Happy 4th of July to our American contingent. I'm celebrating by going to Canada for the remainder of the week... This post hit home for me, and I seem to share a handful of sentiments with zebra2. But then I updated my finances yesterday, and saw that while I think I'm spending too much, and will be cutting down the groceries/going out bills, I still put away a grand in savings last month. And have at least a year worth of money to get by on should I be laid off tomorrow, upped my 401k contribution, and am trying to parse out what out what if any other investments are worth pursuing. It doesn't feel like I'm in a better place financially than most of America, but then I read all the statistics kleinbl00 et. AL post and, damn, apparently I'm doing better than most of the country. It's something to be thankful for, and something to strive to maintain if not grow. Also have a bit of a product idea which I'm hoping to look more into after this round of backpacking.