to my credit, i have had my own apartment and paid my own way since i was eighteen. to my detriment, i have been solely responsible for my finances since that age, as well. considering the number of 30+ year old dudes i know still living at home or still sleeping on some bitch's couch or still subsisting on ramen and potato chips, i'd say i've kept this ship afloat pretty well. i was homeless twice, once at nineteen and again at twenty, but that's only because you can't trust bitches you randomly meet wherever stupid bitches hang out to be good roommates and not get you thrown the fuck out of wherever it is you're living. all this to say that no one ever taught me anything about money. EVER. i mean, we never had any, so what was there ever to teach? i know how to get social security benefits and free health care, but no one ever talked to me about retirement or credit scores. i fucked around and almost ended up in jail because i didn't know that not paying taxes for contract work is "illegal" and "IRS fraud." how the fuck was i supposed to know what a goddamned 1099 was?! people assume you have parents or guardians to walk you through that kind of shit; good thing my crooked-ass lawyer knew the judge.
so it's tax time, and jeff was over the other night badgering me about filing a return, asking me about all my receipts and bank statements and whether or not i saved the checks i used to pay for that class i took. um...yeah, right. i'm sure i either burned that shit or flushed it down the toilet or used it to line helen's litter box. save my receipts, for what? to prove to the government how many times i purchased the same exact black sweater at the gap? hold on to my bank statements, for whom? to prove how many times i stopped and started then stopped and RE-started paying for eharmony or whatever? YEAH, RIGHT. is there some sort of loneliness deduction i don't know about? some alcoholic tax credit? no? then get the fuck out of my face with that. pfffft.
then he asked how much money is in my 401k. and my response was "sixteen dollars?" again, how am i supposed to know? i barely even glance at my paycheck stubs. it's too fucking depressing and every time i look at what i earned versus what the government lets me keep i seriously consider trading my obama liberal card for a tea party membership. so i just burn it. fuck it. i don't even have any idea how much of my paychecks i allocate into my "retirement plan" (LOL if you think i'm going to do anything other than DIE AT THIS JOB), and i could just walk into the other room and ask jim, but who cares? all i know is that when my beer money runs low i have to fill out a "don't give a shit about being put in a shitty nursing home" form under his reproachful eye while asking if there's any way i can just deposit loose change or does it have to be actual whole dollars?
dismayed, jeff decided that i need to start paying attention to my money, at least a litttle bit. the first step of which involves documenting everything i spend for a month to see where the leaking cracks (or gaping holes and broken dams) might be. he thinks that once i have everything outlined in front of me i'll see where i've been pissing money away that could very well be put into some...um...what do white people call it? a savings account, i think? you got me. i've never heard of that shit before.
the one bright spot shining on my spendthrift ass is that i don't have any credit card or student loan debt, because i never bothered to establish any fucking credit and i always pay for school out of my own pocket before deciding to waste my fucking money by dropping the hell out. SMART.
so i'm going to do it. i'm not making any commitments other than agreeing 1 not to alter my spending for the next four weeks and 2 not lie about it. he's going to go through all my fucking bank statements anyway, so it's pretty fucking pointless. here is the deal, in case you want to play along at home: 1 write down everything you spend, every day; no purchase is too small. (including newspapers, train fare, cab rides, streetwise, WHATEVER.) 2 keep track of days you are working vs days you are off. 3 save your receipts so you can itemize the purchases, eg you can't write "target $120," you have to write exactly what you bought at target, to figure out whether or not you really needed it. 4 track your cash spending. 5 suffer endless depression when you see what a disgusting spendthrift you are after in-depth critical analysis. um, that might just be me. anyway, you dudes should totally DO THIS WITH ME. let's feel like irresponsible teenagers together!
i already fucked it up and forgot i was doing this until late january 16, so i didn't save shit or write a damn thing down. but i sort of remember what i spent at the end of last week and over the weekend.
-cvs $120 (pills)
-urban outfitters $32 (hat and gloves)
-red line tap $14 (cover to see vince's band + cheap beers)
-sonny's $18 (lottery tickets, a jar of salsa, and two cans of diet coke)
-lulu's $48 (dinner with alexis, i paid)
-fresh flowers from stems $27
-lamp from dania furniture $39
-magazine stand approx $30 (elle, spin, fader, nylon, URB, bust)
-binny's $16 (2 four-packs of allagash white)
january 17 work
-ev1 $3 (peace iced tea cans)
-7-eleven $6 (water and entertainment weekly)
january 18 work
-davis pantry $9 (2 yogurts, chex cereal, iced tea)
-sprint $344 (phone bill + evo payment)
-directv $62 (i cannot miss my shows)
-bally's $21 (gym membership pfffft)
-amazon $53 (sony stereo headphones, kids are all right dvd, maps and atlases cd)
-jimmy johns $10 (delivered sandwich; what?! it's icy out!)
-ATM $40 i owe kate
-transit card $20
-the southern $64 (dinner and drinks with amanda and laura)
-c.o. bigelow $42 (scented candles)
-macy's $12 (totes umbrella to replace the one my drunk ass left in a cab)
-godiva $14 (truffles for me and a box for amanda)
-macy's $44 (rachel roy skull earrings that totally kick ass)
january 19 work
-davis pantry $4 (2 yogurts, iced tea, no cereal)
-lunch with cindy and lori $9
-tickets to see tapes n' tapes next weekend $30
-best buy $35 (inception dvd, greenhornes cd)
-the cellar (dinner with tom) $0 he paid!
january 20 work
-starbucks $7
-lunch tacos $6
-borders $38 (magazines and the new joshua ferris, in PAPERBACK)
-amazon $17 (kate's nail polish and the new walkmen cd)
-royal canin calorie control $17 (stupid fat helen)
-cocktails at black rock $22 (i think)
january 21 home
-7-eleven $4 (iced tea)
-walgreens $13 (humidifier filter)
-bath and body works online $23 (antibacterial soaps and shit)
let's stop here for the week, shall we? especially since i am going to be off for the next four days and have nothing lined up except SHIT THAT COSTS MONEY. holy fucking balls, friends. HOLY FUCKING BALLS. eyeballing this list is depressing, and keeping track of every little thing is exhausting. i'm not getting out my fancy calculator, because even at a goddamned glance i can tell i've spent easily eleven hundred motherfucking dollars in a week, LESS THAN A WEEK, and that is ridiculous. good thing i plan on dying young and leaving whatever i have left to the cat colony i'm eventually going to start.
no rent paid (it's not time yet!) and no groceries purchased. smh. the only thing in my refrigerator is a bag of frozen raw shrimp, a seasoned mozzarella braid, and crystal light. but i have fresh flowers, balsam candles, lots of music, scratch-off lottery tickets, and SO MANY MAGAZINES to keep me company, so that makes it okay, right? BLARF. i'd be embarrassed if it wasn't so awesome to be liquored up and constantly entertained. SERIOUSLY. i buy books and music and magazines because helen is boring and can't talk and even though i have cable sometimes there isn't a goddamned thing on tv. PLUS, how am i going to know this seasons hottest lipgloss shades?! i can't be out here wearing coral while everyone else is wearing sparkling nudes! what i look like?!
i'm about to email this to jeff, even though i don't want to. i'm sure he's just going to go over it with a red marker making slash marks over all of my essentials. i can hear him now: "what do you need flowers for?" "can't you just use bar soap?" PFFFFT. anyway, despite the fact that i am now suffering some crippling self-consciousness about my dumbass purchases, i have another three weeks left of shaming my good sense. and SO DO YOU.
