400 bucks

This is humbling.

And you get these stories every few years.  About the deplorable state of folks' savings.  How plenty of people live paycheck to paycheck and sometimes not even that well.

And I think 'how can this be?'  I have plenty of money.  Enough to buy a new roof and a furnace and then some and not thing twice about it and not need to finance it.  Why can't other people be like me?

And I remember.  Not everyone is as fortunate as me.  With a decent paying stable job.   A job I have been plugging at for decades now.  And without kids of my own to spend on to get then into school or get them diapers or whatnot.

I remember I used to be like that.  Nearly maxed credit cards I couldn't afford to be riding.  A deadend job with no prospect of much more pay.  Hell, unemployment paid better than that.

And I was a lucky one in other ways.  I had contacts and relatives I could ask for money, but rarely did.  The biggest ask was for a loan from my father that I could use to get a divorce and out of my old house and into a new.

I must remember.  Remember what it was like to worry about small routine bills and be unbearably stressed about bigger bills.

I have been blessed, and not everyone has been as blessed as me.

I'm not rich-rich.  But I am furnace-rich.  And furnace-rich is something.