Low Income, Early 20s, Anti-Wage-Slave Living: Walwen's Journal

[UrbanHomesteader]

You're in a really interesting place in life, thanks for the journal!

It's very honorable that you are helping your grandfather. My dad took care of his grandfather for the last years of his life, with the expectation of inheriting the house. But, I don't think there was any paperwork in place to ensure that the house went to my dad (i.e. a will or trust naming my dad). So, the home and the rest of the estate went to the generation prior to my dad, and dad got nothing for years of caregiving.

Another thing that comes to mind is that if a person does go to a nursing home and that expense is paid by Medicaid, then after the person dies Medicaid often takes the house in an attempt to recover the nursing expenses.

So, if your help is keeping your grandfather out of nursing care, it may also be keeping the house from being claimed by Medicaid eventually. This is great justification for your being named in the will, but that does need to happen on paper. See freewill.com for free forms your grandfather can fill out.

I know how awkward it can be to sort this stuff out with family, but it's better to do it before someone passes or ends up in a nursing home. Do you know if your grandfather already has a will?

[Laura Ingalls]

Walwen, I am so curious. Your mother is a faculty person? She had an advanced degree and had a take home pay of $4k per month and she is broke. Yikes.

Maybe you ninja level frugality is an act of rebellion.

[Walwen]

About a week until my granddad's surgery, and he is doing very badly.
Just through life circumstances, I've been privy to the financial information of my mom and granddad. Like, actually seeing their bank accounts and monthly budgets. And it's just really upsetting. I promise I'm not some money-obsessed hog, but I figured this was the best place to express it because I think a lot of other people wouldn't see the danger or why I'd be upset with my mom living paycheck to paycheck on her salary.

My mom took thousands of dollars from my granddad to repair her house after it flooded and insurance wouldn't cover all of the floor replacements. My granddad said, "There goes the inheritence", which I know was just off the cuff but it's been ringing in my head ever since.

My mom seems to have no intention of actually paying him back and I finally realized it's because she knows he's going to die before she has a chance. She just took an advance on the inheritence, she feels like it's going to be her money anyway. And the rest of the money she's going to get? She's already got a travel agent and her and her friend want to go on a multi-week international cruise. Obviously she's not going to do that until after he dies. And she obviously does not have the money now. That's literally what she plans to spend the inheritence on, and she says all those little things like "It'll be my reward, I NEVER get to travel, I never get to have fun." My mom makes so much money it would probably only take a year to fix her situation, but I know that's literally never going to happen. Even now in her 50s my mom has to run to my granddad, on his deathbed, for money because she's THAT bad with money. She plans to have a final hurrah by burning the inheritence on a cruise, and more new furniture, and a new TV, and a new car, and keep in mind "The inheritence" is only 25k split between two people.

People are telling me to have the "tough conversations" but it's impossible with my mom because she refuses to be an adult. It's not something I can fix- she's got that whole "age regression due to childhood trauma" thing, and so I'm not saying "she just won't get it", I'm saying she'll literally start screaming and wailing like a 5 year old and start hurling everything she knows will really hurt me, and run out of the room. I've tried to engage her over text instead, but she's totally unwilling and that just leads to her showing up at my doorstep crying and freaking out about how she nearly killed herself frantically driving in such a state and implying it would be my fault if something happened. My mother is a great inspiration for me to work through my own traumas in life because of how much I hate these behaviors of hers.

I got rejected from the job at my mom's place in the second round because they have a point-based system and I didn't have enough points i.e. enough education. So unfortunately my mom is already back to freaking out that I need a job, but at this point I definitely want to stay home with my granddad. I like donating plasma and I think if I can find some kinda easy gig work, like someone in the neighborhood who will pay me to walk their dog, I could reach an equillibrium money-wise.

I think the goal for me is to work at the local factory, because it will pay enough for me to keep this house. But I know the hours are intense and it's an unforgiving sort of place. I don't want to start that until things settle one way or another with my granddad. I'm also in physical therapy myself right now for a stress fracture. So the timeline in my head right now is about 6 weeks. 6 weeks and I'll start applying for jobs. So in my head I plan conservatively to not really have income for three months.

I really want to go to my friend's land but it's hard to fit it into the picture. I don't want to lose this house, and I also have three cats here. My mom has been open about the fact that she'd just put them down because they're too old and have health issues. And that she wants to sell the house for the money. I don't know anyone who would be willing to take care of them for months, and at least one of them would likely keel over and die from a boarding situation. Maybe getting a catsitter for few weeks is still viable, but even that's rough. I guess you never know- I wouldn't be surprised if the cats start dying after my granddad dies, because they are really bonded to him.

[Laura Ingalls]

Walwen congratulations on being self aware and the adult in the room. Sorry that having any relationship with your mom has such toxic elements. Internet hugs to you.

My IL are worried that DH’s surviving siblings will immediately liquidate and spend any inheritance she gets and that’s unfair to her kids because our kids will get an inheritance and other grandchild will get a portion directly. They like fair. Fair isn’t always obvious.

[loutfard]

About a week until my granddad's surgery, and he is doing very badly.

You're doing a good thing helping him through difficult times.

People are telling me to have the "tough conversations" but it's impossible with my mom

Smart observation.

I really want to go to my friend's land but it's hard to fit it into the picture.

Is your friend coming over an alternative?

I don't want to lose this house

As far as I understand, the place is your grandfather's and you have zero rights to it except perhaps for a limited right to live in it while taking care of him.

I also have three cats here.

If I understand correctly, there's a very strong bond between your grandfather and those cats. Then keeping them as long as your grandfather lives certainly makes sense.

You can postpone asking yourself the question how attached you are to them until after that.

[delay]

Thanks for your journal update! Sorry to read you were rejected for the job.

Many people see money as a magic box that randomly produces windfalls and setbacks. You can show by example that there are better ways to do it. Which will soon clarify things, because few people will follow your lead. Having money in the bank is not what most people want. They want holidays and cars and TVs

[Walwen]

Hello everyone- things are always changing. Sometimes faster than other times!

