no hurry to get me out of the house which helps with the saving but at the same time why is it that so many of the people on those shows at 24-26 can seem to aford to buy a first place of their own yet for me it looks like I will be lucky to manage that even at 30? I just makes me feel like my dreams are pointless, like some how I am asking for to much.

The Temptation Of The High

While being balanced mode wise is something that is good and something that I am glad to be, although I do wish that my medications made me feel less drained like I have been dragging a heavy weight around with me while I do things, in part because my mind seems to be sort of slow and just not totally with it at times leaving it to take a lot of energy to concentrate and get things done and that mental energy also has a physical manifestation as well, and is what tends to make me feel the most drained. while it is good to be balanced it is hard to not want to have a taste of the forbidden fruit that I have been brought down from having a minor taste of and that is to be on the more manic side of things. It is times like this when I know that the meds are keeping me from an amazing natural high, that it is so tempting just to stop taking my medications.

Mental Health Awareness

As some of you may or may not know May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and as such I thought I would write a blog post to try and help do my part to help raise awareness, and end the stigma of mental illness. I also hope to show provide some hope in the process. As many of you already know I have a mental illness, and that is Bipolar Disorder, which I was diagnosed with only relatively recently, about a year ago, although I have had it for a nice chunk of my life. It is something that while I am still just in the beginning stages of starting to understand and control, I don't feel that it is something that I should have to be ashamed of or have to worry about others finding out about it. unfortunately though there is quite a large amount of stigma that surrounds mental illness especially "serious mental illness", which they are for those that suffer from them (and those close to them as well) unfortunately though it also makes it sound scarier t...

The Attacks Start At the Last Minute

With only a week left until ballots mail out in Washington state, Protect Marriage Washington has started airing their first ad in what is doubtless to be a series of ads to run threw the election on Nov 6. as the Seattle times says about this time in the election cycle "for a ballot measure that isn't up on the air now is missing a big opportunity. Ballots mail out next week" and it appears that even though they are late to the race compared to the Approve campaign that has had ads running for months between Washington United for marriage and an ad run by Seattle Pride during the summer Olympics they seem to be coming out of the gate swinging using some of the same old tactics that have proven so effective in the past in scaring the public into voting their way. although this time they seem to have thrown in another tool to their approach ...

A North West View

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