Do you feel like you know when you are doing well?

[Amelia G]

Do you feel like you know when you are doing well?

I know I could tell I was doing badly when the only thing in my fridge was film and photo paper and my car was a rusted out old Camaro that bottomed out all the time and scraped the tires if I put more than two people in it and I couldn't get a lease. I can tell I'm doing better than that now because I'm not hungry and I like my car and I've got where to live, but there are tons of things I can't afford or have to save up for i.e. dentistry, photo equipment, that sort of thing. Sometimes I will have other people get all envious of what I have and I'm totally freaked out by that. I work long hours, don't take weekends or holidays, and sure don't have everything I want from a purely material perspective.

But I still have no idea what most jobs pay or even most jobs in Los Angeles where I live. A friend of mine recently told me that you can tell you are doing well when other people obviously wish they were you, but that seems like a weird LA view and not the right barometer.

How do you measure how you are doing?

[killerkat]

it's abit cliche` ,but if i have all but maybe two bills payed , and i can eat,everyday!, than i a happy mother*...........

i think people are envious of you becuse, you have a carreer that isn't like some 9to5 shit job, your pretty much your own boss ,right?, ect,ect............

and of course , another big part is, look at the girls/guys you get to photo and meet,befriend, that's certain;y something to be envious of......

[Camby Savelle]

I know when I'm doing bad, but some of the best times I ever had were during me at my brokest & in the worst situations. alot of times I don't realise I'm doing well until I'm no longer doing well. I can look back at points of my life & realise I was so much better off then I am now. that's just how life works I think. as they say "you never know what you have till it's gone"

[One Eyed Cat]

Do you feel like you know when you are doing well?

I know I could tell I was doing badly when the only thing in my fridge was film and photo paper and my car was a rusted out old Camaro that bottomed out all the time and scraped the tires if I put more than two people in it and I couldn't get a lease. I can tell I'm doing better than that now because I'm not hungry and I like my car and I've got where to live, but there are tons of things I can't afford or have to save up for i.e. dentistry, photo equipment, that sort of thing. Sometimes I will have other people get all envious of what I have and I'm totally freaked out by that. I work long hours, don't take weekends or holidays, and sure don't have everything I want from a purely material perspective.

But I still have no idea what most jobs pay or even most jobs in Los Angeles where I live. A friend of mine recently told me that you can tell you are doing well when other people obviously wish they were you, but that seems like a weird LA view and not the right barometer.

How do you measure how you are doing?

Happiness. If you are content with where you are at and your progression towards your goals/aspirations, you are doing well. I don't really think materialism is the key to happiness. (it is nice, obviously) I don't think other people should be a factor, I think that is a very shallow viewpoint (tho I understand it)

OEC

[Amelia G]

Happiness. If you are content with where you are at and your progression towards your goals/aspirations, you are doing well. I don't really think materialism is the key to happiness. (it is nice, obviously) I don't think other people should be a factor, I think that is a very shallow viewpoint (tho I understand it)

OEC

The question is not how can you be self-actualized. Of course, no material item can substitute for love, self-respect, etc. The question is just how can you tell if you are doing well from a material perspective.

[One Eyed Cat]

The question is not how can you be self-actualized. Of course, no material item can substitute for love, self-respect, etc. The question is just how can you tell if you are doing well from a material perspective.

oh ok. I read "doing well" in a general sense. In that case, it would be having enough time/money to pursue all your interests and aspirations.

OEC

[Tequila Zaire]

How do you measure how you are doing?

Lame as it'll sound...happiness. If I enjoy what I'm doing and not on the street then I figure I got little to complain about. Sure I'll never have my dimond studded, gold plated, monkey navigated, pink painted rocket car but hey...lifes more than what we buy.

Got good friends, got a comfortable place to live, fun jobs...what more could one really want? Everthing else is like sprinkles on a sundae...nice to have but not really needed.

The only thing I want right now is decent healthcare...and some sort of helper demon to wash my clothes...and maybe some sort of Scar clone.

As far as material goods goes though...as long as I'm not in rags and my computer is up to date all is well in the world.