My granddad has been in the hospital for a good while now. He's finally out of the ICU and into a rehab. It'll be at least another two weeks but he does plan on coming home. He even revoked his DNR. It is honestly a bit of a shock- I shed a lot of tears in anticipation of him dying, and he spent a full week totally grey and nonresponsive.

He used to be really against wheelchairs and things, and now suddenly he wants a power wheelchair and a lift bed immediately. What it all boils down to is me becoming more of his caregiver. If I wasn't jobless and living with him, 100% he would not be able to return home: the hospital people planning his discharge are clear on that.

While he's been away, I've been deep cleaning since I can move the furniture around and stuff. The room I moved into was just the "crap" room, full of random bookcases and extra old chairs and big boxes of old paperwork, things like that. It's really been causing me a little mental crisis.

I told my friend, "Cardboard furniture is a cognitohazard."

Basically all the furniture- that's been here my entire life- is this fake wood with a picture of wood printed on it... and the backing of the shelves is literally cardstock with the image of wood only printed on one side. All the decor, the vases, I pick them up and they have the price stickers from Walmart from 15 years ago on the bottom still... My late grandma, in her years of dementia, put this craft contact paper- not real wallpaper- over all the doors and cabinets and things.... I spent a good 2 hours with wallpaper remover and a scrapper. I had to be extremely gentle.... because the fake wood texture would peel off the door just as easy as the sticker residue. The doors are all literally syrofoam inside.

The second part of my mental crisis was seeing a morsel of wealth.
I went and played board games at my sister's big McMansion house, with her fiance who makes over 100k in insurance, working virtually from home. They're DINKs who spend more money than I used to make in a year on eating out multiple times a day. I thought about how they could easily have lived in a 2 bedroom apartment and had like 50k living expenses for the year, and have saved like 80k in a SINGLE YEAR. And with that 80k.... they could buy every single thing in my life. They could buy this house twice over.

Thus begins the mental crisis- how low is my life that I want to inherit a worthless, depreciated, cardboard simulcrum of a real house so bad? I feel like I'm ruining my life over GARBAGE! I've dropped out of college too many times to easily even explain anymore- everyone knows I'm oh so intelligent and my potential for careers is pretty unlimited- yet somehow I'm jobless, rejected due to lack of qualifications, and worst of all, with a MILITARY aspiration of all things???


I've been working on my health and so gotten a lot more information about my conditions... I talked to my best friend about it, the one who is in the military (and an E-5 now)... and he said "Get new goals. You're not going to get into the military."
He told me it was like a 1 in 500 before, and when it was like that he was willing to work with me- but now it's like 1 in 100,000 and he doesn't want to just watch me fail. He told me "You're a great friend, but you've been a horrible mentee." And it's true- every time I've really gone after my ambitions, I've failed. So my best friend has started telling me- as his career is taking off and he's been trying to help me for years with 0 success- "You need to improve or we're going to have a falling out because I'm really sick of your cycle." Cycle of catastrophic failure- breaks his heart, and I get it.

Now that my granddad is not immediately dying, money is an issue again. It really worries me, thinking about not knowing when the next paycheck will ever come.

I think it would be really ideal if I could become my granddad's paid caregiver. He's a veteran with Medicare and he definitely needs it- the doctors have been clear that if he didn't have someone at home 24/7 he'd need a nursing home. I'm sure he qualifies. He's got a PICC line, and a catheter, and can't walk, and needs to wear compression clothes that he can't put on himself, etc. So I've been looking into it, but the whole process is convoluted as hell. And I just have this fear that as soon as I actually get paid, and put all my eggs into that basket... he'll die. Because it looks like it'll take at least 6 weeks for me to get the qualification- and it costs money to take the class. And THEN you have to go fight insurance about it. I don't want income, maybe, in 3-6 months. I want income NOW.

Why can't I be a soulless bastard and work in insurance? I got nearly perfect scores on the SAT and ACT, and I didn't even study. I could have gotten a full ride like my sister, and went to university for a real major instead of Social Work- I could have gotten a real job instead of working at the worst homeless shelter in town- I could be rolling in money in my old student apartment, and not worrying about how badly I'm going to destroy my body trying to take care of my 6ft immobile grandfather, praying that I'll be able to get paid minimum wage for the priviledge.

I could blame it all on my mother making bad choices during pregnancy, leading to the birth defect that causes my issues today- I could blame it on the fact I was tortured- it definitely impacts my entire identity. I could blame it on my father, who was deported for commiting atrocious crimes, leading to the financial ruin of my family. I could blame the politics and culture of the education system, I could blame doctors I've had in the past for not doing enough, I could blame my friends or my church or my family for not supporting me enough. I could find blame in just about anyone or anything- but to what end?

It's all me- I'm just doing bad. I'm not doing the right things, I'm doing bad things. But I really don't know how to change. My current goal is to try to improve my health issues- which will likely fail as it's incurable- and to fully deep clean the trailer house, which doesn't matter to anyone but me because it's a pile of worthless garbage. And try to become a paid caregiver... which will result in me being locked into a minium wage job for an unknown amount of time- could be actual years! And then what? What career from there? I have no idea, and I'm already having issues that I don't have the qualifications and resume filler of other people in my age range. Spending a couple years doing caregiving.... I feel like it will lock me into the health field. And working in a nursing home was HORRIBLE for my spirit. I NEVER want to be a CNA... and here I am, trying to get my CNA cert to get paid for my granddad.... Ah! I'm so lost!

[delay]

Thanks for your journal update! There are poor people living on $1 a week and billionaires living on $1,000,000 a week. We all are somewhere in between. Thus it makes little sense to be jealous. If you had half of what you have today, you would be jealous of your current self. If you had double of what you have today, you would be jealous of people who had double that.

When I feel lost, it often helps to reduce the timeframe of my thoughts. Instead of worrying about next month I worry about today. What does my best day look like? What food would I like to prepare? Who would I like to talk to? What would make me look back on today as a good day?

