Perks of Living in the Ghetto

Saving money. Financially responsible. Living within your means. These are things that parents and adults preach at us from a young age.

Unfortunately, they sometimes forget that this means you must make a stint in the ghetto for this to be possible.

Chris and I have big plans for our future. Houses, children, safe neighborhoods, good schools. We are attempting to accomplish this on our own. No loans. No debt. (Okay...maybe a house loan at some point...) But no school debt, credit card debt, or car debt. Just our income and that's what we live on--rent, gas, groceries, grad school tuition, and if we're lucky, a redbox movie every now and then.

A hard lesson I had to learn--no thanks to The Sims and the motherload cheat--is that to achieve your financial and standard-of-living goals, you must live a little below what you expect for a while. It takes time to save money for those nice houses with big yards. In the meantime, we've had to adjust to a different lifestyle than we were raised. The attitude adjustment has been the hardest, for me anyways. I've learned that to make this saving period a little more bearable, I must look for the best in it. And hence, we have...


THE PERKS OF LIVING IN THE GHETTO

1.  Cheap gas.

 

Seriously, when your local gas station has residue of a previous fire, they just can't charge that much for gas. I haven't paid over $3.39 for gas since we moved here.

2.  Authentic international food.

Gojo Ethiopian Restaurant. This is right down the street from us. We haven't actually eaten here yet, but we plan to. Also within 3 miles of our apartment are: 9 Mexican restaurants, 4 Greek restaurants, 2 Middle Eastern grocery stores, and 2 Ethiopian restaurants.

Most of them look like this so it's a dinner surprise! You don't know which ethnic food you might get tonight!

3.  Lessons in Culture

I'll be honest with you. I was raised in white bread southern America. My neighborhood and school were not terribly culturally-diverse. Going to a big university helped a lot. I got to meet a lot of people who were different from me and learned a lot about different cultures. But not quite the experience that living with people of different cultures has been. A few weeks ago, I was working out in our apartment's fitness center alongside a Muslim woman. She was in full headdress and burqa, jogging on the treadmill. I was in my shorts and tank top gliding on the elliptical. I no longer felt as hardcore.

4. Convenient location.

You see the little 24 sign in the very bottom right corner? That's where we live in relation to Nashville. Sure, it's heading towards Antioch, but it's not Antioch yet. We found a cute little location somewhere between Brentwood-standards and Antioch-standards right where that 24 sign is. The perks? I go against traffic every morning and every afternoon. And wave at the people on the other side of the interstate at stand-still traffic at 6:30 in the morning. Chris follows 440 all the way around the city to get to TSU. I-440 is usually not too bad. At least it's no I-24 or I-65. All in all, we can get to downtown Nashville in about 10 minutes. I can be in Smyrna (for work) in about 15 minutes. Great location!

5. No hipsters. 

6. We'll have this adorable place someday with money to spare.

Okay, sure. Maybe not money to spare. Or not this exact house, since I think this is a tour house in Arlington, VA, but the point is...all our hard work and years saving will help us afford something fancy-shmancy. Not because of our outrageous salaries (I'm a teacher...remember), but because we were willing to take our turn in the ghetto. 

Now, I'm going to take my dog out before it gets dark, lock the door, and enjoy my Sunday evening.