[Amelia G]

Lame as it'll sound...happiness. If I enjoy what I'm doing and not on the street then I figure I got little to complain about. Sure I'll never have my dimond studded, gold plated, monkey navigated, pink painted rocket car but hey...lifes more than what we buy.

Got good friends, got a comfortable place to live, fun jobs...what more could one really want? Everthing else is like sprinkles on a sundae...nice to have but not really needed.

The only thing I want right now is decent healthcare...and some sort of helper demon to wash my clothes...and maybe some sort of Scar clone.

As far as material goods goes though...as long as I'm not in rags and my computer is up to date all is well in the world.

I guess my question is a smaller sprinkles unit of measurement question and not a larger life question.

I feel like I'm in some sort of middling state. Don't feel like I need a rocket car, but I'm definitely also down for the healthcare and the laundry helper demon. But I think the helper demon is something I might have to save up for, not a casual expenditure

I've noticed some of the people around me being envious lately and hitting me up to pay their bills, but I don't feel like I'm doing that great. Still got a lot of striving to do, but I'm happy that I don't have to stress about money for food and such like I used to.

Anyway, I find the whole thing confusing and I'm wondering what benchmarks people use to sort of mentally keep tabs on where they are at.

This is the sort of thing I've been sure everyone else got the manual on in junior high while I was looking out the window daydreaming.

[MistressJennifer]

I guess my question is a smaller sprinkles unit of measurement question and not a larger life question.

I feel like I'm in some sort of middling state. Don't feel like I need a rocket car, but I'm definitely also down for the healthcare and the laundry helper demon. But I think the helper demon is something I might have to save up for, not a casual expenditure

I've noticed some of the people around me being envious lately and hitting me up to pay their bills, but I don't feel like I'm doing that great. Still got a lot of striving to do, but I'm happy that I don't have to stress about money for food and such like I used to.

Anyway, I find the whole thing confusing and I'm wondering what benchmarks people use to sort of mentally keep tabs on where they are at.

This is the sort of thing I've been sure everyone else got the manual on in junior high while I was looking out the window daydreaming.

Amelia, are you saying that you do not have health insurance!!? Amelia, you MUST get health insurance, you must! In fact anyone on this board, please please get health insurance whatever way you can, be it medicare or pay by the month personal health insurance.

It is really important. Whether or not you are doing well, everyone should have health insurance.

[TheDeathKnight]

The benchmark for me, is having money saved, and not being in debt.

If I feel like I am getting paid, paying my bills, and saving some money,
then I have things under control.

It does not matter if you are living like a pauper, or like a superstar.
The key is living on the money you make.
Having a budget that reflects your income.
If you make very little, then live on ramen, etc.
If you do not waste your money, or overspend,
you will end up saving some money, and then you
will feel more secure, and more able to splurge sometimes.
Speaking of spending, and splurging:

Another little tidbit of advice I have, that I just gave out to someone this weekend,
is that I never spurge more than half my savings. If I want a $500 item, I will not
splurge on it, unless I have $1000 in the bank. I will always leave 50% in there.
So if I wanted to buy a $10,000 dollar car, I would need to save $20,000 before
I would buy it. That way you never feel desperate, or poor. It's a great system.

[Tequila Zaire]

Amelia, are you saying that you do not have health insurance!!? Amelia, you MUST get health insurance, you must! In fact anyone on this board, please please get health insurance whatever way you can, be it medicare or pay by the month personal health insurance.

Well for me it's either Healthcare or Eating. Oddly if I buy the healthcare and get sick from starvation I can go into the hospital and be feed on hospital food and IV's...still...it seems a rather extreme way to get both.

It's just waaaaaaaaaaaaay too expensive for me to afford.

[Tequila Zaire]

The benchmark for me, is having money saved, and not being in debt.

If I feel like I am getting paid, paying my bills, and saving some money,
then I have things under control.

