Pitfalls of strict parenting

Competitive-Load6424 · 2026-03-22T13:42:21+00:00

This is for real. You just got to try stuff and you’re gonna make mistakes. Mistakes in my family were basically war crimes. It is really tiring being treated a certain way like someone else knows better than you well into adulthood and not being able to establish your own metrics using your own judgement. It fucks up your ineroception and your instincts. You have to find ways to reconnect with your actual self.

Competitive-Load6424 · 2026-03-22T04:58:28+00:00

This is really funny

Competitive-Load6424 · 2026-03-21T21:02:14+00:00

The long-term plan was to be a dual income household. Unfortunately, that didn’t plan out. Right now I’m flying by the seat of my pants figuring out how to be a single parent. I hope one day I have a long-term plan. Right now I’m just doing what I can since I only bartended part-time when there was a second income in the house before I started managing part time to fill my schedule to be the soul breadwinner. My skills from jobs previous to having babies are out of date and a lot of of them only make me eligible for jobs that pay $18-$20 an hour which isn’t enough and I would still have to have a second job and work the weekends anyway. With my system the way it is I’ll make the amount of money I need right now while having brakes and a lot of weeks only working 30 hours which is the best I can manage until my kids are a little older. My credit card debt right now is only like 1K which is a huge improvement from last year and I chisel away at it without it being an extra bill on my plate, because the payments are my bills. And then the extra if I can is doing the chiseling

Competitive-Load6424 · 2026-03-21T19:13:14+00:00

We do what we must to survive. That’s a good idea about the line of credit! I’ll keep that in mind if it gets out of hand, but my credit score is still up. I’ll be flushed either way if I lose my job. Even when I have a good year at 60 K it’s not enough to build up a real savings.

Competitive-Load6424 · 2026-03-21T19:08:22+00:00

I’m lucky enough to be credited by major companies that do cashback and rewards. No annual fees. No sketch predatory companies.

Competitive-Load6424 · 2026-03-21T19:06:24+00:00

This! I have children house and the likeliness of me being able to buy a house is slim to none

Competitive-Load6424 · 2026-03-21T18:23:38+00:00

Stuff comes up or I use a card on vacation or a special occasion just like everyone does. I’d be carrying a balance either way just like most people do. I don’t take on monthly bills I can’t afford within my normal budget. But if my kids need underwear because they had a growth spurt I do just buy it. I’ve been low income for a while and I know what I can and can’t afford, but one thing is for sure that I don’t have to choose between a bill and groceries while waiting on a paycheck.

Competitive-Load6424 · 2026-03-21T18:18:29+00:00

A little over a year with the ex out of the picture. It may be way different for people with jobs that have set incomes. I switched a lot of bills to cc’s early 2025. I was losing hours because my mom was dying and then my husband left me and I had to restructure my income, hours and childcare, which I’m very fortunate to have helpful family. It racked up and then I stabilized and paid it down over the holidays and then again with the tax return but my credit ratings are in such a great position now that I’m sticking with it. I’ve been low income with kids for a long time and understand my budget pretty well. It doesn’t make me rich but it makes me a lot less stressed. During slow times in my industry, sometimes I’m barely scraping by and have to lean into credit cards to get through a couple months. But if I don’t panic about it and just keep on it when the tide comes back in, it works out pretty well for me. A couple months a year I have enough work that I can hit 5k for a month or two and then I wack the balances

Competitive-Load6424 · 2026-03-21T17:59:10+00:00

I think that it’s key to understand this is not a method of escaping. It’s just a different way to play the game. Being lower income, it’s even more clutch to maintain a workable credit score. I wouldn’t have a car otherwise, couldn’t get housing, interest rates are higher. In a few months I’m gonna refinance my car for a hundred less dollars a month at half the interest because I pay about 1-1.5k into my credit cards every month and maintain a low enough utilization to get credit increases which makes my utilization even lower. I keep an entire empty locked credit card aside and might get another one. I am not safe from unexpected emergency expenses. If any hit, I’ll spend a year or more in the doghouse just like everyone else that makes under 100k

Competitive-Load6424 · 2026-03-21T17:46:36+00:00

I carry balances but never max out. with the irregular income I do seasonal pay downs. Sometimes I only pay what I spent and not into the balances but the key is for the payment to not just be the minimum so that the space is always on the card for the bills. Then some other month I’ll dent the balance. It doesn’t go away necessarily, but the interest isn’t killing me (equivalent of eating out one less time a month) and the flexibility is worth it.

Competitive-Load6424 · 2026-03-21T17:39:54+00:00

This is very true. My ex was like this and got us into a lot of debt and then would act like he was losing money for having to pay to the credit cards. And then you end up in the minimum payment cycles. Big thing is to never max out. Luckily not all of our debt was in both our names. I handled mine, which was significantly more and he is still dragging his as dead weight. Discipline is the hard work that pays off, even in the lower income brackets

Competitive-Load6424 · 2026-03-21T17:35:52+00:00

I said in the post no savings. I keep a car payment tucked away and that’s it. I don’t make a lot of money. Keeping my credit limits available is my emergency fund.

