I’ve always been horrible with money. That’s what happens, I guess, when you’ve had bad (and lack of) financial responsibility modelled for you, and when you move out on your own at 15.
Back then, two paycheques a month meant one went to rent and the other to nothingness – because eating one ‘meal’ a day cost $1.34 and I was too young to consider spending all of my monies on coffee and smokes. Then I got older and went to college and so, every three months, I got a fat student loan cheque. Which paid off the previous three months’ credit card balances. Then I got even older and lived with someone whose spending habits were as ‘if you got it, spend it’ as mine were and it was financial doomsday.
So, at 24, I declared bankruptcy with $30K in semi-shared debt and no employment to pay it off with.
At 25, I was automatically discharged because I followed all of the rules and paid all of the fees on time. I was so prepared to start over again, to do things right. But I still didn’t make any payments on my student loan. Then, I again put all of the bills in my name when I moved back in with JDawg. And again things went unpaid, to use the money instead for habits and addictions and passive-agressiveness.
So then what? Living support payment to support payment, with government aide and bookkeeping and writing money as bonuses. Things technically shouldn’t be tight, yet they are. I should be able to save nearly a third of my income every month, yet every single one, I get to the end and scramble to figure out when rent will be deposited and withdrawn.
This behaviour isn’t purely laze or addiction. I really, in general, don’t have much to save for – I don’t plan to own a car or house (in Vancouver both are rather unaffordable and unrealistic) or to pay for Isobel’s college fund or anything else like that. And the student loans? Well, I kind of have a problem with them, since I didn’t in fact cash the loan that I currently own on (I dropped out. The school still cashed it. Yada yada).
Still, excuses aside, I should be doing much more to save up. For my return to school. For a decrease in support payments at the end of this summer. For BlogHer and the dentist and new shoes and tattoos and hair colour maintenance. One day, I’ll probably have to consider replacing my boobs, you know. One day, I’ll probably want to take a trip on the spur of the moment. One day, I might want a cell phone that isn’t pay-as-you-go.
There’s so many ‘one day’s that I’m not preparing for. And I could easily blame the low income or the city, the age of my child or my mental differentness, but I’m not going to. I’m simply horrible with money and it’s gotta end.
Resolution #6: Quit with the over-spending.
Because really? There’s no reason not to and so many reasons to.
