My husband and I are local homeowners. When we got married 20 years ago, we set financial goals with a secure retirement our main goal.

Over the last few years, the value of our house more than doubled, and many times I thought about refinancing and using the equity for anything from home improvement to a child's braces.

We never did because it was still added debt. It would increase our monthly payment and add to the debt we had to pay off. It was always a hard decision for me. I did suffer many cases of envy, because we lived with a lot less than most around us.

I also resisted to urge to move to a bigger house or better location for the same reason. Even with all our equity to give us a large down payment, the payments and debt would have been bigger. But many of my neighbors did this.

Now I live with foreclosures and empty rentals in my little neighborhood of 90 houses. The owners of two rentals near me let weeds grow, so I put up with a neighborhood that's not as nice, while my former neighbors have something nicer.

Saving isn't easy for me. I really, really want to go to Disneyland and buy a Honda Fit. You get in trouble fast if you make financial decision base don "I deserve" or "I want." The only truly responsible basis is "I can afford" - now. My spending decisions were never a gamble. I didn't bet on property values rising. Our family is lucky in that my husband, our main source of income,has a great job. His income is in the top 20 percent of American earners.

But we're the couple who do things differently. When we went wine tasting with a group of camping friends, they bought cases; we bought one bottle. For years my husband's car was a 1974 Cougar. When our four kids were little, I drove a used Ford van.

It worked fine but it had no radio and no air conditioning. In the Sacramento summer I would give our kids ice cubes and throw water on them. They looked like sweaty, drowned rats at the grocery store. Until older relatives died, we had really crappy furniture. Now we have nice old furniture.

If our retirement saving tanks, I will feel really stupid.

I just heard an expert on TV telling me "now is the time to live small."

Yeah, well, if I had been redoing my kitchen or driving a new BMW, that advice might give me some room to change my spending habits. Sadly, I have been cleaning the grout on my cracked tile and driving my 10-year-old Oldsmobile, so I could get the new kitchen counter or new car in retirement. Now what? And how in the world do responsible families with less income "live smaller?"

My cat peed in our living room,and I can't get the smell out of the carpet. I don't have the money to hire someone, so we're replacing the carpet with tile, by ourselves. I'm cutting up strips of the old, stinky carpet small enough to fit in our trash can. It's, umm, not fun. Something tells me it won't go as easily as it does on HGTV.

We have always saved, because that's the responsible thing to do.We have saved an amount more than our house payment every month and put it in my husband's fund, which is much like a 401(k), and our Roth IRAs. So if Wall Street tanks, we're sunk. So now how do I cut down my spending and step up my savings?

Yes, the nation needs to do something, but why do I have to pay for it? I did every thing right. I was good.

I'm seeing my life's goal fade away, 20 years of prudent, responsible behavior.

And last Sunday, I had read The Bee's editorial page editor, David Holwerk, telling me, "That's why the notion that ordinary taxpayers (me) shouldn't share in the pain strikes me as nonsense."

Ouch!!!

Ruthanne Rankin, a longtime resident of the Sacramento area, is trying to be retired.