[ertyu]

my best friend has started telling me- as his career is taking off and he's been trying to help me for years with 0 success- "You need to improve or we're going to have a falling out because I'm really sick of your cycle."

You're lucky you have a person like that, willing to tell it to you straight. You seem to have gotten the wake-up call, too. Good work: facing one's full dissatisfation w the status quo is the first step to change.

I could find blame in just about anyone or anything- but to what end?

It's all me- I'm just doing bad. I'm not doing the right things, I'm doing bad things. But I really don't know how to change.

This sounds like a matter of beliefs to me, dude. Seems like you've caught some that aren't working and are screwing your life over. Get a pen and a notebook and figure out what those are. Write down what you believe about wealth, success, money, soullessness and insurance, selling out, and so forth. Then go through each one: are these beliefs rational? do they serve you? are they too rigid? why do you need them to be this rigid? what do you want to believe instead that would better serve you?

Good luck

[Laura Ingalls]

How are you? How is your grandpa doing?

You seemed pretty discouraged in your last posts.

[Walwen]

Hello everyone! It's been some number of months, and like always, things are always changing for me.

I had a very, very bad boss at my job at the assisted living, and the majority of the kitchen quit. At the same time, the director of the building had temporarily left due to a cancer diagnosis, and so there was really zero management, no one to turn to. I made verbal complaints, then written complaints, and then that was that. I was trying to stick it out until one day my boss tried to fight me- so I quit. I really got a lot of "I Told You So" type feelings out of it and it was highly satisfying, I do not regret any of my choices. They had to bus people in from across the county and put them up in hotel rooms to cover the work I was putting in- isn't that crazy!!!

I told them to call me back when that guy was gone.
A couple days after I quit, my grandfather went septic from his failed hip operation. I really think if I wasn't home, he'd be dead. After ten days in the ICU and 20 more days in the hospital, He came home with a PICC line and I had to do his infusions daily for 6 weeks, and so I just kinda chilled at home and decompressed. Then, I got a seasonal job at a fall festival here in town, as a fry cook. It was really a great time and- maybe this is awfully egotistical or paradoxical- but I'm glad that I was humble enough to actually enjoy it. Most of the people working there, it was their first job, and they were 14-17ish dum-dums with little work ethic. And it was minimum wage, with a stupid uniform- a real "you'll be flipping burgers if you don't go to college" job.

So on paper, wouldn't I be miserable? As a 22 year old with a couple years experience? But instead, It really was like, "Wow. I'm an adult now. I've made it. And people are just going to naturally recognize it- I don't need to do anything but what I already know to do." Within the first few days, all the management realized I was actually an adult, and they were having me train other people, letting me be shotcaller, giving me responsibilities no one else had. It was a lot of experience for the management jobs I hope to have in the next few years. I was really happy to see how another kitchen operates and soak it all in. On top of that, the organization is Christian in nature which kept my spirts very high. I felt like they actually valued and cared about me- the extremely wealthy old lady who signs my cheques put her arm around me and prayed with me for my grandfather- I've never had a job like that. They told me things like "We're happy you're here today" which is life-altering to hear as a man LOL.

Then I finally got the call- my old boss was FIRED! And my director who had cancer, has returned to his position. And they would REALLY, REALLY, REALLY like me to come back. So I came back! With a raise, too

Financially, I am going to have a weird tax season this year. When I left my job, I rolled over my employer's 401k into my Roth. I did not realize when I went back, that I was automatically re-enrolled.

A lot of my personal problems were solved by going full NEET and decompressing from my awful job and all the troubles in my family. Maybe this is also egotistical, but I was surprised by the quality of my own character. Throughout my whole life, people have kinda instilled the belief in me that if I'm not becoming more educated or otherwise climbing the ranks of status and success, I'm a lazy garbage POS neckbeard loser type of person. As an example of this, my mother wants to get an actual tattoo of stars, like a ranking- and the number of stars that are filled in will represent the number of degrees that she, my sister, and I have. Because she fully expects both me and my sister to inevitably continue going to college until we get doctorates like her. She tells me about this as a pure manipulation thing to guilt me about not being in college. After I quit my job, my mother frequently would call me up and pretty much the only thing she would say was "You MUST be MISERABLE. You MUST be soooo depressed. How you're living must be TERRIBLE. You must be RUNNING OUT OF MONEY!"

I, um.... Yeah. I took several months off working, and I still have more money saved right now than my mother, who makes about 10k a month right now. I was never in need of money. And I kinda moped around for about 3 weeks- it took about that long for me to really decompress. I just played video games and thought about all the shit that happened at my job. And then something just clicked in my head and I started becoming extremely disciplined in terms of diet and exercise. I can safely say that I'm the best physical shape right now than I've been in my whole life, and it's really a massive ego boost to be in the stage of "I keep getting better and better, I'm improving upon my best so far right now!"

It was quite an ego boost to return to my old job, as well, and people really did notice that I've changed. I am stupid lean right now- growing up, people told me not to do it and of course the rest of my family is morbidly obese, with a lot of them dying around 500lbs, so of course I was always bullied to not lose weight. "You will offended all of us here today if you don't eat ice cream with us. If you don't eat this candy it means you hate your mother." But I'm about 125 right now (I'm pretty short, only five ft 6ish), down from 150, and I've got abs for the first time, and I wake up in the morning with enough energy to get out of bed and get right to work. I am not a runner and I'll never be a runner, but I am turning into kinda a cardio person. When it was warmer and I had no job, I would just go speed-walk for like 6 hours, and walk all over town, and spend no money at all, just pack a light lunch. Now that it's cold outside and I'm busier, I have a mini-stepper.