It does not matter if you are living like a pauper, or like a superstar.
The key is living on the money you make.
Having a budget that reflects your income.
If you make very little, then live on ramen, etc.
If you do not waste your money, or overspend,
you will end up saving some money, and then you
will feel more secure, and more able to splurge sometimes.
Speaking of spending, and splurging:

Another little tidbit of advice I have, that I just gave out to someone this weekend,
is that I never spurge more than half my savings. If I want a $500 item, I will not
splurge on it, unless I have $1000 in the bank. I will always leave 50% in there.
So if I wanted to buy a $10,000 dollar car, I would need to save $20,000 before
I would buy it. That way you never feel desperate, or poor. It's a great system.

I have that same system for women! Never date one unless I have another on the side...or at least as a prospect.

[TheDeathKnight]

Hahahahaha!

[Morning Glory]

my measure of success is if I can go outside and get done whatever intentions I had of getting done. for example yesterday I went to try and apply for a job and my car broke down 50 feet from my house. Today I have my freinds working car and I went to send my freind a cd in the mail, when I tried playing the cd I realised that it recorded wrong, and that I didn't have any others, so by the time I got more cds, and rerecorded it the post office would be closed. So on both days I didn't get more than 50 feet from my house and never got done what I wanted to. that's pretty much what always happens to me, so I know that I am not successful and usually just cut out the middle man and don't even bother trying and don't leave my room all day.

[karyn]

this is sort of a variant on what deathknight said. i think you know you are doing well when you don't immediately have to send out every dollar that comes in when it can build up in your bank account for a while. i think you know you are doing well when other people start acting like envious assholes. this is why i hate most people.

[Azekiel]

Amelia, are you saying that you do not have health insurance!!? Amelia, you MUST get health insurance, you must! In fact anyone on this board, please please get health insurance whatever way you can, be it medicare or pay by the month personal health insurance.

It is really important. Whether or not you are doing well, everyone should have health insurance.

Hooray for the National Health Service!

It's amazing the capacity for What You Absolutely Need to Survive to expand to fit however much money you happen to have at the time. Personally i feel there can be no objective scale of 'happy' - the only way you can judge 'doing well' is by comparison with how you were before, and how you can realistically expect to be in the future.

[Azekiel]

[edit] Post timer ran out while i was writing:
What TDK suggested sounds like a good idea - riding the edge of just enough money to get by is almost as bad as crossing it, and you enjoy treats far less if you're worrying about how much you spent on them. If i had a little more self-control i'd try it.[/edit]

[Amelia G]

Amelia, are you saying that you do not have health insurance!!? Amelia, you MUST get health insurance, you must! In fact anyone on this board, please please get health insurance whatever way you can, be it medicare or pay by the month personal health insurance.

It is really important. Whether or not you are doing well, everyone should have health insurance.

Nope, don't have health insurance.

[TheDeathKnight]

www.healthcareshopper.com

[tatdownthere]

whens i am nto eating ramen and dont get a csotma,ch ache in the art supply store

[MistressJennifer]

Do you feel like you know when you are doing well?

I know I could tell I was doing badly when the only thing in my fridge was film and photo paper and my car was a rusted out old Camaro that bottomed out all the time and scraped the tires if I put more than two people in it and I couldn't get a lease. I can tell I'm doing better than that now because I'm not hungry and I like my car and I've got where to live, but there are tons of things I can't afford or have to save up for i.e. dentistry, photo equipment, that sort of thing. Sometimes I will have other people get all envious of what I have and I'm totally freaked out by that. I work long hours, don't take weekends or holidays, and sure don't have everything I want from a purely material perspective.

But I still have no idea what most jobs pay or even most jobs in Los Angeles where I live. A friend of mine recently told me that you can tell you are doing well when other people obviously wish they were you, but that seems like a weird LA view and not the right barometer.

How do you measure how you are doing?

I know I am doing well when all my boyfriends break up with me, and anyone I date gets jealous!!! Hah! Men HATE successful women. Especially blonde with large breasts. It's worse than the devil!!!!

[23*]

Men HATE successful women. Especially blonde with large breasts.

nah....we're not all assholes..

[Nautilus]

Well for me it's either Healthcare or Eating. Oddly if I buy the healthcare and get sick from starvation I can go into the hospital and be feed on hospital food and IV's...still...it seems a rather extreme way to get both.

It's just waaaaaaaaaaaaay too expensive for me to afford.

