Was at a group meeting a few months back and an older gentleman shared an email he received from a friend. The email read….

How Did We Make It this Far?

Looking back, it’s hard to believe that we have lived as long as we have…

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a special treat.

Our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paint.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors, or cabinets, and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets. (Not to mention hitchhiking to town as a young kid!)

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then rode down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into
the bushes a few times we learned to solve the problem.

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. No cell phones. Unthinkable.

We played dodgeball and sometimes the ball would really hurt. We got cut and broke bones and broke teeth and there were no law suits from these
accidents. They were accidents. No one was to blame but us. Remember accidents?

We had fights and punched each other and got black and blue and learned to get over it.

We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank sugar soda but we were never overweight … we were always outside playing.

We shared one grape soda with four friends, from one bottle and no one died from this.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo 64, X Boxes, video games at all, 99 channels on cable, video tape movies, surround sound, personal cellular phones, Personal Computers, internet chat rooms. Instead we had friends.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend’s home and knocked on the door, or rung the bell or just walked in and talked to them.

We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate worms and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes, nor did
the worms live inside us forever.

We ate penny candy, swallowed bubblegum, and our intestines did not stick together because of it.

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn’t had to learn to deal with disappointment.

Some students weren’t as smart as others so they failed a grade and were held back to repeat the same grade. Tests were not adjusted
for any reason.

Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected. No one to hide behind. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors, ever. The past 50 years has been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.

Obviously as a twenty something I can’t relate to everything in this letter, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t certain things that stood out to me (I bolded the things I liked).

I mean think about cell phones. Twenty years ago no one had cell phones and people managed to get by just fine. Now, if I reach down to grab my phone and it’s not in front of me, I have a mild panic attack. Funny how priorities change. (p.s. who doesn’t love going on vacation somewhere you know you’re phone wont get service? It’s so liberating!)

What were some of the things in the letter that rubbed ya the wrong way? What were some that resonated with you?

Any other 20-somethings out there willing to admit we are probably the laziest generation to have ever existed? Would love to hear from the 40+ crowd today and get your insights on how you’ve seen things change over the years!

p.s. if Facebook is the biggest “accomplishment” of our generation I’m going to cry.

I hate to have two “downer” posts in a row, but I just can’t help myself. People suck. Bad. I don’t even know why I bother reading the news anymore as it just reminds me how broken this world really is. Here’s the latest reason (via a CNN article) I’ve lost hope for humanity…

Janitor finds mentally disabled people locked in basement; 3 arrested.

Three people have been arrested and accused of holding the disabled people captive and stealing their Social Security checks.

…

Authorities believe the four were trapped in the tiny room for up to a week. Ray Evers said they suffered from bed sores and “injuries that are very, very hard to describe.”

Seriously? How messed up do you have to be to kidnap, torture, and steal from a mentally disabled person?

Yesterday an Indy Car driver died while racing, and while that story is sad enough, it’s not as sad as the horrible jokes people made about his death in a YouTube comments thread.

Last week eight people were killed in a Salon in California.

We could even take this depressing news and relate it to personal finance. Big banks are trying to nickel and dime us, Ponzi Schemes are as popular as Justin Bieber’s hair, and a Chase staff member had a customer arrested for trying to cash a legitimate check. Check out the horrific details of that last story….

Njoku was taken to jail on June 24, 2010, which was a Thursday. The next day, Chase Special Investigations, realized it was a mistake. The check was legitimate. The Investigator called Auburn Police and left a message with the detective handling the case, but it was her day off. So Njoku stayed in jail for the entire weekend. Finally, on Monday, he was released.

[Meanwhile]

Njoku’s car had been towed from the bank parking lot and his check seized as evidence. “I had to wait a couple of weeks [for the check]” he said, “and my car got sold/auctioned off.”

Njoku says he didn’t have the money to pay the impound fees and fines to get his car back before it was sold.  He said he also lost his job because he couldn’t show up for work while he was in jail.

I graduated college in May 2007. In November of that same year, I got my current job with Uncle Sam. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the recession began one month later, December 2007. This means that my entire adult life has taken place during a really crappy time to try and do things. Jobs are sparse, creditors are cracking down, people actually have to be able to afford a home before they qualify for a mortgage, and the stock market is, well you know, about as stable as Charlie Sheen is sober.

When the recession is all I’ve ever known, it’s hard for me to truly understand how things have changed. Were people having jobs thrown at them? Could people really buy a house that was twice what they could actually afford? Were people’s investment portfolios making insane returns year after year? Apparently, the answer to each of those questions is “YES!”

