Financials

Money has always been an issue with me. Not the spending it but the being able to save. After my freshman year of college I decided I wanted to stay at USC. I was planning on going back home, going to the community college for a semester and then transferring to somewhere like UNCW. I should have done this but I was set in my ways and just really wanted to stay at USC. Well to stay at USC meant to either get a scholarship, which wasn't going to happen because my mom makes far too much money by herself, OR paying half of everything and working towards getting in-state rates. For anyone that doesn't know out of state tuition at USC is over 30,000 a year. Instate rates are less than but close to 10,000. It's a HUGE difference in my book. So I took out loans to cover all of school and I got a job to pay for half of rent and utilities. I cut back my hours at school because there was no way I could have a full load of 18 hours and still have a job and do well. I ended up having 15 hours one semester and then 12 the next. Not very many. I somehow made it work. I started off with about 1500 dollars in my savings and no less than 150 in my checking at a time. It's not the same now so I really don't care telling the world. Well there were months where I just wasn't getting hours. PetSmart would have weeks where I would have 30 hours and others where I would have 10. It wasn't stable and it was adding so much stress to my life. There were times that would get under a thousand dollars in my savings and I would have to figure out the best way of saving money to get back to my buffer of 1500 dollars before checks were coming in from my job. There were some months where I would go to the grocery store and spend tops 50 dollars and have it last two months. I didn't leave lights on, if anything a lamp, and I took the quickest showers anybody has ever seen. I am not trying to get a pity party, I hate them, don't give me one. I am just trying to explain my anxiety that has occurred.

So the year was up and I had all my paperwork, all the spread sheets figured out, everything I needed in a huge file showing that I had done this to get in-state rates. I get into the ladies office in the in-state rates department (that's not the official name but I like to block it out of my memory :) )... she tells me that I had done everything right, but that I had gotten my drivers license FIVE days, yes you read that correct FIVE days too late to get instate residency for the fall semester. I was that pityful girl sitting there not being able to help but cry because of everything I had done and what could I show from all this hard work? Another 15,000 dollar student loan for this semester that SHOULD have been 10,000 dollars less. So there came my second job. 18 hours for this fall semester and two jobs trying to work the system to get as many hours as I could. My grades suffered, I will not lie. I should have gotten on the Dean's List but I didn't. Nowhere close. Somehow it worked though.

Well last year during tax time I found out that I could put in all my student loans and how much money out of pocket I was spending for tuition, that the loans weren't covering and that my mom decided she wasn't going to pay (there goes my buffer YET again... she told me she would pay me back but she never did... oh well, it's not money I have now and haven't had for a while so who cares, it's old news). Well I ended up getting a hefty tax return back and my grandfather gave me money for being in school. He feels like it's an incentive for me to stay in school because none of his other grandkids have ever graduated from college. I am not normally an emotional person and this post is going to make it seem like I am, BUT my mom, my grandpa, and I all almost started crying when I opened my card. SO... that 1500 dollars went quite a bit higher. I had swore to myself that I was going to get out of college at least a little bit in the green once when I graduated college.

I am still in the green and nowhere near only 1500 in my savings account now. Yet, I still want to cry when I go under my set amount that I want to stick at. I was getting amazing hours at my job now that I'll just call "The Slab" even though that's not it's actual name. I was easily making about 900 a month. This was over 200 dollars being able to be saved each month. I was one happy camper. Well then the schedule making switched over the owner that if you have read my previous posts about how she just "loves me" you can see how my hours went. During the summer my mom asked me if I would want to go to Florida games if she were to get season tickets to all the football games. I told her my only issue would be the loss of time at work. That's three prime days that I could be working that would be lost. She told me to figure out how much I would make each weekend and that she'd give me the money to cover it. Well... the first month and a half has gone by of games and she still hasn't covered those weekends I have requested off and they've only given me 2 days of work.

Why in the world is it so hard to ask my mom to pay me the money that she promised? I can't keep doing this if I plan on being able to keep my part of moving to Virginia. I am not making Laine pay for everything. Also though, I can't be helping if I don't get the hours and paying my bills. This is beyond stressful. If I have this huge buffer why is it so bad for me to think that I am getting too close after all these bills are being paid to this number that I don't want to go under? 3 months... that's all I have to get through and this month is finished being dealt with bills wise. I can get through three months without a panic attack from financials right? I need to stop stressing. I really do, but I don't know how NOT to stress about it.