Kasey and I both graduated from Penn State with our bachelor degrees in biomedical engineering. I wanted to go into the medical device industry and he wanted to get his pHD and was considering academia. The good thing about getting your pHD in bioengineering, most time they will pay for your schooling and give you as stipend, the bad thing is that is is usually 6 years to complete and they, at the time, paid a meager $23K stipend which thankfully included health insurance. We both are very fortunate to have parents who invested in our education. Kasey did not have debt coming out of school and I only had about 25K.
The year was 2010, at the tailend of the recession. I was having no luck getting any job offers let alone interviews. I did realize at the time that no one really knew what a biomedical eningeer was (yay for new majors), if there was anyone looking, it seems like they weren’t looking for a biomedical engineer. Womp.
So here we are living off of 23K, we got our first apartment in the city for $725, utilities included. The neighborhood was sketchy, but we were trying to live on the cheap. Actually we had no choice, lol. I remember being afraid to leave my apartment to go for a run, I would wait for Kasey to get home so we could go out together. Essentially Kasey’s stipend covered very basic living expenses and luckily I was still on my parents insurance thanks to the new Obama care policies. He also still had his first car, a 2002 Rav4, lovingly dubbed Toby, which meant we had no car payment (which I will refer to as the Toby Factor)
As the summer months flew by with no luck in the job market, I decided I needed to do something while I job hunted. Through word of mouth and family and friends I was able to make some extra cash tutoring math and cleaning; not exactly glamorous, but it helped to make ends meet (my first side hustle btw!)
The job drought continued for the next couple of months, and with the 6 month student loan deferment coming to an end, I remember feeling such a sense of hopelessness. This feeling would be something to form my financial mindset for the years to come.
I made up my mind then, that once I got out of this, I would never let myself be in a position of vulnerability again.
We continued to live as frugal as possible. Craigslist and hand-me-downs was how we furnished our first apartment. Through craigslist, I scored a free piano and we bought our first “new” item, a couch still in plastic, for $300. We were so nervous that we were spending that big. We had that couch until last year, I guess not a bad investment. Once again, we are so fortunate to have such a wonderful support system here in Pittsburgh, our family and friends were always looking out for us. We always appreciated the hand-me-downs. Christmas came around, and I made origami star ornaments and paper snowflakes to decorate our tree.
I can honestly say we had it all. Apart from the stress of still not having a job, we were very happy. We had each other and we were managing to live on around $26 K.
At the time, it may have seemed like things hadn’t quite played out the way we had intended, however, knowing we could live for $26 K and be happy was our first step to accidentally living frugally.
January 2011 and things started to look up. I had interviews and I finally landed my first engineering job. After 8 months of holding my breath, I finally tasted the air. In the wake of the recession, there was still a very really sense of instability and hesitation. I knew that getting out from under my student debt, that was priority #1. I paid aggressively toward my loans, I was able to close those out after 2 years. What wasn’t going to student loans, was saved for a house. For the most part, we continued to live like we had one income. I don’t think it was a conscious decision, it was just working for us.
My starting salary as an associate engineer in 2011 was $54K. I consider this Phase 2 of our life. Its wasn’t just about making it by anymore, it was time to think about the future. My uncle had given me good advice about setting up my 401K (shout out to Uncle Greg!), making sure to maximize my setup by doing a company match.
Once things were stable, I did splurge and bought myself a $500 mountain bike. Biking was something that Kasey had always loved doing and it was something that we to this day still love doing together. (Spending money on Bikes still is one of our cruxes, no guilt on this one)
I just want to emphasize that while we were frugal but still spent money on things that were important to us.
When it came to money, my mother would always say, “You can’t take it with you when you die”. I’m sure some people in the financial independence community might cringe at that. Some people might see that as a quip to make you feel better when spending money, but I see real truth there. You still have to live your life. For me, it’s important for me to not have money just for the sake of having money. I don’t want an emotional connection with possessing money. Mum also is known to say,
“Money doesn’t buy you happiness, it buys you choices”. Here, here! It’s up to us to make choices that make us happy.
2013, the year we bought a house, a puppy and got married. Yes, we were saving money like crazy just to turn around and spend it. I was told I was insane more than once. Over the 3 years we rented, we were starting to see changes in our neighborhood; a mom with a stroller, couples out for a walk, kids out playing in the street. I was running outside… by myself. It felt like our neighborhood was turning around. We watched the housing market very closely and jumped when we saw the right house. $123 K for a 3 apartment fixer-upper. It was another 30K, many long nights and buckets of sweat to make it home. We renovated the house and made it back into a single family unit. We could have and maybe should have house-hacked and rented out one of the apartments while living in the other. Hindsight is 20/20. Either way our new mortgage payment was less that what we were paying for rent. At this point, Kasey was biking to work and I was driving Toby. Still no car payment! The Toby factor really helped us make this all happen. We bought our house in March, got our puppy JuneBug in May, and got married in June and by the fall had all of those big things wrapped up (Yup just like that ;))
I consider post house-puppy-wedding Phase 3. This is the What’s next phase? (Don’t say kids, everyone says kids, we weren’t quite ready for that) Some of my colleagues who were a little ahead of me also pushed me to start a 3 month emergency fund, to start a ROTH IRA, save more in my 401K, and max out an HSA account. It was such a leg up being surrounded by good financial influences.
At this point, Kasey and I have spent 4 years with very little lifestyle inflation. It started because of the recession, it stayed that way because of paying student loans, saving for and fixing up a house, and having a wedding. Once those are all done, we just kept going at the same pace. Icing on the cake.
In 2016 Kasey graduated with his pHD and decided to begin his career forming a start-up business with a colleague based on their graduate work. We knew it was risky and not much better paying, but it what he wanted to do. By now, we were comfortable living on one income, what better time than the present? The frugality that started with the recession has now rippled through our lives and now empowered us to make career and life decisions that we have control over.
In an alternate universe there is a Lauren that got a job right away, bought a brand new luxury Volvo, all new furniture to replace the worn-in hand-me-downs, and kicked off a lifestyle we might have expected from shiny new college education. That Lauren might think she had it all, but this Lauren looking back is grateful for the experiences that are leading to a life of choice, freedom and value.
They say we are the sum of our experiences and the average of the people we spend them most time with. I guess I could say my experience was accidental when I graduated into one of the worst job markets and economic recessions of our time, it was chance that I have colleagues (now friends) that have encouraged and guided me through sound financial decisions early on, and also chance that I ended up with such a supportive and giving family. What wasn’t accidental, was recognizing and value and the advantages as they came my way. Kasey and I are still on our path to financial independence, and now we find ourselves looking to diversify and expand our careers. So here we are entering Phase 4, Finding the side hustle.