Oh Gosh, just when I thought we were getting a handle on things.

When I chose to go back to work, I thought it would be good to help out our personal economy. I could help get the truck paid off sooner, pay off a credit card I'd overspent on and those kinds of fun things. Then I wake up this morning to a headline at Yahoo that says something like "Lower standard of living is probably going to be permanent". Well, heck, if we're going to have a lower standard of living, why work? This Forbes article isn't makiing feel any better about it.

Why shouldn't we all just go to work for the government. Get a government job, become part of a union that choke holds the economy and have a great pension. I knew I should have gone to work for the government years ago! Unfortunately that didn't happen.

Instead some lunatic talked my husband into getting his social work degree along with his license and he's work for a public entity his whole career. I've worked in the food industry. Believe it or not, the food industry has a better pension program. The husband has not been able to join a union in his field of study. All around him, nurses, PTs, and all those other hospital workers have had union representation. And because of that, his pension has suffered - meaning been non existent - throughout his career.

We have paid our way through life. On occasion the bridge loan from his parents has helped but it was never more than a few hundred dollars. The minor amount of money we were able to put in a now defunct 401k plan (defunct in my world is no longer are we receiving any matching dollars - it's all us babe!) has shrink to less than half it's value. Thank you Corporate America!

So instead of paying off the truck adding to the retirement plan, my car needed a new clutch and his truck needed a new fuel pump. Yep. Life is getting worse. Our home's value has shrunk to about half it's value from three years ago. Any chance of refinancing it is laughable. Equity? yeah right, not in California's real estate market. So much for remodeling, maybe we could burn it down. (just kidding!)

Maybe we should just chuck it all and move to the ranch in Arizona. Purchasing the land was the best decision we ever made. I know some people don't even have land and I'm sorry for you. However, if you're one of those people whose home is paid for, has a nice retirement going to be provided by the taxpayers of this nation because of your union's skilled arm twisting in government, or you got a nice inheritance, don't even think about judging me because I'd love none other than to hand it all back at this point and try my hand at living off the land.

Maybe I just shouldn't read the news.