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I started a version of this previously, but we had one of our regular power outages and I lost it, so here goes version 2.
I have a dysfunctional relationship with money. As long as I can remember I've had a dysfunctional relationship with money.
When I was a kid my family was working poor. We liked to pretend we were middle class, but only my mother's ambitions for us were middle class. The latest toys, never. I rarely saw a toy which required a battery and if I did, it never had live batteries because we couldn't afford them. My cloths were almost all hand me downs and worn until they either disintegrated or until they were well beyond too small.
"Excuse my shoes, they don't quite fit. They're a special offer and they hurt me a bit." -- The Kinks "Low Budget"
Now that's not to say I was neglected or abused. That's not the case at all. I was given my portion of what my family could afford. We always had food (quite often home grown). I knew kids who were really poor. But I also knew from a very early age that we also weren't rich or even, more politely, well off.
I was constantly being barraged by advertisements for all the things I didn't have. I imagine it's ten times worse for kids now.
When I first moved out on my own, I was both smart and dumb about money. I was smart enough to realize when I couldn't afford a car, so I lived without one. That meant riding bicycle through the winter in Minneapolis, but that was what I could do. It also meant living in a relatively sketchy neighborhood to save on rent. So on the meta level I was able to make decent decisions about money.
But living hand to mouth, counting every penny, chasing every store brand discount has an effect on your brain. I fell into the bad money decisions that poverty inspires. Blew money on stupid stuff when money was extremely dear. I lusted after things which I didn't need. Convinced myself wants were needs. Very few people actually need a pair of swords, even if it would be cool to take lessons and learn how to do stage fighting.
"She got what she wanted, but she don't want it no more." -- The Kinks "It"
There were some of the traps which I did manage to avoid. I never, ever, got sucked into the payday loan scheme. Those places should just be outlawed. I also didn't fall for the pawn game, which only the people behind the counter can ever win.
I learned very quickly the high price of late fees and bounced check charges, another great way for corporations to kick people when they are down. I was quite surprised when I learned that banks would accept debit card transactions all weekend long, charging a $20 overdraft charge for each $2 transaction and never indicating that each was failing. That could disappear a week's worth of grocery money before you even knew what was happening. That was a lesson I didn't need to learn twice.
When I was living in the Mini-Apple compact discs were just starting to really take off. For those too young to remember, we used to buy our music on physical media. Compact discs replaced, cassettes, which replaced LPs and 8 tracks, which replaced 45s and 78s, which replaced people sitting around and playing music for each other. So anyway, CDs were just starting to come into their own. There was a store a few blocks from my apartment where you could buy and sell used CDs. I liked to go there and get used CDs because it was very hard to justify the normal price of new CDs in those days. It didn't take me long to learn that some days prospects were better than others. There was never anything worth buying on Saturdays or Sundays or at the beginning of the month. But there would be some really good deals by Wednesday and toward the end of the month. I was, without thinking about it too much, exploiting other people's inability to manage their money. But those used CDs showed up in abundance before payday and there was never anything affordable after payday. I don't know how many people were using the CD shop as a source of cash to get them through to payday.
With persistence and luck, I worked my way out of the crappy neighborhoods. I was able to have a car and pretend I was upwardly mobile. Then a divorce and living on my one income again put me in a different crappy neighborhood, with roommates I had nothing in common with, riding my bike through all weather.
With persistence and luck, I worked my way out of the crappy neighborhoods. With an extended streak of good fortune I've managed to have a stable relationship and stable employment for quite a while now. Even better, I was lucky enough to stay generally healthy and when not, fortunate enough to have health insurance. All these things have allowed me to slowly add financial stability to my life. I am not rich, but I have a decent income and I'm saving for retirement. I have been fortunate where a lot of people have not.
But I still have a crappy relationship with money. I am ultra-paranoid about being destitute. I am fanatical about paying my bills on time. Okay, I'm fanatical about paying my bills early. I tend to get tweaked if I end up spending money unplanned. It doesn't matter if it's not that much money, or I'm on vacation, or out with friends. So in my brain, I'm still stuck in survival mode.
Now just image how real poverty and real instability messes with people's brains. I can't imagine, or rather, I don't want to.
Version 2 didn't really express all I intended, but then again Version 1 didn't either that's why it never got posted. Ah, well, better post before the next power outage.
