Mutant SuperModel… this one’s for you

This post is in response to Mutant Super Model’s post Financial Blues – with charts! wherein she wonders about the insane journey towards financial independence that I had. Well, it was a little insane and more of a post than a comment, so a post it is.

I could probably write a book on what not to do. I’ll call it:

“How to sabotage yourself over and over – the 1 step forward 5 steps back way.”

So here’s a little resume/summary of the journey…

1982-1986: Graduate highschool into a deep recession that lasted into the 1990′s. People drive around with bumper stickers saying “Please lord, send another boom, I promise not to piss it all away this time.” Go work up north in an oilfield camp for awhile (me and 50 lonely guys). I’m warned to stay in my room and keep the door locked at all times. Note that I don’t recommend that most 18 year old girls do this but there’s good money in jobs nobody else wants to do. Unfortunately I party all the money away and support a boyfriend that doesn’t like to work.

1982 – I get kicked out of university at the ripe old age of 17. Something about not going to class. Bummer.

1983-1987 – also lots of temp jobs where I get to go in and improve things. This is kind of a prelude to realizing that I like a constantly changing work environment – which it took 25 years to really understand and not think I was just flaky. Most of the time I work 2 jobs, but there’s that non-working boyfriend to think about.

1987 – get pregnant with my oldest son by my brother’s best friend. This is the era before Lifetime movies but I believe it’s called non-consensually. I think of suicide as a possible option rather than tell my (very Catholic) parents but driving into oncoming traffic might hurt someone else, so I don’t do that. Besides, I’ve become good at suppression.

1988 – I go back to University because I know I’ll never make much if I don’t. Besides, I have someone besides me to think about. He’s a great baby, but sometimes when he cries at night I think about adoption. I think I lived on about $650 / month in student loans and a $25 “baby bonus – woot!” – $350 for rent, $100 for subsidized daycare (thank you government!), err… food? It was ok, baby got fed and I got down to 115 pounds lickety split from the Supermodel diet of not eating. Fortunately I have no credit cards and no time for friends and no money to do anything anyway.

1989 – my mom dies and there goes my “support network” – that lives 100 miles away. I fail my spring session of math courses because I’m too dumb and in too much of a haze to realize that I could probably have withdrawn with cause.

1989 – I move home for my second year of university and to take care of my hermit-like grandmother in place of my mom. I ask my dad if I can live at home to save money. He says no, but my brother takes me in rent-free. Whew!

1990-2 – grandma moves in with my aunt and I move in with another psycho brother to save money. He’s mean to my kid but I’m too afraid of confrontation to do anything about it and I hated myself for that.

1991-3 – I meet my ex. Low self esteem woman plus borderline personality man = bizarre relationship. I graduate university with honours. Good thing because – guess what? Still recession! I get one of the few articling jobs around, don’t let on for 2 years that I have a kid. Then I had to work on Family Day and had to bring him with and hide him under the desk and the cat’s let out of the bag. I buy him a nintendo game system to play with my first child support check so he’ll be quiet under the desk. Somehow put in 200 billable hours a month working for a bunch of assholes for $23k/year, paying off a $25k student loan.
I finally get a child support order of $200 / month for my oldest son. The judgment of $400 was put through a year before and the judge consoles me when I break down crying in the court room telling me that this was better because he wasn’t paying anything at all before. And yes, he knows farmers can hide their income but there’s nothing that can be done despite him owning tons of land.

1993-2000 – fall into deep depression that lasts a very very long time. Decide that I hate my job and working for the evil MAN and quit to work for myself “doing what I love!!” Oh yeah, except it doesn’t pay much and when it does pay, it’s erratic. Lots of debt, shopping as a panacea to mask that my life wasn’t working.

2000 – get pregnant with my youngest son (my ovaries have magical powers, I guess somebody’s got to be the .01% statistic). Break up with psycho ex when I’m 4 months pregnant and he quits working to live with his parents on disability.

2001 – I read Your Money or Your Life. I want financial independence more than I want air to breathe it seems. I move 3500 miles away and get a decent job with a boss with mental problems. Save up about $40,000 in less than 2 years through getting holidays paid out, matching plans, geographic arbitrage… (low CAD vs. USD), being frugal… oh do I know how to be frugal.

2003 – Move home, try that supercalifragalistic-frugal way of life “doing what I love!” Again. Doh. Burn through savings pretty darn fast.

2004 – Back at square one of zero net worth. Get a job at a company making decent money but putting in tons of (unappreciated) hours. Get kind of sick and burnt out. Hair starts falling out in patches which was a signal to maybe quit.

2005 – Go work for a normal, asshole-less company. Take a personal development course that kind of changes my perspective. A lot. Become a happy overachiever at work after that. Start making lots of bonuses and raises that I don’t even ask for.

2006-now – Work (sometimes 2 jobs)/ save / invest / buy a fixer upper house. Am happy and realize that money doesn’t have to affect that as much as I thought. But maybe that’s easy to say.

MSM, I don’t have any answers for how to make things better other than that it requires a lot of work and things we don’t want to do or that are hard to do. But when you do them, things really do get better. And it can take such a very long time where it seems like you’re just treading water – I like Dory’s “Just keep swimming” for a motto.

So cut yourself some slack, but not too much. You’re on the right path and have a great attitude – and adorable kids to boot.

And some day you’ll look back and be amazed at how far you’ve come and that all those hard times and lessons were worth it. I promise.

The major reason for setting a goal is for what it makes of you to accomplish it.
What it makes of you will always be the far greater value than what you get. ~ Jim Rohn