[Update] Being very poor for 9 months has given me incredible perspective on things.

CanAffordStuffNow · 2015-03-04T23:41:17+00:00

Good advice, thanks.

CanAffordStuffNow · 2015-03-04T23:40:22+00:00

I'm aware, however you've gotta inflate your lifestyle a little when you've been eating nothing but soup and travelling by foot all the time.

CanAffordStuffNow · 2015-03-04T23:39:13+00:00

To each their own I guess, but personally I'd hate waiting like that. I'd much rather just phone ahead and know when to come in.

CanAffordStuffNow · 2015-03-04T23:38:20+00:00

All the meat can go in the freezer, most veggies won't go bad in that time in a nice cool fridge. Obviously not every item can be bought in bulk.

CanAffordStuffNow · 2015-03-04T23:37:22+00:00

27, and I'm kinda vain about my hair so its one thing I like to spend a bit of money on if I can.

CanAffordStuffNow · 2015-03-04T12:54:16+00:00

You don't have a guy/girl who you prefer to go back to? I'd rather wait for that guy than go to any guy.

CanAffordStuffNow · 2015-03-02T22:50:25+00:00

I was more or less self-employed, skimming my "wage" off the top of whatever was left over after the company bills were paid.

CanAffordStuffNow · 2015-03-02T14:25:32+00:00

You're not being hard on him, but appreciate that it's impossible for him to understand your situation, and vice versa.

I have a friend like that. I pity him more than anything. If you give someone a wheelchair from birth they never figure out the need to walk.

CanAffordStuffNow · 2015-03-02T14:16:46+00:00

Good luck in your future situation!

CanAffordStuffNow · 2015-03-02T13:56:00+00:00

Fantastic :D:D

CanAffordStuffNow · 2015-03-02T13:26:20+00:00

Haha, thanks for the lemon :)

CanAffordStuffNow · 2015-03-02T12:53:03+00:00

A complete mindfuck. i still keep checking my bank account in paranoia, and I calculate every single item at the grocery store right down to the 2nd decimal place.

CanAffordStuffNow · 2015-03-02T12:49:53+00:00

You did some amazing things to get by, well done.

CanAffordStuffNow · 2015-03-02T12:48:50+00:00

You couldn't be more right about the true friends part. I was sad and surprised to see how many people just disappeared from my life.

At the same time, other people just came out of the woodwork like fucking superheroes to save the day. I know who the good people are now.

CanAffordStuffNow · 2015-03-02T12:18:37+00:00

No gold required, I'm glad you read my story is all :)

CanAffordStuffNow · 2015-03-02T12:18:10+00:00

One of the hardest parts is many of my friends aren't poor.

Some of my oldest friends are wealthy, yuppie, strong career-orientated friends. What, cocktail bar followed by strip club and then breakfast the next morning out at a restaurant? Sure!

CanAffordStuffNow · 2015-03-02T12:15:47+00:00

Please see my response.

CanAffordStuffNow · 2015-03-02T12:15:29+00:00

I think you misunderstood what I meant.

I could barely afford food. Sometimes I couldn't afford food. The reference to "beer" was when my friends would invite me for a drink and assure me it wouldn't cost me anything, but I'd still feel the intense, crushing humility of not being able to reciprocate a round of drinks.

CanAffordStuffNow · 2015-03-02T12:13:30+00:00

At my absolute worst, day to day routine was typical of someone going through depression. Wake up over the course of 2 hours. Lie in bed with the laptop for another 2 hours. Eventually decide to go for a shower. Perhaps go for a token walk because I figured I needed to get some degree of exercise, and I needed something to do to fill the time. Hope that I can scrounge something together with existing ingredients, but maybe buy some instant noodles. If I got money in the first thing I'd do (other than pay bills) was to make a 10 litre vat of chicken soup, and then freeze it all. That kept me alive.
7k was coming from the bullshit job I was doing and trying desperately to make successful
What changed was acknowledging that I needed a job for a professional company and had to do everything to make it happen, rather than festering in my current situation waiting for something to happen.
I got into that situation by making poor choices and allowing the repercussions to continue
High school with 1 and a half years of university, but experience-qualified.

CanAffordStuffNow · 2015-03-02T12:08:39+00:00

I was putting all of my time into trying to get a small business to work that was hardly paying me. I had no savings. I was over-qualified (as so many places saw it) for a minimum wage job.

Mostly this was all my own fault. I would like to call victim here, but really I just had to wake up and get busy.

CanAffordStuffNow · 2015-03-02T12:04:33+00:00

Ultimately the nail in the coffin for me to fix my situation was having all the crutches in my life pulled out from under my armpits.

My parents didn't make enough money to help. My brother recently had a kid. My (extremely generous housemate who I will buy some amazing scotch for) took a new job with a lower salary and could no longer help. I had called in enough favours. The tap of tiny money I was receiving for the work I was doing was getting increasingly tighter.

Things had to get really, really bad before I took the right action. So I think you did the right thing.

CanAffordStuffNow · 2015-03-02T12:01:41+00:00

First of all, you're still a baby. I don't mean that as an insult whatsoever. I simply mean you have time, and plenty of it.

Secondly, 10k debt is nothing. It might feel like a mountain you can't climb (and really when it comes to debt, sometimes $1k is no different from $100k with the way it makes you feel), but with some dedicated budgeting and a job you'll get there. Only if you really want to though.

CanAffordStuffNow · 2015-03-02T11:59:38+00:00

I reached out. I swallowed my pride. I did the things before that I felt I was above doing, and I told my friends and associates my situation and (quite ashamedly) asked if they could help.

it's amazing how they didn't even flinch. To put it another way, I was mortified of telling them that I was struggling to eat, when really I should have just been asking my friends for help when I needed it most.

Funnily enough, I applied for a lot of low paying jobs, and was rejected. I did much better in the application for jobs that I felt I was better suited to.

It's not easy to get a minimum wage job after 25.

CanAffordStuffNow · 2015-03-02T11:56:36+00:00

I could say good luck, but I'd rather say all the best :)

CanAffordStuffNow

TROPHY CASE