I have a dysfunctional relationship with money. As long as I can remember I've had a dysfunctional relationship with money.
When I was a kid my family was working poor. We liked to pretend we were middle class, but only my mother's ambitions for us were middle class. The latest toys, never. I rarely saw a toy which required a battery and if I did, it never had live batteries because we couldn't afford them. My cloths were almost all hand me downs and worn until they either disintegrated or until they were well beyond too small.
"Excuse my shoes, they don't quite fit. They're a special offer and they hurt me a bit." -- The Kinks "Low Budget"
Now that's not to say I was neglected or abused. That's not the case at all. I was given my portion of what my family could afford. We always had food (quite often home grown). I knew kids who were really poor. But I also knew from a very early age that we also weren't rich or even, more politely, well off.
I was constantly being barraged by advertisements for all the things I didn't have. I imagine it's ten times worse for kids now.
When I first moved out on my own, I was both smart and dumb about money. I was smart enough to realize when I couldn't afford a car, so I lived without one. That meant riding bicycle through the winter in Minneapolis, but that was what I could do. It also meant living in a relatively sketchy neighborhood to save on rent. So on the meta level I was able to make decent decisions about money.
But living hand to mouth, counting every penny, chasing every store brand discount has an effect on your brain. I fell into the bad money decisions that poverty inspires. Blew money on stupid stuff when money was extremely dear. I lusted after things which I didn't need. Convinced myself wants were needs. Very few people actually need a pair of swords, even if it would be cool to take lessons and learn how to do stage fighting.
"She got what she wanted, but she don't want it no more." -- The Kinks "It"
There were some of the traps which I did manage to avoid. I never, ever, got sucked into the payday loan scheme. Those places should just be outlawed. I also didn't fall for the pawn game, which only the people behind the counter can ever win.
I learned very quickly the high price of late fees and bounced check charges, another great way for corporations to kick people when they are down. I was quite surprised when I learned that banks would accept debit card transactions all weekend long, charging a $20 overdraft charge for each $2 transaction and never indicating that each was failing. That could disappear a week's worth of grocery money before you even knew what was happening. That was a lesson I didn't need to learn twice.
When I was living in the Mini-Apple compact discs were just starting to really take off. For those too young to remember, we used to buy our music on physical media. Compact discs replaced, cassettes, which replaced LPs and 8 tracks, which replaced 45s and 78s, which replaced people sitting around and playing music for each other. So anyway, CDs were just starting to come into their own. There was a store a few blocks from my apartment where you could buy and sell used CDs. I liked to go there and get used CDs because it was very hard to justify the normal price of new CDs in those days. It didn't take me long to learn that some days prospects were better than others. There was never anything worth buying on Saturdays or Sundays or at the beginning of the month. But there would be some really good deals by Wednesday and toward the end of the month. I was, without thinking about it too much, exploiting other people's inability to manage their money. But those used CDs showed up in abundance before payday and there was never anything affordable after payday. I don't know how many people were using the CD shop as a source of cash to get them through to payday.
With persistence and luck, I worked my way out of the crappy neighborhoods. I was able to have a car and pretend I was upwardly mobile. Then a divorce and living on my one income again put me in a different crappy neighborhood, with roommates I had nothing in common with, riding my bike through all weather.
With persistence and luck, I worked my way out of the crappy neighborhoods. With an extended streak of good fortune I've managed to have a stable relationship and stable employment for quite a while now. Even better, I was lucky enough to stay generally healthy and when not, fortunate enough to have health insurance. All these things have allowed me to slowly add financial stability to my life. I am not rich, but I have a decent income and I'm saving for retirement. I have been fortunate where a lot of people have not.
But I still have a crappy relationship with money. I am ultra-paranoid about being destitute. I am fanatical about paying my bills on time. Okay, I'm fanatical about paying my bills early. I tend to get tweaked if I end up spending money unplanned. It doesn't matter if it's not that much money, or I'm on vacation, or out with friends. So in my brain, I'm still stuck in survival mode.
Now just image how real poverty and real instability messes with people's brains. I can't imagine, or rather, I don't want to.
Version 2 didn't really express all I intended, but then again Version 1 didn't either that's why it never got posted. Ah, well, better post before the next power outage.
