Lucy Kellaway rules!

I have mostly enjoyed working for insensitive people as I find them restful and straightforward. An insensitive boss can be told what his failures are without going into a blind funk. They don’t take things personally. And because they are insensitive, they help me behave better. If I know I’m not going to get rewarded for being needy, I have no choice but to tone it down a bit.

Debt is not your friend

I read Club Orlov, Irvine Housing Blog, and Kunstler's Clusterfuck Nation, but I think Orlov and Kunstler exaggerate to make their points. Then I come across things like this, a reader letter to the Simple Dollar blog:

I’m 26, married, and expecting a child in October.

My Debts:
$390k @ 5.5% mortgage
$15k @ 4.9% car payment
$13k @ 4% education loan
$25k @ 3.3% education loan

I have a well-stocked emergency fund already in place and I’d like to start minimizing my monthly payments on other debt. Generally, I would agree the best approach would be to pay down the mortgage since it has the highest interest rate. However, I only plan to be in this house another 3-5 years. When I move, I’ll be moving to an area with a much lower cost of living (and also lower pay). I hope to use proceeds from the sale of my current home to buy a small home with cash in the new area. Since I won’t be staying in this house long enough to truly realize the benefits of extra payments on my mortgage, does it make sense to instead try to clear the other 3 debts so that when I move, I will be completely debt-free?
- Chloe

Where to begin? She's married and pregnant, but speaks exclusively in the first person SINGULAR.

She's 26, and carrying a debt burden over USD400,000.

And (wait for it) ... she believes that the house she "owns" will turn from an income suck into an ATM in "another 3-5 years."

Why has this young person mortgaged her future, and that of her child?

How many others are similarly situated?

How will her story end?

How will their stories end?

How will our story end?