I went to physical therapy for my birth defect again, and I was extremely disappointed in the quality of their assessment and I think it was basically worthless. They really went with the most obvious cause, despite me saying "But what about this?" they just kinda shrugged me off. I was not improving in my problem areas and the exercises were far too easy and I was progressing too fast. I brought it up at every session and they didn't really seem to change anything. At the very end of the therapy sessions I saw the actual bone doctor again and he pretty much said "yeah you know what you're probably right that it's X instead of Y, but through your insurance you were having therapy for X so that's what we did. Do you want to do this entire thing again for Y?" Fool me once (more like 5 times) shame on me, or you, or.... point being, I've sworn off physical therapists. It was so much money for no benefit: it boils down to that I do not think it was holistic enough.

So since then I've been really deep in Pilates, specifically old-school matwork right out of Pilates' original book. I have to admit, I'm still having the same issues and pains, but over the past few months there has definitely been a tangible improvement in my overall strength. Seriously, it's just such a big shift for me to wake up and not be sore anywhere, not be stiff, not need to sit on the end of the bed and hype yourself up to do anything... I wake up and I'm just already a functional person. One of my short-term goals right now is to get experienced enough in Pilates to feel comfortable going to the local, extremely bougie-seeming pilates studio. They only offer small group and personalized classes and it is quite expensive. But the instructors are legit, and I seriously believe that a one-on-one pilates trainer is going to be my best bet for figuring out how to improve my situation. But I want to get overall stronger first before I spend that sort of money, so that I can best utilize whatever I'm told. I definitely do not have the sort of money to make the Pilates studio a habit. Although when I really think about it.... it's about the same as it was to go to physical therapy....

I think I've got about a month left of my little "cutting season" and then I'm going to pivot to putting on muscle, which excites me. Over the holiday season I'm also expecting the pilates studio to offer Christmas/New Years related discounts that I'm hoping to take advantage of. It's still a goal of mine to enlist. Getting extremely strong is obviously beneficial toward it, so it motivates me.
I used to get really upset over the fact that I really just can't enlist and be away like that until my grandfather dies- and I did not know if that would be 2 years or like 10 years. Now, I am pretty sure my granddad is going to die within 2 years. Or even if he doesn't, I am satisfied that I will be happy to just getting more and more physically fit, and stockpiling money, and otherwise maturing as a person until I am freed from this specific responsibility that keeps me tethered to this city.

I have a friend who is in a pretty similar life situation to me, and his mother finally passed. And he's been doing well, and we talked about it: He was really surprised that he's just, well, been happy and doing well. I told him that he did most of his mourning and grieving while she was still alive, and he agreed. I think I am kinda in the same place and that's where a lot of my personal troubles over the past year have come out of.

My credit scores have finally hit 750+ according to both Equifax and TransUnion, which made me chuffed. I got a big boost as some of my credit cards hit 3 years old, I think. What do I need a high credit score for exactly? I dunno, nothing really in the short-term, but I just know it's going to benefit me in my life.

I think I have had a great return to my "anti-wage-slave living" values lately and I'm pretty happy with where I'm at, although it was rough to get here.

[Scott 2]

I'd encourage you to contact the pilates studio owner, share your story, and ask if they have any sliding scale or work trade options available. The yoga studio owners I've known, would figure something out to make it immediately accessible to you. Even better if you know someone who can provide an introduction.

Waiting until you're stronger, to become a student, makes no sense. Any teacher would much rather have you now, before bad habits develop.

[Chris]

What an awesome update. You're killin' it!

It's great you're getting recognition from employers, and too bad your family isn't more supportive of your self improvement. Do you have any younger extended relatives (cousins) that you can be an example for, to save them from a 500lb life?

[delay]

They had to bus people in from across the county and put them up in hotel rooms to cover the work I was putting in- isn't that crazy!!!

Thanks for your journal update! That doesn't sound crazy at all. In my line of work the management types chase off the creative types and you get these situations too. I imagine a social group that produces value, for example by caring for the elderly. Management types start to fight each other over who gets what share of the profits and they totally forget about caring for the elderly. This continues until something breaks and management is snapped back to reality.

As an underling you can easily get burned out trying to prevent things from breaking. It pays off to recognize the situation. There are alternatives to quitting: you can call in sick or only do what you are explicitly told to do. The important thing is that something breaks and the healing process can begin.

I really think if I wasn't home, he'd be dead.

On top of that, the organization is Christian in nature which kept my spirts very high.

Well done, perhaps you were meant to quit!

Because she fully expects both me and my sister to inevitably continue going to college until we get doctorates like her. She tells me about this as a pure manipulation thing to guilt me about not being in college.

It sounds like she is trying to pass on her life's lessons to her offspring. It may stop when you become successful on your own, and the image of a PhD student in your mother's head is replaced by something else. The word manipulation seems like a negative way to frame this.

I definitely do not have the sort of money to make the Pilates studio a habit.

That's weird! One of the great things about Pilates is that there is no copyright involved. You just need a mat and a good Pilates teacher. I like to do group lessons so I can copy other students. It's been great for my health. I wonder why your Pilates studio is "that sort of money" type of expensive.

[Walwen]

Hello everyone! Quick update and a lot of random thoughts.

By random chance I found a pilates teacher who recently moved back to town after spending decades teaching on the West coast. I have have had 3 weeks of private lessons and just purchased another 5 weeks for 400 dollars cash. It really is kinda pricy but it's worth it. She offers group classes at the YMCA but I don't think I'm quite skilled enough to feel comfortable, and I think I benefit from the individualized attention enough to justify the price differential. Also, none of the group times are currently feasible for me.

Compared to the scary bougie studio, this pilates teacher really specializes in "golden years" and 70+ and so she says I'm her youngest client by decades and her median age is like 55 LOL. Maybe it's a cheap thing to be happy about but I always am quite happy when she says things like "Wow I can't believe how much flexibility you have there, you have young healthy shoulders" or "I can't believe you were able to get up from there so easily, usually I have to help my clients get up." I know I'm being compared to literal elderly people, but it still really does something for me to consider that I'm actually in quite good health and I'm not screwed.

I finally broke out my humidifier because my granddad tries to keep the house at about 85 degrees and I go insane and get nosebleeds from it. It's been on my mind a lot lately: They're really not joking when they talk about the "lizard brain." I think, "What does a lizard need to be happy?" The right temperature range, the right humidity, the right nutrition, a basic level of environmental enrichment. You basically just need to put it in the right box and you'll have a happy lizard- however happy a lizard can be.

