Spending is Arbitrary

I really like the ChooseFI podcast. 

While I love me some Marketplace, Planet Money, and Stacking Benjamins, the ChooseFI show is the only podcast in my rotation where the specific issues impacting financial independence and early retirement are front and center. Plus, their opening music is indistinguishable from 1970's porn music, so it's got that going for it, which is nice. 

Stagnant Wages, Inequality, and Early Retirement

The other day the missus and I were browsing through our wage history on the Social Security Website, ssa.gov, because we are nerds. Or, at least I am, and my wife loves me enough to humor my personal finance oddities.

My first wages? All the way back in 1994, when I was earning $4.25 an hour busing tables on the weekends at King's: Pittsburgh's crummy version of a Denny's. (Our good version? Eat'n Park. If you have the opportunity, by all means try the salad bar, a coffee, and a smiley cookie.) Since then, it's been a fairly steady march towards higher and higher wages, with some big jumps coinciding with big life choices (leaving the public sector, turning my back on teaching, and selling out to become a corporate shill).