Can You Go Back?

I currently live with my fiancée' in and do not work outside the home. I consider myself a student, and have tried to put that first, over employment, to achieve the grade point average needed to sustain my financial aid, and ensure better future job prospects. My fiancée works as a maintenance technician for Newell-Rubbermaid, and probably puts in about 45-60 hours a week. We live very simply. We share a vehicle, live in a one bedroom house, and we don't purchase what we can't pay cash for (other than our vehicle), so we stay out of debt and keep our budget affordable. Compared to what some of our friends earn, we are probably considered the "poorest" of our group of friends; yet we do not suffer the same struggles as our more financially successful peers. We live within our means, and still manage to afford to do what is important to us. Our tax bracket would consider us middle class, but society would probably consider us to be the working poor. Della Mae Justice sums up how I felt growing up. ''The norm is, people that are born with money have money, and people who weren't don't,'' she said recently. ''I know that. I know that just to climb the three inches I have, which I've not gone very far, took all of my effort. I have worked hard since I was a kid and I've done nothing but work to try and pull myself out.'' (Lewin, 2005). Both my fiancée and I know that hard work and education are key in getting ahead economically.

We have a group that plays the Super Lotto every Saturday. We each buy ticket and if any of us win, we split it 8 ways. Last night we mistakenly thought we had won something, only to come back down to reality. Had we won it would have been about seven million dollars for each person; each of us talked about what we would do if we came into that kind of money and how it could change our lives. The majority of my friends said they would retire and either travel, or build a large home, purchase a favored car or beautiful jewelry, and of course take care of their children. For myself, I know I would finish my degree at Walden University, and then continue on for a Masters Degree, eventually opening a practice in my chosen field of Psychology, it is a given I would take care of my boys and future stepchildren. When it came my fiancée's turn to dream, he said he would like to move somewhere warmer, open up his own bait and tackle shop and make sure our children had safe vehicles, proper homes, and could come visit us. It hit us after everyone had left, that we were the only two who would keep working and we realized that is just in our nature, and it never crossed our minds that we wouldn't work, even if we had that kind of money. Certainly that kind of money would drastically change our tax bracket; bringing many changes. It would open doors, not only for us, but for our children. They say money is the root of all evil.