April 18, 2025
Debt sucks and I don't recommend it.
I had the luxury of my time in college being entirely paid for through a combination of financial aid and scholarships, and graduated debt-free. Not a lot of people can say that! But alas, all good things don't last forever.
I want to say when you grow up without money and then finally get it, there's two ways you can turn out. 1: Understanding how precious a resource money is, you hoard it and become understandably stingy about paying for anything. Or 2: Having been broke for so long, getting paychecks always makes you feel rich and so you have no idea how to hold onto it.
My buddy Neko is a #1, but I've learned these past few years that I'm very much a #2. 🥹
From roughly 2019 to 2023, I spent about half of my time working for the family business; me and my old man managed a tires and rims shop that he wanted to get off the ground. We met a lot of good people who we built healthy relationships with and who did things for us! We also met many people who were a pain at best and would actively take advantage of us at worst. The job had some perks, and some downsides; I won't miss how "taking off" was never an option, but I will miss being my own boss. Handling customers as a small team of three was at its worst maddening and I feel like I definitely accelerated my gray hairs helping manage the whole thing for so long, but I also learned a lot and it certainly forced me to develop my social skills and work better under pressure.
My old man was also not the best with the finances, unfortunately. In the end, despite steady traffic we just weren't holding onto enough money to stay afloat, which made the way customers would often try to wring discounts out of us and get us to lower our prices increasingly frustrating. Couple that with hefty loans and expenses and before we knew it, we had pretty much completely fallen under. We hit a point where I wasn't receiving paychecks for over half a year, because we simply couldn't afford for me to get paid. In that time, I hinged on my credit card despite having no way to pay anything off and made many purchases... some responsible, many irresponsible. And in that time, I also took loans on my father's behalf to delay the sinking ship. I get a little irritated thinking about what he could've done better, but I can only hold so much against him. Hindsight is 20/20, and this was a rough situation on both of us.
But I do know what I could've done better, which is the important part. I did not know how to save! I did not know how to prioritize! I had a savings account that I was breaking open way too often for stuff I didn't need. I couldn't hold more than a few hundred dollars at any given time. The added pressure and the compounding debt should've told me to lock in, but instead I took a "well, I'm already in the hole" mentality and just became even more frivolous. It was only until I was the lowest I thought I could go — as in when I got what felt like my 50th letter from the debt collectors and my pitifully low credit score was staring me in the face — that I realized how burdenous this felt and how much I needed to work on handling my damn money.
And, of course, that realization only hit when I didn't have a job at all, and despite my best efforts, couldn't really get one. That continued for way longer than I'd have liked! The free time is always nice, but you can only do so much and after a while it really felt like I was slowly rotting, especially with those negative balances looming over my head. It was only thanks to the offer of a friend of my father (go nepotism!) that I was able to secure a stable job again. And even then, I'm still shaking my fist, at both myself, and at my dad, and at everything in general, and going "damn, if only". Credit recovery is hard, did you know that?
So here I am, and here we are! We very recently sold our home to cover the debt we went into from the business, and we're looking for a place to move right now. My family and I put so much into this place, so it sucks, but on the bright side the worst is largely behind us; the most irritating part is that it never feels like things are moving fast enough. I have a steady enough job that I've been able to work towards paying off the personal debts that I've accumulated. I'm actually saving now, slowly but surely, and have developed some modicum of better spending habits. Make a clear divide between "money to save" and "money to spend". Throw it in a high-yield savings account. Show some self-control. Don't do what I did!
In other news, Xenoblade X has been pretty fun. Just as fun as it was before, and then some. :] I'm also rewatching Kamen Rider Build to show it to my dearest. It's been a blast to say the least. Everyone take it easy!