I know a lot of people get upset when people ask things like "Did you eat breakfast?" in response to being in a low mood, but growing up no one cared about those sorts of things for me. I had no real bedtime, no real mealtimes, and I have always been a "low drive" person in general. I don't get hungry, thirsty, or feel tired easily. It's good because it lets me work 12hr shifts with ease, I am pretty happy to work long hours etc. But it really did click for me pretty recently that I get happy from eating food and sleeping enough. It's not just "I have to do these things to avoid feeling bad/run-down." I actively get happy and into good moods from eating a good meal.

It ties into something that I have also found in contrast between me and most of my friends lately. When they were kids, they were in a higher level of wealth than they are now as young, inexperienced adults with entry-level jobs. And when they were kids, they felt generally self-assured, carefree, and feel they were happy more often and had more fun, and now they are adults with much higher stress levels, things to worry about, and problems piling up that make them less happy.

In contrast, I already have more money than my mom does right now- and I definitely am doing better than we ever were doing in the poorest parts of my childhood, although a lot of that is obviously because I have few financial responsibilities. A lot of the issues I had in childhood were actually because my mother made TOO much money on paper to get any benefits/assistance or for me to be recognized as poor in the school system- she just made a lot of not-so-good choices. If you can believe it, as little kids we had nicknames for the various debt collectors that would ring the house phone nonstop. It has always been kinda a painful thing for me but the older I get, the more I realize I was an extremely depressed child. Not autistic like my mom wanted, or anything like that, but painfully depressed because of concrete life events. I did not like being alive before I found Christ at age 17. God, I was such a guilt-ridden little kid- and I think I'm just barely getting out of it.

I remember I had a lot of issues with "Gratefulness" and "Mindfulness" exercises in school because they always induced incredible amounts of guilt and shame in me. "If you're sad, you should list 5 good things that have happened to you" type of things. Hey, I would go above and beyond and list ten things- so why wasn't I "grateful" enough to actually feel happy? One million toys and sunny days would not make me happy when I was being mistreated. And it just seemed like everyone wanted to know what was so wrong with me. Now that I'm grown, I really don't think anything was wrong with me at all, and I understand a lot more of the nuances about my mom wanting me to have a "special brain" instead of the actual, more straightforward things that were going on, not to mention a lot of the legal/criminal implications.

Recently I had a fit of extreme jealousy over my friend reminiscing about a cartoon show he was really into as a small child. His family and friends knew he was really into it, and so he got the toys on his birthdays for many years, got them for Christmas, would be taken to the library to rent the books, etc. I became furious just hearing about it. And I realized I was so green over it because I just never had anything like that. I never had something I enjoyed like that. My family would always go vacation and just leave me at home because I was "incapable of having fun." I also didn't go to restaurants or eat meals with my family after the age of 6 or so- I ate by myself in my bedroom on the floor, and typically ate my dinner after everyone else went to bed. I thought these things were totally normal and brought upon myself until I was about 16 or 17.

I am kinda getting over the angst now, and I've started having good times. I had a big steak for the first time on my 18th birthday.... and I didn't like it at all. It made me all upset. But now I'm a little older and I, uh, still don't care at all for a big cut of steak, but I've learned to cook some mean hamburgers and lots of other foods that I actually like. I didn't really have sheets growing up, I slept on a bare box spring or on the floor, and I often slept with towels or my own dirty clothes instead of blankets. I remember recently I washed all my bedding and I put it on the bed and I got in the bed and I really thought, "Wow, I am happy." The weird part is that my own sister didn't live like this at all, and my mother definitely did not.

In a lot of Stoic writing they talk about how "You can go from being a Beast to a Man in just a few weeks once you change your habits" and I know in general they're talking about things like quitting drinking, acting polite, seeing the bigger picture, etc, but lately I take it on a different angle. I realize more and more that I was raised with an internal belief of being some sort of "less-than", a non-person, a beast. But now I'm a Christian, and I'm an adult, and I can just.... do things now.

......And that's the justification for why I bought pilates lessons and honestly bought more Christmas gifts for myself than I did for any of my family LOL.
I was fretting about money a lot, until I actually went and ran the numbers. First off, I need to just trust autopay, because I keep double-paying my credit card because I impulsively fear my credit score will suffer if a balance is reported and my utilization goes over 3%. I get confused because, you know, since I had a statement credit from the last time I over-paid, maybe I put 80 dollars on the card, but it says my autopay is going to be 20 dollars. Well that freaks me out, but whenever I call the phone line, it says "Pay full balance of 80?" and I say yes, but when you pay the full balance that way, it doesn't account for the 60 dollar statement credit I had. So now I've paid 80 AND the autopayment of 20, and now I've overpaid by a total of 100.

I was so worried that I was really overspending for Christmas, but no, I'm... perfectly fine, doing even better than predicted. I really tend to over-budget, I've realized, and weekly budgets don't seem to make much sense for me when nearly all of my purchases are more of a monthly to quarterly affair. I also really seem to just straight-up forget that I have my direct deposit split so that money automatically goes into my HYSA and my retirement stuff. I worry often that I'm not saving enough when I notice that my checking account balance is about down to where it was last paycheck- but I forget that a good chunk never even sees my checking account.

This is also totally a matter of perspective, but lately I have been feeling like things are also much more affordable than my perceptions. Or maybe I underestimate my own frugality and lack of financial responsibilities or something. I'm not afraid to admit, more than once I've wigged out and gone home with nothing while buying my own groceries because I thought it was too much food/too much money. It's really pretty funny: I've been told several times by different people in my life that "you must be really into shopping" or "do you shop for fun?" etc because I bring up things that I plan to buy and that I plan to go to xyz store to get xyz object so often. But the reality is that it just takes me a few weeks or months to build up the will to go purchase new shoes or a new winter coat or etc, and so I do often feel the desire to discuss it, basically to hype myself up. I bought FOUR boxes of my favorite candy for Christmas, and I remember thinking wow, what a big haul. And that was one of the moments I worried that it was too expensive for me to live that way. But I really looked at the numbers and it was 12 dollars for four boxes LOL. I can tank a 12 dollar expense. I can't tank a 12 dollar expense every hour! But I can tank one every Christmas.

