just one of those days...

I’m tired and I’m hormonal, which can’t possibly lead to good things when, on the one week day in a blue moon that I get to sleep in, shortly after waking up, I receive a phone call from my landlord’s mother asking if I’ve paid rent for July yet.

In the interest of juggling my finances as best as I could, I’d opted to pay utilities for May and June (which had been posted simultaneously), rather than pay July rent and just May utils. Now, usually this isn’t a problem. My amazing landlord is blessedly flexible and knows that, as students or recent college grads, we’re still balancing things out. And it helped that she lived with us up until the middle of June.

When I get a call from Romy (landlord’s mom) asking for my rent and saying she only wants to make one stop to pick things up at the house, what do I do but start freaking out. I’ve closed my savings account and rolled the whole 66 cents that were left into my checking and there literally isn’t quite enough there for a rent check. And I’ve been accommodated so far and was in no mood to push limits. Shit! I suck at life. I can’t possibly ask my parents to borrow money because they’ve started asking when I can take over insurance payments for myself, which they shouldn’t even be covering in the first place. Luckily, my sister still owes me a couple months of cell phone payments. Thank God that will cover it for now.

I’m mad at myself for getting into this situation in the first place. I just can’t seem to manage my money quite rightly. I even recently got some “free” money from my school for an old paycheck I’d forgotten to cash. And I pissed it all away…on what??? Nothing I can remember. I had planned to open a new savings account up here to start saving for the future or something. Dammit!! Even before this happened, I decided that, starting last Saturday, I would be on a two week no-spending stretch to try and get myself in line. So I could pay crap like rent on time and send some money to my parents to stave off the bill collectors. I’m in kind of a different situation with my parents where, even if I asked my parents for money and they would be willing to give it to me, they might not be financially able, which means I really do have to be on my toes as much as possible, especially because God knows I DO NOT want to become a Liz. It’s frustrating because, clearly, part of the problem is me. I seem to spend any money I come in contact with that I know I won’t absolutely need to cover bills and such. A budget would probably be a good thing. I keep convincing myself that I’m responsible enough and don’t need one, but clearly, I’m not. If I go to a store knowing I’m only able to spend X amount, it will force me to really evaluate what I’m buying. And tracking would probably help me ascertain exactly how much I go out to eat and how I might be able to change eating habits. However, I’ve recently started poking around trying to find a second job, just to smooth things out for the next six months until I qualify for my raise. I’d like to think I could use the funds from a second job for fun while putting the entirety of my real paycheck toward bills, savings and my parents. It could be nice.

Now, it’s easy to point fingers and be mad at someone else when really I’m having to deal with a problem I created for myself. Having said that, I feel I wouldn’t have this problem if Ehlert would just pay me decently and I’m becoming increasingly pissed off at them about the whole situation!! It keeps boiling and boiling inside of me. I am a college graduate!!! Why should I be paid $9/hour for something I spent four years training for and that I do well!!! Why, when I moved from being an intern and was hired as an editorial assistant, did I not get a raise? Was it purely oversight? Am I of that little value that I might as well just be an intern? Am I being punished for being gone? This seems like the only logical explanation, yet is completely illogical. I want to scream and yell and cry about it. I haven’t yet, but if I could, I think it would feel so good. They say don’t make it personal, but this is a personal problem. It’s ridiculous that I’m working in my field and I can’t make ends meet. More ridiculous that I can’t get a raise until January, even though I’ve been working here for a year already now. I’m not expecting to become a millionaire doing this. I know it’s not what I signed up for and that’s fine with me. It would just be nice to not have to worry about paying for my own insurance or getting “where’s your rent” calls. To be financially stable. Is that really to much to ask for a young professional?? I know that by most standards, my life is not half bad at all. I am thankful for what I have, I’m just angry because I don’t feel that I’m getting what I deserve. When that raise finally does come through, I expect it to equal several thousand dollars more a year than I’m getting. I have worked for it.

Inevitably when I try and argue this out in my head, I get around to the “you don’t have it so bad, what are you complaining about? You just have to power through and deal with this for a little bit longer” phase. I don’t particularly like this phase, but it’s usually where the argument ends. I am perfectly capable of toughing it out for a while longer. I just need to get creative about spending and saving until the time comes.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, there is still about an hour until any pages will be ready and I have absolutely zero motivation to do any actual work until then, a product of my wonderful morning phone call and that humidity, which is so thick I might as well be eating it.