**** money. I am tired of it. I have a very modest mortgage, miniscule car payment, low student loan bills. I brown bag it every day, never go out to eat, don't do the impulse shopping thing but yet I am always broke. Whenever I manage to scrape away something into savings I am immediately faced with a crisis of sufficient proportion to wipe it out.

How old are you?

If you maintain that lifestyle for the rest of you life, you'll probably end up rolling in dough. Ever read the stories about the janitor that, when he passed, turned out to have a million in the bank?

Try to consider this an eduction.

When you make a bit more, try to concentrate on buying something good once as opposed to buying disposables many times... and if you can't look back at the previous years expenditures and see tangible, existing proof of where your money went, you're making mistakes. When you find yourself asking "Where did my money go?", consider that a wake up call.

Do you do any of your own car maintenance? I used to always take it to a mechanic because I had the rationale that I didn't want to break something important and make my car dangerous. Once I started doing my own maintenance I realized how hard that actually is to do. I suppose it does suck if you're single and have nobody to give you a ride if you don't get it fixed in time. But I've saved grips of cash by doing most of my own maintenance. It just sucks committing to four hours of work.

It's frustrating, but at least I can happily say that we aren't in debt, we have some savings, and we have good credit.

But I'd really like to be in a more stable situation where I could start investing more long term instead of just saving up short term buffer funds.

For the love of God don't jinx me. I haven't needed to do any but when I do, it is a Civic Hybrid.