Personally, and I don’t mean to make this sound like I’m bragging ’cause I’m really not, the Ninja household has been fortunate to not only survive during the recession, but thrive in it. In 2007, I was an unemployed college graduate with a few thousand dollars in savings and $28,000 in student loan obligations. Over the last four years, I’ve been promoted a handful of times, started this blog (which brings in $10,000-ish a year), gotten married (to a working woman), and managed to stash some serious cash in both our retirement plans and savings accounts. A lot of hard work, and definitely some dumb luck, have helped us continue moving forward

That said, we know our story is not necessarily typical. I obviously have zero real world knowledge prior to 2007, and am aware not everyone is as fortunate as we have been.

I thought it would be interesting to hear from those of you who are 28 years or older. You all experienced the “boom” and the “bust”. I want to hear your perspective on how things have changed. What was it like in the good ol days (2003 to 2007)? Did you buy a home you shouldn’t have been approved for? Could you get a new job at the snap of a finger? Have you been directly impacted by the recession in any way? I’d love some insight from people who experienced this firsthand.

For my younger readers (let’s say 27 or less), what’s your experience been with the recession? Do you feel like life is more difficult than it should be? Or since this is all you’ve ever known have you learned to roll with the punches and make it work?

p.s. like my blog on facebook…NOW!

I was talking with a man yesterday who said, “I was raised with a strong German upbringing so I don’t mess around with debt and am proud to be debt free.” As we continued chatting about his finances he eventually told me he has both a mortgage payment and a car payment. Wait, hold the phone. Hate to break it to ya buddy, but you’re not debt free if you have a mortgage and a car payment. Have these types of loans really become such a standard in our culture that we forget they’re still debts?

I get it. Some people think certain debts are “good” and others are “bad”. This man has obviously decided for himself that mortgages and car loans can be classified as good debt, but last time I checked, my blogs name wasn’t Punch Bad Debt In The Face. No, it’s Punch Debt In The Face, because I believe “good” debt is a term we Americans use to feel better about ourselves and our financial situation (It’s like being called festively plump instead of fat). I don’t discriminate, I punch all debt in the face, regardless of how “good” it might be.

What I think this man, and many others, mean when they refer to things like mortgages and student loans as “good” debt is that these types of loans are not as bad as credit card balances or payday loans. How about we change your perspective though and admit that “good debt” is really just another way of saying “not-as-horrible-but-still-pretty-sucky debt” (has a nice ring to it doesn’t it).

Obviously this gentleman is comfortable maintaining a car payment and a mortgage as part of his personal finances, and to be perfectly honest, I have no authority to tell him to change his ideology (contrary to popular belief one can have debt and still be financially responsible), but I can definitely call him out when he tries to pretend that he is debt free. I am debt free sir, you are not.

Has our culture become so numb to consumerism that we think we can have a car loan and be debt-free at the same time? Do you believe in good debt? Why or why not? Should I have punched this man in the face for being so naive?

We moved in to our new place one month ago, yet we still haven’t managed to go a single day without stopping at Target, Walmart, or Home Depot. Just when we think we have bought the last thing on our list, we remember a few more things. I don’t know if Girl Ninja would agree, but I think we have been terribly inefficient during this “nesting” process. Full disclosure…. I’M THE ONE TO BLAME!

One example that comes to mind is our epic hunt for a dust pan. Yes, a dust pan. We stopped in at Walmart and they offered a pretty mediocre dustpan/brush combination for $5.99. The dust pan had that stupid piece of rubber across the mouth that always warps and makes it impossible to pick up dirt. Since, I wasn’t comfortable purchasing the Walmart dust pan, I asked Girl Ninja if I could try and find one online for cheaper.

A quick search on Amazon made me realize that I was either going to get an equally crappy dustpan for $5, or I needed to step it up and fork over $9.99 for the Cadillac of dust pans. Last night, I added a $10 OXO dust pan to my Amazon cart, and just before I was about to select “checkout”, I panicked and thought “Do I really need to pay twice as much for something as insignificant as a dust pan?”. I ended up deleting the dustpan from my cart. But now, as I sit here typing this post, I’m thinking “What the heck Ninja, you need a freakin’ dustpan, is $10 really going to break the bank?”

Basically, I make everything about Eleventy-Bajillion times more complicated that necessary. I have a sick obsession with trying to find the best deal possible. It makes shopping trips miserable because we run to three different stores, cyber stalk the internetz, and still end up empty handed.

My psychotic need to get the best value totally sucks. Can any of you relate? Do you often find yourself checking prices on your iPhone while you are in a store, to make sure you can’t find something cheaper online? Do I buy the $5.99 dust pan, or the $10?!!??!?!?! AHHHHH!

p.s. Girl Ninja has a post going up at 9:30am Left Coast time.