In the past few years, 95% of all stress in my life has been caused by money, or a lack there of. That’s just an estimate, but I’d assume it’s right on the money.

Ever since I struck out on my own, getting money hasn’t been hard, and I’ve never been out of a job. However, having the money I want for more than the necessities has been hard to come by. I’m a hard worker and I do my jobs well. I go above and beyond because things interest me not because I’m trying to earn brownie points. Even doing so, however, I don’t feel recognized. I always feel like I’m worth more than I’m being paid.

At my last job, ICD Translation, I started with a decent salary and moved up quickly with raises. Somehow though, it felt like I was just getting by. I wasn’t able to save money for the future. Now at my current job, I’ve moved through raises at roughly the same pace but since I’m making the same I was before, I’m in the same place. Sure, I split things with the wife and that helps a lot. But Madison is a lot more expensive to live in than Waukesha was.

The wife and I want to save for a house. And we’ve been told how much we can borrow which is nice. But then we were also told how much our monthly payment would be. To buy a bare minimum house in Madison, our monthly bills would go up by a few hundred dollars. There’s a thing called loan insurance when you put down less than 20% on mortgage. It covers the bank if you’re unable to make payments. Basically, you’re penalized for not having enough money and have to pay more for something you’re already not quite able to afford. It’s dumb.

What’s more dumb is that 20% down payment being the level where you don’t need to pay for the insurance. For a $150,000 house in Madison, which is very cheap here, that means you need to save up $30,000 to meet that down payment. That’s a lot to save and when you’re not being paid much more than what you need to get by.

Long story short, I need a big raise or a new job.