life is what you make it..if you spend your time complaining about car payments and your job.. quit your job and stop paying your car payments..go do whatever it is you wanna do. you only live once and you should do it in a way that makes you the happiest.
i havent always been broke and nomadic..i acctually had a lifestyle not fitting to what most would think of me now.
this is a breakdown of how i got into and out of debt. and will probably be the longest post i will ever write on this website.
when i graduated from highschool i started working the next day full time as an electrician.i was making 11 bucks an hr and working 40 hrs a week. taking home about $380 a week and $1500 a month i worked for 1 year and bought a new motorcycle.
payments werent anything crazy $120 a month and my insurance was $80 a month. i was making 1500 bucks so what the heck matters about $200 dollars to have a sweet ride that chicks loved.
i got a dollar raise the following year. i was racing motocross professionally at the time so i bought a van to get back and forth to the races. it was a nice van and was the first brand new vehicle i ever bought.
the payments were $460 a month and the insurance company had told me the insurance would be about $200 a month.. turns out they messed up and after i bought it the insurance was $380 a month.and gas was alot for a v8 van full of dirtbikes(about $50 a week). i was stressin so i found a new job that payed me $14 an hour and i was happy again.. my total payments were
$1200 dollars (with gas) and i was making $2000 and still living at home.
$200 dollars a week is plenty of money to live off of when your eating your parents food and working all day anyway.
the next year my dad was getting stressed with me living in his house eating all his food. he had a g/f and i was bringing home chicks and they were sleeping over and all that and it was just an unconscious lack of respect on my part for him and his girlfriend.. he asked me to move out.
all of these things that were happening to me were completely normal run of the mill events that happen to the majority of people in their lives..its called the american dream..work hard, buy things that you cant afford through loans and mortgages,have a family, and pay for all of that stuff for the rest of your life. i still wasnt seeing what was happening.
i had been doing electrical work for a while now (2 years during highschool and 3 years out).i found a new job with ,again, better pay. $17 an hour and a little over time.. now i was working more and making more....and paying for more..
i got an apartment with a high school buddy of mine named jeff.. the rent was $750 a month plus about $200 in utilities..divided between the 2 of us was about $500 a month.. now i was paying $1200 a month for my bike and van and $500 for my apt. $1700 total but making about $2400 now a month so i still had about the same amount of money throughout the week to blow on food and dvds or whatever else we wanted to get into... we had our own place we could do whatever the heck we wanted to.. we had a pool table and dart board and a legit bachelor pad. girls were in and out of that place constantly.
jeff was selling cocaine occasionally on the side from his job. he would have parties with all these babes all the time and a bunch of the local jock dudes we grew up with in highschool. i watched these beautiful smart girls turning into cocaine loving empty bodies. jeff threw a party one night and the neighbors called the police and the landlord ended up coming over and kicking us out. i talked to the landlord and explained the situation and he decided to let me stay but jeff had to go.. i solt my motorcyle to get a little more money to pay my rent.
my friend kate at the time had no place to live so i offered up jeffs empty room in exchange for her helping me pay the rent.. she was amazing. i lived with her for a while and never had any problems. i got another raise to $19 an hr and life was good.
kate ended up getting a b/f and hanging out with some shit heads and me and her had a falling out and she moved out with her b/f and i lived in the apartment alone paying for everything.. $900 rent utilities,$1000 van and now the $80 a month cell phone charge that i couldnt live without. $2000 a month in bills and making $2500 a month.. i started getting stressed alot and working more and having little fun. i didnt see it happening and then i realized that i was spending my life working to pay for everyting i had.
i made a decision to get my life back in check when i started falling behind on my car payments.. i bought my truck for 21,000 dollars and had it for 3 years and still owed $17000 dollars on it.. i sold it for $15000 and borrowed $2000 from may dad to pay the difference. i bought a car for $500 dollars.
once i started having less bills it was like it took over my mindset.. how can i get rid of more bills? how can i live off less money? i was friends with a guy named chuck at the time and he had a bike shop in connecticut not too far from my house. he said i could live in the back of the store for $300 a month so thats what i did. now i was making over $2000 dollars a month and paying $300 bucks a month rent and $80 a month cell phone..back on track!
chuck threw me out because i wasnt giving a shit about anything. he didnt want people to know we lived in his store and i was bringing girls back there and didnt really care. thats when i moved into the apartment i lived in for the last 4 years.. i started traveling more. started wanting to work less. quit my job and stop paying my cell phone bills.. no more phone.
quit my job and started working odd jobs for my landlord and his son. i always made enough to pay my rent.. sometimes late but always paid him. that lasted for the last 4 years.. my only bill was $300 dollars a month.. at that rate i could work at Mcdonalds if i wanted to making minimum wage and afford to pay it..i could have been working as an electrician making $30 an hour but instead i was raking leaves for my landlord for $10.. money wasnt even a thought to me..
recently i bought a school bus. and started living in it.. it costs me zero dollars a month in rent.. my insurance is $200 a year.. and lately all i have had to worry about is
how big should i make this fire to cook my chicken and dumplings?
and am i gonna land on a jetski when i backflip my bicycle into this lake?
sorry this post is so long.. i wrote it more for myself than anyone else.. i wanted to have it wrote down so i could look back at it in years to come and see how things are different..
DO WHAT MAKES YOU HAPPY!
Fuck yeah Eric, love this blog, too late for me dude, but soooo envious
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