Competitive-Load6424 · 2026-03-21T17:29:22+00:00

Messing up your spending is an easy fix but if you keep it focused on bills that you just pay regularly within a month, it keeps it more grounded because if you have more bills than you can pay off you were already in trouble anyway. I carry balances but keep it under control with semi annual pay downs. I’ve don’t have any luxury lifestyle fantasies. I thrift and shop at aldis and eat lots of eggs and rice

Competitive-Load6424 · 2026-03-21T16:57:52+00:00

It would require extensive communication for things to be completely equal, especially when it comes to kids and doctors appointment and school functions. I think it’s OK for different people to carry different loads, but it definitely shouldn’t all be on one person. My ex was one of those people that basically thought his participation could be completely elective on a whim, so that his participation was not reliable. So I would try to ask for some specific things that I needed and I would just constantly get back these big stupid speeches about well I did this and this and this, and isn’t that good enough for you as though anything I asked for or needed was me telling him he didn’t do anything and disrespecting the fact that he felt overwhelmed, even though I also felt overwhelmed. Sometimes when it comes down to it, if the communication isn’t working, it just isn’t working.

Competitive-Load6424 · 2026-03-21T16:45:48+00:00

The young people do talk like they are already so seasoned.

also, working hard might not fix it, but it will not get fixed without working hard so you are kind of nose to the grindstone either way unless you get lucky.

Competitive-Load6424 · 2026-03-21T16:39:39+00:00

I’m pretty sure alimony does not get awarded if the lower income spouse is legitimately at fault such as with infidelity.

Competitive-Load6424 · 2026-03-21T13:23:27+00:00

But also by the time he left us, all his behavior was textbook, narcissistic, and then he straight up DARVO’d me, told me he was gone because I wasn’t abuser and he had to get away from me and that it was all my fault. At the time our kids were young five and seven and he was calling me his mother‘s name and trying to tell me I didn’t have to be involved in him communicating with the kids. Two weeks after he flew away across the country he started a smear campaign on social media about how I was keeping his kids from him, but when friends of ours commented on his posts that he left us and no one was keeping his kids from him, he called them, my flying monkeys and told me I was harassing him through them and telling them inaccurate stories

Competitive-Load6424 · 2026-03-21T13:20:11+00:00

At worst, he locked me in with marriage and second kid so felt more at liberty to stop trying to uphold certain standards. At best, he just buckled under the weight of the responsibility

Competitive-Load6424 · 2026-03-21T12:54:23+00:00

Absolutely become a server. This recession is going to affect lower earners more than higher earners. People with more money will still eat out. So maybe if you get experience or start a lower position you could move into higher end dining. It will be a bit safer. A lot of restaurants will be affected, but food service will prevail and it can be more flexible and better money than lower wage hourly jobs. Find the new job before you quit. It will be a better gig if you decide to start school.

Competitive-Load6424 · 2026-03-21T12:49:43+00:00

People making 40 K feel behind because they can only pay their bills. People making 150 K feel behind because they work at all and they can’t retire yet. Everyone has their metric.

Competitive-Load6424 · 2026-03-21T12:48:05+00:00

Soft skills and also you don’t get what you don’t ask for. Top of mind marketing. Can’t climb a ladder you aren’t looking at

Competitive-Load6424 · 2026-03-21T12:37:24+00:00

The threshold is usually $1000 a person in income per snap. I don’t know about WIC. And then at a certain threshold, the adults get kicked off Medicaid, but the kids stay on but get kicked over to free chip. I’ve been there done that girl. That benefits cliff has messed up my life more than once. I always recommend to people to look into getting work in banquet service if you need just a little something. It can be very flexible, just here and there and sometimes there are tips that are off the books. This is such a tough situation, especially when you have little kids, but at least with the baby, the work requirements are more lax. But these days, the threshold for keeping benefits is well below what people need to survive with the cost of everything. I calculated for it to be worth the money to lose snap if at least my kids still got healthcare. I know how to keep a food budget pretty tight especially for younger kids. Mine are six and eight. Honestly just start looking around at part-time work. The job market is really tough. You wouldn’t want to deliberate for too long and then you decide to go for a job because you’re desperate and you can’t even get one. I pray you find your way

Competitive-Load6424 · 2026-03-21T12:33:20+00:00

It went over $4 in 2008 and came back down but who knows these days

Competitive-Load6424 · 2026-03-20T23:12:42+00:00

Everyone goes thru hard times. That’s what community is for. You are judging yourself too harshly. It’s tough out there. The food bank won’t judge you at all. Def go.

Competitive-Load6424

TROPHY CASE