The Weight of Money

all the cool kids are doing it…

I grew up with a mom that liked to spend money. She grew up poor, as she said, and refused to feel poor even though we didn’t really have a lot of money. The biggest thing I remember was in regards to food. There were so many things we wouldn’t eat because “thats poor people food” and she wouldn’t allow it — amusingly, I often crave “poor people food” like meatloaf (which isn’t always cheap when I make it). My mother was married to a great guy for 7 years, but that fell apart when, along with other things, she wouldn’t stop spending money or credit. We always shopped at higher end department stores, usually on clearance, and my mom just wouldn’t control her spending.

I know they even filed bankruptcy at some point in life. I think my mom filed bankruptcy again after she was divorced, but maybe those references were from the same one they filed together. And, I just found out that my mom filed bankruptcy yet again recently. Wow! I didn’t know you could actually acquire enough credit after bankruptcy to need to do it again and again.

My mother spends every penny she has and often some she doesn’t have. She lived in Maryland for a while but then moved back to Oklahoma, leaving her bank here. Many times, I’ve been asked to go put some money in her account so something doesn’t bounce. Other times, I’ve watched her deposit money in the bank and be confused about why the balance was so low, just to figure out that she must have bounced a couple things. This always amazes me because I just can’t understand how she can continue such a negative financial cycle. Also, she doesn’t really mind.

We talked recently about long term care and retirement. I’m an only child and worry about having to take care of her. She admits she has no savings, no financial plans for retirement, and will simply rely on social security and the state to take care of her is she becomes ill. Sigh.

So, the beginning of my financial independence, which started before I was 18 because I was a teen mom, didn’t start off on the right step. I did alright but never learned to save money or plan ahead until a few years ago. I simply spent what I had and juggled things when money got tight between paychecks. I racked up some outstanding bills that I simply couldn’t pay and also credit card debt that I couldn’t pay.

A couple years ago I made the decision to quit my full-time job, got back to college full-time, and live off financial aid and loans. That meant I had to budget. That meant that I would only get paid 2x a year. That meant I would be screwed if I cheated on my budget. And so, 2 years later, I’ve done quite well living within my budget. I’ve also built up about $8K in savings in just a few months — this really amazes me because I always felt I didn’t have any money, but I was obviously able to buckle down enough to save up a good chunk of change in a short time.

My biggest savings boost is a part-time job cleaning a friend’s house. I took this job after I’d already established my budget. It pays $480 a month, which is 75% of my monthly ‘income’. However, I decided that since I wasn’t originally planning on that money that it should all go into savings and thats where it goes. I feel very proud of the fact that I’m willing to take all of the income and put it right into savings instead of adjusting my budget to allow for a little more wiggle room.

And now, I’m venturing into a marriage that is starting pretty far in the red in terms of net worth. I do feel scared about this, from time to time, but willing to accept that we all do stupid things financially and have to deal with them later. Also, for what its worth, my partner financed his 10-year pursuit of a B.S. on credit cards. So, his debt really isn’t much different than mine, just poorly financed and the interest rate is way too high.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 11th, 2006 at 7:28 am and is filed under general. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.