No shit! Then your corporate boss says you've got to work at least X amount of hours a week and so many years before you can get health care through them, but some people just can't stick with one job for that long 'cus they're moving or they can't work that many hours 'cus they're going to school or whatever else. And what do you do in the mean time, even if you've made a commitment to a company? Less and less people every year are covered.

I work at a nursing home and hear stories about how easy it was for them to get coverage and retirement plans "back in the day." They say in 1940, the day you started work somewhere was the day your health coverage began! I guess I'm conservative in one respect; I want to go back to that system (or get a better one).

[MistressJennifer]

Well what about Medicaid or Medicare? My friend has it and they put you in the best hospitals in the world!!! He stayed in a better hospital than I did, and I have health insurance from work.

You should check it out, you might qualify for it. It's very important. All of you reading this, PLEASE try to get health insurance or medicare or medicaid or something. There is even a really cheap health insurance now..

[a_small_death]

Basicly Health insurance makes sure at least you die on a matrice.

[curiositykilledthecat]

I have to tell you that while I have health insurance, I often contemplate dropping it and saving my money. Even though We have two kids, we haven't met our deductibles in two years. So I feel like it's all just a waste of money. And one thing to consider, if you are indigent (poor), and you don't have any assets (ie. like a house or a trust fund), most people can apply for emergency medicare if they are really sick.

When I was pregnant with my son, maternity health care coverage was not available in the state where I lived. We ended up moving to California midway into my pregnancy. Then I still couldn't get any maternity coverage because I had a pre-existing condition--I was already pregnant. So, we decided that we would have our baby at home. As it turned out, our baby was eleven pounds and well, there was just no way. So ten days past my due date, I had an emergency C-section. And 5 years ago we were faced with a bill of $26,000. We applied for emergency medicare and while I had to fight tooth and nail with them for nearly 2 years, they did finally pay 90%.

Personally, I would argue that health insurance is a necessity.

As far as how well you are doing, I believe I am doing very well. Not because I have attained any particular asset or climbed a particular hurdle, but just because I AM. I guess what I am trying to say is that how well we are doing has to come from inside to have any meaning. If we are measuring our success from the outside, no matter what we do, it will never be enough because there will always be someone else who does better, knows more, has more etc.

When I find myself getting caught up in wondering whetehr I do enough, have enough etc., that's when I take the kids and whatever clothing or food that's extra down-town on fridays when they distribute these gifts to the folks who really are struggling and don't have a home. If you have never done this, I would highly recommend trying it at least once. It is very humbling.

CKTC

[johnny]

I've noticed some of the people around me being envious lately and hitting me up to pay their bills, but I don't feel like I'm doing that great. Still got a lot of striving to do, but I'm happy that I don't have to stress about money for food and such like I used to.

Anyway, I find the whole thing confusing and I'm wondering what benchmarks people use to sort of mentally keep tabs on where they are at.

If you have friends that are asking you for money, you're probably doing well...

As for my own measure, I measure if I'm doing okay by my "Go to Hell" money. It's money I've set aside for situations I just want to get out of (work, people, life). Most often I have to hit it up to live, but if I have about 2 months of cash to get the f* out of Dodge and start over, I think I'm doing well. That's my measure.

Money should buy you independence... that's what it's for. Everything else is pure gravy.

[Amelia G]

If you have friends that are asking you for money, you're probably doing well...

As for my own measure, I measure if I'm doing okay by my "Go to Hell" money. It's money I've set aside for situations I just want to get out of (work, people, life). Most often I have to hit it up to live, but if I have about 2 months of cash to get the f* out of Dodge and start over, I think I'm doing well. That's my measure.

Money should buy you independence... that's what it's for. Everything else is pure gravy.

That is an excellent measure. I definitely feel like freedom and independence are top luxuries. I've said "the hell with this" in some circumstances where I didn't have "go to hell" dough and it was definitely a bit painful.

The supposed friends putting the touch on me all the time was what got me thinking about this question. There must be some barometer they look to when they decide to do this, but I think they are off base. Which got me wondering what barometers people use to determine whether they think someone is doing well. And why the question was not a how-to-be-happy one, but a material one.

Great to see you here and thanks for the insight