Lately my little vice are the gatchapon machines in my local card shop. They're coin-operated little vending machines, except the tokens cost 5 bucks LOL. But the prizes are more "collector" items, it just varies. I asked for the tokens for Christmas and received a good number. I remember telling my friend that I just really get a lot of enjoyment out of getting a thing, even if I fully recognize that I don't really have any use for these little toys. And I started telling him about my recent ideas, about how it actually makes me happy and fulfilled to do things and have things and go places and live like a human and not like a neglected houseplant. And he said, "Isn't that a weakness because, what will you do if you didn't have money? If you're only happy sleeping with a humidifier, what are you going to do when the grid collapses? You'll have bigger problems, so I don't see why you put so much stock into this stuff."

Oh, comparison is really the thief of joy. If I was a caveman who had to live in the wilds somewhere, well, I guess I would just have to mix-max my campfire placement, and I would collect pretty rocks. The best part is, I literally did collect pretty rocks as a child- from the rock fill in the yard! I had a whole drawer full under my bed! If I had no money for little gatchapon toys, I would probably press wild flowers or look for pretty sticks or other things that I kinda already do still.

So, that is to say, I do not think these changes in lifestyle really have to do too much with my level of income. As much as I enjoy things like comfy blankets and little toys, there are also other things, like doing a good job at work, and fulfilling duties, that maybe don't make you feel fuzzy and warm inside, but are important to me. I am not a hedonist! But I think it is good to grow out of a lot of my childhood inhibitions, the ones that make me feel bad to do things as stupid as "eat at a table" and "own more than 2 pairs of pants."

[Scott 2]

What do you need a good credit score for? I've never worried about my utilization percentage in my life. I like being over 750 for access to the best credit cards, but don't see a benefit otherwise.

If the autopay falls, you call the credit card company. You say - hi my autopay didn't work. I'd like a credit for the late fee and interest charge please.

They give you the money back. It's really that easy. Same with bank fees. "Hi I was charged X, I'd like to have it reversed."

[Walwen]

Hello! Been a few months.

I don't really know what I'd need a high credit score for. It's just a measurable accomplishment I've always thought about, since my parents ran into so many issues due to very poor credit. I have no immediate plans to take out any debts.

Unfortunately I have had some health issues, despite becoming much more active recently. On some level I wonder if it's related but I really don't think so. It is honestly more likely the other way around- I subconsciously felt I was getting into bad health which drove me to get more fit.

I have lost the use of an eye and it is mildly painful, but more of an annoyance and embarrassment than a disability. It hasn't impacted me at work at all besides that the questions people ask upset me and I'm pretty irritable and closed about it IRL. I do not have any time estimate on when I may recover which also frustrates me, but I honestly just try to not think about the implications for my life right now, because it's all a little too soon.


I have been going to weekly pilates, which my family thinks is an exhorbitant expense. On top of the many doctor appts I've had lately and medical costs, somehow my family thinks I'm broke.
My mother worried that I would not have the money to cover a 200 dollar medical copay, as in, asking if my card would bounce/warning me of overage fees.

They had such a misunderstanding that, in casual conversation, my mother said, "Well at least you won't need to worry about that vacation you were planning this summer, since you won't have the money now."

I actually already have 1400 specifically marked in my HYSA for the vacation, which is honestly more than I plan to really spend, but I'm a chronic over-budgeter. My friend is also pretty financially aware and we have an actual spreadsheet, and both recorded all our costs from the last vacation!

Sometimes I just feel like I'm going crazy. My coworker is open about her financial issues, namely that she immediately spends all her money on beer and food, and basically always avoids paying tax and so has her wages garnished. Zero retirement, zero savings. Her long term boyfriend (who refuses to marry her due to her financial health) has been saving money for her, and has managed to save up 6500 over the past 2 years by just directly taking cash from her after she cashes her checks. She was going off about how "Do you know what I could buy if he just let me have that sort of money?" I was being quite a smartalec and said, "A lot of beer?"

I know people have hard lives, and finances really are hard, especially if you weren't raised to know much about it. But this wasn't a woman in her 20s like me- she's 45 and has never, in her entire life, been able to save even 1,000 without someone holding the money hostage- she admits this. She has bad teeth that she refuses to even see a dentist over because of money. She ignores issues with her car because "I just know it'll cost money I don't have, so I'd rather just drive it until it breaks down."

And my understanding is that this is pretty average- this is what those polititians are talking about when they say so many people "live paycheck to paycheck".


Hearing her go off about 6500 as if it were a dragon's hoard and not six month's take-home pay at a 20/wk part-time job made me realize I am in the right to obfuscate my money numbers from people now. I was never in the habit of telling people my bank balance, but even things like "I've already got over 1k earmarked for the vacation this summer" are off the table now. I can tell it's a very sore subject and often more psychological in nature than really about financial know-how.

There is a downside, I guess- I'm really not sure how it works. Maybe my family is just being weird- they get weird about me often.

There is a hobby convention coming up, and my mother didn't even tell me she was going with my sister and her fiance.... because she assumed I had no money to spend on it! She, herself, had to loan the money to pay for her ticket, and "did not want me to have to stoop to that". She also did not want me spending money on my hobbies since she was absolutely under the impression I'm being crushed with bills and my exhorbitant lifestyle of...... spending 50/wk on groceries (I eat 14+ meals a week at work, I'm the cook) and not having a car or rent. I have insurance: in total, losing use of my eye has only cost about 750 between all the copays and medical supplies, and I have enough sick pay that I haven't lost any income there. She worries that the bus fare is a drain on me- my bus fare is a DOLLAR a DAY!

