Living in LaLa Land

You know, before I moved to Los Angeles, I secretly imagined life here to live up to this hype of being the lap of luxury lifestyle. I thought I would be in my own little dream world all day long, hob-nobbing with celebrities on a daily basis and hanging out at the beach every weekend.

For the first week or so, that may have been true and for the first 3 months, I hung on to that perception until the reality of this city's cost of living really set in! I had to get a job and get one quick! Living on my sister's couch wasn't as luxurious as the dream world would have me to believe. And soon enough, I was thrust into the REAL world with REAL bills and SUPER REAL RENT!

Fast forward 10 years and now it's me and my hubby raising 3 children in LA. Has anyone ever priced-out decent daycare in this city?! And how about a 3 bedroom apartment in a safe neighborhood?  By now, I have built a successful career and my husband has built his as well. And even with two very well-paying salary jobs, we are still dealing with the paycheck to paycheck lifestyle. Now, don't get me wrong! Our God is so awesome that we never come up short and we always have what we need - thank God for that! Without Him, I'm not sure where we would be!

But this just makes me wonder....if we are doing this well in our careers and still live paycheck to paycheck, are all of these people walking around acting like they have all kinds of money, owning houses and putting their kids in private school, struggling just like us? Maybe they are in debt like the rest of us. Maybe they are stressing in the middle of the night, trying to figure out how they are going to pay the mortgage. Or maybe they just know how to manage their money and we have no clue!

Well, I don't suppose this is the sort of thing I can just walk up and ask them about, so I guess I shouldn't speculate! I think the more productive thing to do would be to get a financial advisor to help us budget our money better and to spend more time in the Word hearing what God has to say about it! We know He is bigger than any little money problems anyway!