This is a glimpse of a typical day in my middle class life.

Phase 1) Waking up.  I wake up to my alarm clock that I’ve had since I was in high school.

The alarm clock is about the size of a small child’s shoebox, and the plastic is factory painted to look like it’s wood.  The edge of the alarm clock got to close to my goose neck desk lamp and the plastic has warped, but just to a small degree.  I know that I can buy a cheap $10 dollar one, but this ones still works, and I’m comfortable with it…

Next, I go into my master bathroom and get a quick shower, because I hate to waste water (and also to make up for the amount that other family members use).  .  I do the typical routine to get ready for work…  No magic here, not much to describe.

My house is a little over 2100 square feet, and was built in 1998,  the shower isn’t too fancy, but the room looks nice enough.  The style of the house is a colonial.

Phase 2) I walk down the stairs quietly (the dog is asleep), and pack my lunch.  Since I’m currently doing a lunch/allowance experiment, I pack the following items in my small insulated lunch bag: eggs and sometimes peanuts.  The ramen noodles that I eat are already at work in my desk drawer…  Before starting my experiment, I would typically go out for lunch at a number of different restaurants.

What types of foods do I eat?…

• Cajun Chicken spinach salads with hot bacon dressing (yum),
• Sushi (mostly the spicy types: spicy crab, spicy tuna, eel…),
• Chinese food (Chicken with Cashews, Hunan Shrimp, etc),
• Mexican food: Chicken quesadillas, etc.
• Italian foods (sort of), in particular from Olive Garden and Macaroni Grill (both have different but great bread)
• and Fast foods: Subway (spicy italian heated sandwich), McDonalds (Quarter pounder with cheese), Taco Bell (varies), etc…

Phase 3) After getting dress in jeans and a polo shirt (I use to have to dress more professionally at work, but now we just dress casually).  I drive my 20 minute to work listening to an audio book playing in my card CD player, the radio, or nothing – preferring to think on those nothing days.  I’m a Gen Xer, so I have an eclectic manner with respect as to what I listen to… ex.) alternative, rock, classical, rap, country and others.

What car do I drive in?  A 2003 malibu (my friends say that I drive a grandma’s car), that I bought new for $11,000 back in 2003.  This was a great price considering the sticker price was listed at $21,000.  I’ll post about how I got it so cheaply at a later time 🙂

I’m a computer technician, and my wife is a stay at home mom.

I have a BA in computer science.  Every year I think about going for a MBA (the company I work at would even provide money for it), but life for me now is busy enough…

Opps, I digress, back to my middle class lifestyle.  At work my cube is the standard type… nice comfortable chair, 2 (soon to be 3 or 4) monitors attached to a newer PC, a ibm laptop to do work at home, a blackberry, etc…

I arrive at work an hour earlier and leave an hour earlier to avoid rush hour, so I work 7 to 4 with an hour lunch in between.  Although these last few years, it seems that more and more people are changing to the same work schedule…  the roads are definitely busier this year than they use to be at those times.

Phase 4) Once at home, it’s time to rush the kids to the sports that they are playing in at the moment.  Typically Soccer, Basketball, Cheerleading, Baseball, Tee-Ball, Flag football, swimming lessons, gymnastics, etc…

Phase 5) Once I get a free moment, I use to randomly surf the net more, but lately, I’ve been reading blogs and writing in this blog.

We do have a designated movie night on Fridays, where I’ll pop in a DVD that I got at the library.  We still have an old 36 inch CRT tube TV.   We can afford a new flat screen LCD (or Plasma, or LED-LCD…) TV and in fact have the best buy gift cards in a drawer waiting for our current model to break (it’s close to doing so).  The gift cards are from the rewards point from our rewards credit cards.

Phase 6) Then at bed time, I do watch a little bit of TV in our queen size bed (King of Queens and Frazier reruns).  Our bedroom set is wooden, with an armoire, and set drawers with a fancy mirror on top…   Both cars were bought new and are both 2003 models (crazy, I won’t do that again!  Used cars is the way to go).

Next day I do the same routine again, just like the NIN song, “Every day is exactly the same”

My life = Repeat Phase 1 thru 6 😉

After I’m debt free, I’m going to alter the above routine a bit, maybe throw in a health phase, or a 2nd job phase, or a community service or coaching my kids sports coaching phase…

So what do you think? …  Tell me about your lifestyle or ask me additional questions about mine…