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humanodon  ·  3396 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Saving Money Costs Money. Period.

This is where I am right now. I have a very dear aunt who is very business-minded and was fortunate enough to be an investment banker in the '80's and '90's. She's been rich for a long time and can't understand why my uncle (who runs a little food shop in the Philippines and drives the equivalent of a school bus on the side) can't ever seem to get it together. Now, this uncle works harder than anyone I know and in fact, his wife worked so hard that she thought that the pain in her neck and shoulders was nothing but work related fatigue until it turned out to be cancer.

Now, I love my aunt, but she's been rich a long time, as I mentioned. She's super smart and has a deep understanding of the way her world works, but doesn't really get it when her world and the world the rest of us live in collide. Her advice to me two years ago on moving back to the U.S. was to move to NYC, because "it's really a very livable city . . . once you resolve your housing problem." Now . . . her apartment cost $1.3 million in 1998 and well . . . I'm a teacher. I'm oversimplifying of course, but still.