complaints

My sister just turned 21 and she's going to be in town this weekend and she's going to want to be entertained and I have no idea what to do with her because wow, we're boring. An exciting night for us involves going out for thai food and then walking at the mall. I exaggerate a bit but I like thai food (cheap and tasty!) and I don't like spending money and I like walking and the mall is pretty much the only option when it's 22 degrees outside. So despite the fact that the above activities please me (and D.) it will certainly not please my sister and I never thought I'd have a sister who needs to be impressed.

And about that not liking to spend money business, I feel like we're hemorrhaging money right now. Perhaps out through the eyeballs. I just got the first real car insurance bill post Incident (there was a prior one but it was all adjusted for period of time without car blah blah) and wow, despite not being at fault for the accident insurance has basically doubled. Also for some non-transparent reason all the reductions have vanished and once again I will have to bitch at the insurance people. Also, it means that we are paying $2400 a year for one 10 year old car that is never driven and one 5 year old car that stays within a 10 mile radius of our home except for infrequent trips to my mother's house. How much do the assholes with Lexus SUVs pay?

In addition there is the fact that we could have a mortgage on a 3 bedroom house in my hometown for about $450/month, yet we are stuck stuck stuck here in St. Louis for years, where we will never buy a house because I cannot justify spending $250k on a house the size of our apartment with no yard. This is why I will likely never live in any other big city. (Sidenote: apparently we should have moved here 10 years ago, at which time our street was in the ghetto and the houses a few blocks over were super-cheap but just far enough over to be mostly crime-free. Thinking along these lines is like wishing one had been born 6 or 7 years earlier as to have gotten in on the dotcom boom.)

And in yet more addition I am trying to acquire health insurance which is basically a)infuriating and b)expensive. But it seems like possibly a good idea so that if i am ever either hit by a car or have cancer I won't be left to die in the street.

How much money do you need before you don't feel one disaster away from a collapsing house of cards? We have more money in savings/whatnot than most 40 year olds but I still feel broke and financially unstable. Perhaps this is just a personal flaw.