How are you financially compared to four years ago? - Page 2

better but still working on paying off debt and I am going back to scool so once I am done with that we will be even more in the better off than we are now. :)

Better, for sure, though like deemom, hubby's retirement has taken a big hit. 

Worse.  Our combined salaries are much lower than what Dh's salary was 4 years ago before being laid off.  He just can't find a comparable job to what he had before.   That topped with college expenses have put us into debt.

Worse. We just finished putting one child through 4 years of undergrad. We're on our 2nd year of putting the second child through undergrad. While they both do/did have academic scholarships, it still costs a FORTUNE!!!! Our mantra is "THREE MORE YEARS!!" We've had to dip into our savings, spend our meager inheritances, and added nothing to savings or retirement except for what's automatically deposited by DH's work. Sucks big time.

Worse We have seen a 52K loss.

Most of that is change in equity we sold and bought in that time period and paid a ton in fees and closings our equity went from 55K to Negative 45K

Investments though we have seen growth $43K more increase

Consumer Debt we have been paying it down.  23K less

Net worth really isn't the whole picture. The growth in retirement savings and decrease in consumer debt are over shadowed by the loss in equity. As we have no plans of selling I think it will take another 2 years for us to break even on our equity.

sorta worse. 4 years ago I only had 2 kids adn a full time management job. Now I have 3 kids and no job. However, though my finances are worse, more strained, my life has never been better. 

 we are alot better off  DH earns more and I inherited from two relatives ..  I hate that I had to loose them but both were very generous to me.

Financially I would say better off.

4 years ago I was married with a mortgage on a large home and about $6,000 in debt.

Now I am divorced, I downsized to an older single wide trailer on an acre of land that is paid for, bought an older car with cash, and used most of my savings to take the summer off with my girls. I have no debt at all, but very little savings. I start a part-time job next week and will start rebuilding my emergency fund again.

Our net worth has gone up, so I guess we are better off.   We've managed to save well, but the economy has affected our investments.

 

• Dh makes more money, I make less.
• Our 401k investments haven't grown much, if at all.
• We have more in savings.
• Our home has not gone up in value, if at all.

Overall we are doing better. We've come to a better understanding of what we want and have learned how to have more control of our finances to fit into that. It's still kind of like forcing a square peg into a round hole, but at least we have a mallet now lol

 

We're both on board now with NO financing and have eliminated car payments and the random financing (albeit interest free) of things. Our only debt is our house and I'm very motivated to try and get rid of the mortgage as quickly as possible. We're still living paycheck to paycheck more than I would like, but we're not counting days until they're deposited which is a huge relief. I don't have to compare due dates with paydays which I am LOVING.