So, my mom was excluding me because of her ideas that my life is being ruined and I'm broke, and so obviously I can't go to the hobby convention and must immediately stop planning vacation. It might make sense if I had no savings at all, because it would be extra important to build up my savings to cover potential future medical costs! But I'm good- I haven't even touched my savings. 750 over two months is just fine, it just means no extra bs spending.

My mother told me very seriously that if I need help covering my medical copays, she will show me who the best payday loan people in town are. I really had to restrain myself!

I use an Instacart card as my daily driver because the points rack up quickly. It is a pretty distinctive green card. I did not realize my mom thought that me switching to using my credit card for everything meant she thought I was out of money on my debit card- but that's what she thought, apparently. She thought I was getting under thousands in credit card debt- because that's what she did. I still think she does not believe that I have a positive net worth. She just seems convinced that I "must have a vice/ people your age can't have money."

So, that's the update- my family really thinks I'm dead broke, and my mom won't seem to even believe otherwise. I do not think I will change jobs for a long while lol, because I do not know my medical prognosis right now and I think it might be hard to get hired on elsewhere.

Losing vision in one eye doesn't blind you 50%, you really only lose about 20% of your field of view at the edge. And the worries about depth perception are overblown- your brain gets over it very quickly and I very rarely have any trouble. The hard part is wearing the eye patch! I think my family and friends all hate the appearance and constantly ask when I will recover. I wear generic medical eye patches, but I figure pretty soon I'll be able to justify the cost of getting something more "aesthetic." I also wonder if maybe my mom's odd behavior isn't due to thinking I'm just dead broke- it's some sort of bias due to my appearance. I.e. she doesn't want me to go into public.


I think I am pretty arrogant in this journal sometimes, but this is kinda where I come to say things about money and lifestyle topics that I could not tell people IRL. In the flesh I am a lot less openly judgemental.... I swear I don't go around complaining about how other people handle their money. But these sorts of thoughts nag me until I can write them down. I was raised a certain way, and now in my 20s I feel like I'm constantly finding out Santa isn't real.

[Scott 2]

I wish you strength in navigating whatever comes next with your eye. Vision issues suck. My problem is intermittent. When it acts up, I prefer a patch that sits on my glasses lens, opposed to the pirate style.

Have you moved into the group Pilates classes yet? For you, I think those could pay dividends well beyond the exercise. It's a chance to peer with people who can afford Pilates and prioritize growth. Those individuals sound rare in your life. They could support your much different trajectory.

It's just a measurable accomplishment I've always thought about, since my parents ran into so many issues due to very poor credit.

Have you setup free accounts and credit freezes with the 3 major credit bureaus? You'd have ongoing access to your credit score. More importantly, accessing frozen credit requires logging into each bureau and putting a temporary thaw in place. Given the people you are surrounded by, I'd do that immediately.

Eventually, your spending patterns are going to betray your superior financial strategy. Choosing credit as your daily driver (smart, btw) is only the first clue. As paths diverge, wealth becomes obvious.

Here's the thing - what you are seeing in others, is driven out of experience. Life taught when they have money, circumstances take it. So they learned to spend it first. The "circumstances" are the people around them. Crabs in a barrel, pulling them back in. That could be you.

You're smart to hide what you have. Long term, if you want a different path, you'll have to leave those people behind. Swimming in multiple pools doesn't work. It's not an easy to choice to make. It hurts. Each class transition requires paying the price again. You have to decide what enough is.

That also means the people you are judging, chose existing relationships over a different path. Even if they had the opportunity, leaving everyone behind is a sacrifice. Yet lifting them all is damn near impossible. It's a trap. Knowing that makes it easier forgive the patterns. I'd still escape. Life can be so much easier.


I'm not sure if this is a wise option to consider. But some credit cards offer a $200 sign-up bonus when you spend $500 over 3 months. You can open 5 new cards every 2 years, without it impacting eligibility for more cards. Given family history, you'd need to be confident in the ability to navigate things. But it could be free money and a chance to learn more how the financial system works.

Churning checking and savings accounts offers some similar opportunities, though those rewards are taxable. I'd see either option primarily as a small financial education that pays for itself. The cash is only a fun perk. I'm doing a card right now that will yield ~$900 on $8000 spend, maybe $100-200/hr on time invested. Turning the rewards into travel is theoretically more valuable, but only if you want fancy hotel rooms or flights.

[7Wannabe5]

I think it’s entirely natural to reflect upon the shortcomings of your parents at your age. Since you are already focused on personal development, I’m sure you will get mostly over it by the time you are 35 or so. It’s part of the classic first mid-life crises hurdles.

I hope this doesn’t come off too harsh, but the fact that you are currently somewhat focused on your mother’s shortcomings in her masculine energy would lead me to believe that you are less willing or able to appropriately grieve about the shortcomings of your father. If your father was more engaged you would likely focus more on your mother’s shortcomings in her feminine energy. For example, one of my successful, affluent older partners who was delayed in his emotional development due to drinking for 20 years was still complaining 40 years later about how his cruel mother wouldn’t pick him up after sporting practice, so he had to walk home with wet hair.

I would also suggest that Scott2s advice is first order valid, but second order wussy, but gaining the strength and skill to differentiate yourself and maintain appropriate boundaries while remaining present in loving relationships rather than lying (which is usually a form of cheating within covert relationship contract, so is long term as disabling as cheating on a math test) or creating rigid boundaries or physical distance is more towards third midlife crisis hurdle. I’m 20 years out from third midlife crisis (which is often precipitated by death of most influential parent) and still have not mastered “differentiation.”

[Walwen]

When I got started with money, I did do some credit card churning/account bonus maximizing and made about 2,000 in my first year. However, I hit a button somewhere with Chase for getting too much free money/opening too many accounts, and they won’t even let me sign up for their checking account despite constantly sending me emails and even physical letters in the mail inviting me to apply. So, I am taking a break to let my accounts age.

I did finally get the Amazon Store Card which came with a 60 dollar visa and 5-6% off amazon purchases. You get the 6% if you choose the slower delivery option.

