We're moving!

We moved to this lovely new house this past weekend!! I can't wait to blog all about it! It's in Nambroca, Toledo - a great small village. So I'm sure I'll have lots to talk about. The moving and decorating I'll blog about on my other site, so please follow me there: The Spanish Sky

63% mileuristas!

A recent hot news report has shown that 63% of Spanish people (although I would argue all people living in Spain) are "mileuristas" (a term coined for those who earn 1,000 euros or less a month). Although I'm technically unemployed right now, I still consider myself a mileurista because I have never earned more than 1,100 euros a month since coming to Spain.

But what does this actually mean in real terms?

In Madrid it is particularly difficult to earn only 1,000 euros a month. I can only refer to my own story, which wasn't a horrible situation. I earned 1,100 euros and the majority of my spending was on rent, which is tortuous in Madrid. Both years I paid almost 400 euros to share an apartment in the center. I usually spent only about 200 more euros on food, transportation, going out and new clothes. However, I would like to note that I didn't go out often, never bought red meat (:o)), and lived fairly frugally. I can't even begin to imagine buying a house in Madrid. I honestly think it would be impossible to responsibly take a mortgage.

When I moved to Toledo, things improved a lot. My husband has a great job and earns twice as much as I do. We pay almost 600 euros a month for our one bedroom apartment (although we are moving soon), a noticeable reduction coming from Madrid. Therefore, although my financial situation is better in Toledo, most of it has to do with combining salaries with my husband. I can't imagine living financially well without his salary.

Why so dramatic? The worst thing about this statistic, that I'm a part of, isn't that young people, or uneducated people, or immigrants, make so little money. The worst thing is that there is almost no chance for a salary improvement. These people that represent mileuristas are usually very well educated and may or may not be young. But opportunities for better jobs that pay more money are very hard to find!

A little lifestyle inflation

Generally speaking, lifestyle inflation is a bad thing. It happens when you begin to spend more money because you begin to earn more money. Instead of living on what you need, you begin accumulating stuff, trying to improve your "lifestyle".

Ever since moving to Europe in 2004 my lifestyle and financial attitude has been forced to change. Even though I welcomed the change, I regarded it passively until about a year ago. (By passively I mean that I actively didn't buy lots of stuff, but it wasn't because of a decision to be more financially aware and proactive, but because I just didn't have the space and couldn't move it.) What happened a year ago to spur on a great mental change was my marriage to my amazing husband. Jose is much more detail oriented and fascinated by being financially secure. Just by living with him for two years I have been influenced by his methodology and consistency (although it's true, it does drive me insane from time to time). So, little by little, I've been trying to catch up with him. We joined our assets, we created an emergency fund and a retirement fund, and we actively organize and reorganize our money to fit our needs perfectly. I've been reading some of his books and we're about to start investing (slowly).

But, as great as all this is, we feel like we need a little more out of life. A little lifestyle inflation. For 2 years we've been living very frugally, although we do travel a good deal. This summer we decided to make some changes to open up our lives a little. No, we're not planning to go out to dinner more. We're moving! Next week we'll trade our fantastic one bedroom apartment in Toledo capital for a fantastic three bedroom house in a village about 8 miles away from Toledo. This house has a yard, for our hammock and our yet-to-be-acquired dog. We've decided to stop waiting to "start" our life until we buy a house, because who knows when that will happen. But we'll be enjoying renting a whole lot more!

Sure, we'll be saving a little less now because taking the house means we had to buy another car, but the added expense isn't that terrible because the house rent is almost 100 euros less than our apartment rent now (crazy, huh). This week we start the move, I can't wait to see how it goes!

A hard summer

It's been a hard summer.

At the end of the school year, I knew that I was mentally tense. My mother was visiting, which inevitably added stress, but it was a much looked forward to visit. Things at home were doing fine, my husband the same wonderful as always. Health was great. Money fine. Socially, everything was the same. My problem was at work.

Almost since starting work at this particular place, in September of 2007, I had experienced different levels of frustration. In many senses it was a great place to work: almost zero supervision, good hours, and seemingly laid back and friendly boss and coworkers. I soon discovered, however, that even though the boss didn't tell me what to do or when to do it, he certainly had an idea of what should be done and when. My frustration went from confusion to outright distress over the two years I was there, ultimately culminating in being told that my contract would not be renewed this fall.

Technically, I had not been fired. But I felt ashamed registering my name in the unemployment office. I was very unhappy in that job and often thought about leaving it. Yet, the decision had not been mine, and what's more, it came out of the blue! I felt completely out of control of my life. I didn't get along with my boss, felt that he expected outrageous things from me and rejected any type of communication. And then HE fired me, when obviously he was in the wrong! All the reasons he gave me for the firing were technically true (and none of them were about my work in the classroom as a teacher, in fact he gave me an excellent reference in my new job), but even though I recognized they were true, they were so absurd that I still can't believe I was fired for things so stupid.

Two weeks after the incident I found another job, to start in September. In fact, I turned in my CV on a Thursday and by Friday at noon I was offered the job. I knew that I had a strong CV and I know that I'm a good teacher. But I felt defeated. My husband and I talked about the financial repercussions of me not working during the summer and they were minimal. Our finances are great. But I felt like a useless member of the team. I was extremely depressed. My husband was wondering what in the world was going on.

It's hard in Toledo, where I still don't know many people. And without work, it's hard to keep moving forward, more than anything, emotionally. It kept me stuck for just about all of July. My great husband took me to France for holidays and we've just returned. August isn't very busy, but I'm going to try to move forward in lots of different ways so that emotionally I move forward too. So, I'll be back blogging also. September has lots of great changes that I can't wait to share.