FFXIAH Linkshell Ni

In the days of my youth, I was told what it means to be a man, Now I've reached that age, I've tried to do all those things the best I can. No matter how I try, I find my way into the same old jam.

woops... slipped into zeppelin for a second there.... screw it.. let it roll...


wait! I was going somewhere with that... oh yeah! YOUTH and poverty! right and so we climb into the way back machine to simpler times when ronnie raygun ruled the universe and every teenager that wasn't born into yuppie wealth sucked rocked for $3.15 an hour... and the chances of a young dumb punk getting credit of any kind was a far off misty dream... which turned out to be a good thing which we will get back to later.

right and my parents wanted to charge me $125 a month for rent when I hit 18 so instead I moved into a shared room in a punk rock flop house that only charged me $60 which was drastically different from a home in the suburbs....but we don't have time for that now...

The important part of the story was, what little money I made was strictly rationed to the point of absurdity. So I was forced to live on cash and create a budget that if I didn't adhere to would force me to experience homelessness, which is only tolerable in the summer.

Right and so chance and circumstance forced me to stumble on to the only working money model known to man... live on cash, never borrow, set up a strict budget and stick to it like super glue forever.

And I warned you it was boring and once I set aside what I would need for gas, rent, bills, a little bit for savings... I ended up with $21 a week I afforded myself for food. And so naturally my diet consisted mostly of ramen noodles, mac & cheese made with water and other food substitutes that were 4 or 5 whatevers for a dollar.

I am not suggesting anything quite this drastic, but close. What you need to do to gain financial independence is pay off all your debt and start squirreling away every dollar you can scrape for big ticket purchases latter down the line.

And a lot of people thought I was HELP I AM TRAPPED IN 2006 PLEASE SEND A TIME MACHINE for eating ramen noodles every day just so I could save up money to buy a car later but I knew the car I had purchased for $400 was not long for this world and if I was going to get to work I would need to buy another one soon and managed to save %500.

Later in the story I was laid off, we were kicked out of our house and I ended up living under a bridge like a troll. My friends helped me transport the furniture nobody wanted under the bridge and I made a little house under there with the pigeons. We even started building walls out of railroad ties with a little window and everything...

But I stubbornly refused to dip into my savings even after applying for assistance and being told I would need to empty my bank account in order to be considered truly poor. I got another job, used the 5:30 am train as an alarm clock and slowly dug myself out.

After several costly, ball busting, soul crushing money mistakes later in life we don't have time for, I am finally returning to the simple purity of saving for things I want instead of going into hock every time something shiny bonces in front of my eyeballs. So the advice I give you and my kids is save, never borrow. My kids can live rent free with us until they can afford to buy a house of there own, it's a far better thing than lashing yourself to sinking ship of a mortgage that will drown you in the sea of sorrow and madness. Credit is the enemy. And like everyone else, we are finally realizing this while we are liking the wounds caused by keeping up with the Jones and living in the fashion of american excess you used to read about in newspapers...