I took the day off work yesterday just to sit down and go through all my finances. I am planning to cut a day at work so that I can go to the group pilates class and have more days to offer to all the side jobs I’m involved in. I ran the numbers and the answer is “yes it makes sense.” The group class only costs 18 dollars compared to 80 for the individual lessons, and it's only a group of 4.

I finally went through and physically logged into all my credit cards to make sure everything was going kosher, and had some happy surprises. I have been paying my phone bill on one of my cards because it gets extra points or whatever- I never look at it, I just get the email that it’s paid in full each month- point being, it had 200 dollars worth of cashback! And my other card, which only pays my internet bill, had 60 dollars of cashback.

I also have been budgeting 50 dollars/week to spend at the hobby shop, but it turns out I average to only spending 30/week. In general I seem to never overspend on routine expenses, and I overestimate how much I buy things like clothes, groceries, snacks. The things that actually put their foot on the scale are larger money things. For example, my new glasses were 700 dollars…. after insurance. I paid recently to get my ServSafe Food Manager’s, which is beneficial for the work I do- but cost about 350 including the proctored exam. Today I ordered the majority of my gardening stuff for my plans- 4.5cu ft dirt, three raised bed planters, seed ball materials, and some seeds and notions, it was all 285 before all my discounts and 220 after which I think is pretty good- but I don’t exactly budget for these things. How I do it is that I put 400/mo into my HYSA, and I just look at numbers in the HYSA and decide if I can spend X amount of money. It works, but I think it’s the most immature part of my financial strategy. I just decide if I can spend the money with my eyeballs looking at a number.

My HYSA also allows for categories, so I put 400/mo in but it automatically puts some into emergency money, some into my vacation fund, and then the rest is what I look at when deciding if I have money for a large occasional purchase. I am thinking about taking another credit hour or two this summer because I’m so close to my associate’s, but same thing- I’m just not quite sure how to budget or be able to say I can truly afford the hit. Just because I could pay for it all today doesn’t mean it’s wise to do, and I’m largely just in a state of “I must see money numbers go up.”

I made quite the faus pas the other day. My coworker/buddy randomly asked, “Is there anything you want to buy from the hobby store? I was thinking about going after work…. You know, if you also wanted to go.” I told him, “I don’t have any plans to buy anything, but you know what- I’d love to go just for fun!”
On the way there, he confided that he really didn’t have the money to spare, but they had the limited release of a new board game, and he felt strong FOMO that if he didn’t get it now, they’d sell out and he’d never be able to get this edition. I found a cast iron puzzle I liked, and so I bought it and some snacks. When he saw me checking out, he looked at me angrily and said, “I thought you weren’t here to spend money!” I said, “Worry about your own wallet!”
It was then I knew I messed up, because he sounded exactly like his late mother, who I knew. I could tell he wasn’t really angry at me, but angry at himself- and had said exactly what his mother always said to criticize him for overspending at the hobby store.

On the car ride home, he told me he had 14 dollars to his name after his purchase. I asked if all his bills were paid and he said they were- but I happen to know that his sister physically comes over to his house to physically ensure he pays his bills. He has some mental issues and it hasn’t been that long since his mother died, which also impacts him since he no longer sees her social security money. I asked, if there was an emergency would he have access to money to buy something like flu medication or antibiotics. He said he “had ways” but I am pretty sure those ways are also “borrow money from family” and I know his family takes some of his money as a form of forced savings.

Nobody likes when you have to spend money to hang out with your friends, or when your friend’s lifestyles start to become too expensive for you. Not that any of it was my fault- it was his money and he knew what he was doing- but if I had asked why he wanted to go, I probably would not have encouraged him to go after work with me. I probably would have asked if we could just play cards at his house instead, which would be free. The funniest part is that I was considering buying him the game as a gift, because I know he will play it at a party and I would like to be invited to that party/have say over when it’s hosted, and purchasing the game is the easiest way to have that say.

I like my friend group that I’ve slowly gained via the hobby shop, but it is pretty unfortunate that most of them are perpetually broke despite having jobs and minimal bills. On one hand you never know- I tanked a bunch of 30 dollar medical copays the past few months, and stuff like high rent, medical bills, or family financially abusing you can be hard to overcome. But there’s kinda an Occam’s razor here. Every single week at the MTG event, 3 of them will bring entire feasts from fast food restaurants, and they mention eating out seemingly everyday or multiple times a day. When new card sets come out, they talk about buying 200 dollar gambling-esqe boxes of cards, and then talk about how broke they are because of it. Three of them are roommates and have openly discussed how much their rent is, and I know what jobs they work. They’re just financially irresponsible people, although they’re far from the worst. They’re probably honestly average- average is just not very good.

Money and Religion, two subjects that kinda get me itchy but I know better than to really bring them up. I don’t want my friends to be broke in the same way that I don’t want my friends to go to hell, but there are different types of friendships. If someone isn’t really ready for conversations or interested in listening to you, there’s no point even opening a conversation. A lot of the time -most of the time really- when people talk about bad things in their lives they are looking for sympathy, not answers or comments from the peanut gallery.

Finally, I kinda messed up my taxes this year. Not in a bad way. Everyone told me, repeatedly, that it was a big deal that my side jobs didn’t withhold money for taxes. So when I was re-hired, I put down that I wanted 50/mo extra withheld. Where did I get that number from? My ass. It was way too much and I still need to wrestle the form from my employer to change it, I can’t do it in the online portal. I won’t complain too loudly about a large refund, but I know enough to know that I shouldn’t have given them that much money in the first place.

I have been getting that itch again to have a “side hustle.” I just don’t think the timing is right, since I already plan to be busy between my mom’s knee surgery, my regular job, my seasonal job, pilates, and my glut of hobbies. I have that virus that a lot of zoomers get where I sometimes when I’m doing any hobby, I imagine myself as a Youtuber/blogger, full of ego that people would tip me like a street musician just for my presence. Maybe I will vlog my garden this year, idk.