In the original Final Fantasy, about 25% through the game, you come across the town of Melmond. The town has been decimated by the elemental fiend, Lich, and there are tombstones and graves scattered all around the place to denote the carnage that he has brought to this continent. Otherwise there is nothing really of importance in the town other than what’s available at the armor shop.
Steel Armor, which doesn’t sound like anything that special, but the reality is that it is one of the highest-rated armors in the entire game, quite literally viable until the very end. Its effectiveness is reflected in its cost, which at 45,000 GP is one of the most expensive items in the entire game.
Its availability as early as Melmond is kind of laughable, because at this point of the game the ramping up of difficulty at its worst, and 45,000 GP would require a massive amount of grinding and effort in order to afford. And if you have any sort of meta or any team with mages on it, acquiring their spells is of higher priority, considering the importance of magic to attack enemies, heal allies, and cast Exit, that you’re looking more like needing 60,000 GP if want to mage up and get Steel Armor before you head to the Earth Cave.
By the time you get to the point of the game where 45,000 GP is no big deal, money is flowing like water. There’s a chest somewhere in the Sky Palace that contains like 68,000 GP, and I remember thinking, wtf is this even needed for at this point in the game, because you already have most of the best equipment in the game at that point, and your white mage can heal more HP than spamming heal potions over and over again outside of battle.
When you have money, money comes easy. When you don’t have money, it’s an agonizing struggle, finding that bridge to where you can get to the land where you can have money.
It’s usually not worth the effort to go back and get Steel Armor, even in spite of having the airship to whisk you back to Melmond without much effort, there are comparable pieces of armor available, found in the natural progression of exploration and advancing the story, that usually also have some degree of bonus protection instead of the base armor stats.
Most teams probably aren’t going to have multiple fighters, given the expense of equipping them, and if you don’t actually have a fighter in your team, it’s a moot point because no other class in the game can utilize Steel Armor, so really Steel Armor is kind of obsolete by the time you get to the end of the game.
The point is, Steel Armor becomes this kind of metaphor of being a reward for those who are capable of putting in the hard work, managing money well, and want to enjoy the fruits of labor at an earlier stage of life, rather than waiting until much later when you have the money, to get something that’s kind of not really needed anymore.
I made an angsty post of frustration a few days ago, and I try to not make it a habit to flippantly vaguebook like that, but I was really in a bad place and I just needed to let it fly and frankly there’s not many outlets for me to do such I feel, so it just happened. But like I said now and I say now, it’s not like anyone will actually read it so I’m not too concerned about it.
I don’t know how good of a thing it is to be like this, but there’s a lot of my general state of wellbeing tied to how I feel about my financial standing. That being said, a large part of my recent frustrations and general unhappiness is very much tied to the fact that I’m going through a tremendously rough patch where an avalanche of expenses and debts are collapsing on top of me concurrently, and I’m having a really difficult time trying to keep things together as I try to navigate all this and I currently feel like I can’t see any lights at the ends of any tunnels, and it’s a really dismal and bleak state of existence I feel like I’m in currently.
It’s tax season, and the 2023 year was brutal and I’m still paying that off, and 2024 is equally brutal, and it’s unavoidable that I’ll have to defer and break up into payments in order to manage it, and inevitably there’s going to be some overlap in payment installments. 2025 should be an improvement because I’ve adjusted my pay at work to hold more aside to prepare for such impact next season, but that doesn’t solve the shitshow that this year will be as well.
My microwave died, which doesn’t sound problematic, considering they can be purchased for like anywhere from $79-200, but when I say my microwave died, I’m referring to my built-into-the-wall microwave + stove unit, to which anyone who’s ever had the misfortune to deal with those knows that they’re costly and generally a pain in the ass. I tried to have it get repaired but the part needed that could fix it isn’t made anymore, and I’m frustrated and full of piss and vinegar at the notion that shit today doesn’t last, considering the unit was 11 years old, while my dad’s 35+ year old microwave still works fine.
Combined with the dishwasher of mine that’s been dead for three years, I’m looking at probably $5,000-6,000 on the low end to replace both things, and considering the use of those appliances, the sooner would be better.
Additionally, Aprils and Octobers are when my semi-annual car insurance premiums are always due, and I told myself that I would shop around every half year, but I hardly have an hour to myself a day much less any time to be shopping for insurance, so I’ve had to let another half-year lapse before I get enraged by the constant rising of premiums for no literal reason, and maybe I’ll get my shit together and research new insurance in September.
Oh yeah, my car registrations are all due, and my car isn’t an issue, but EVs get charged 12 times more in taxes because you don’t use gas, and aren’t micro-paying your taxes every time you fill up the tank.
Needless to say, it’s a brutal time of life right now, and I’m beyond exasperated. My savings are wiped out, I’m completely incapable of saving, and I’m living paycheck to paycheck, all of the above which are conditions that I’ve always worked my hardest to not be in, in a different point of my life. But I’ve got kids and my own family now, and their needs supersede anything I want for myself, and needless to say, it’s a rough go, and it’s among the daily things I struggle with.
I have no idea how to find, or what to do to build, the bridge that can get me to the stage of life where I have some money, and where it becomes easy to make more money. I’m completely handcuffed from being able to save, I have basically nothing to work with to try and invest, and I feel like I’m drowning every single month. I don’t even want whatever it could be perceived could be my Steel Armor, I just want to have the GP in the bank to where I don’t have to sweat about every little expense or tax bill or periodic incidental expense that pops up throughout the course of life.
I feel like if I could just get to a point in my life where I had some GP in the bank, things might possibly become a little easier. I know there are a million metaphors about how mo’ money equals mo’ problems, but I certainly wouldn’t mind being a guinea pig to put that belief to the test. I certainly think a lot of my life’s problems and anxieties would come to a screeching halt if I had an influx of GP to stop a lot of my current bleeding, and get immediately put to work on multiplying itself.
***[White Lotus S3 Spoiler]***
I really wish I could see a rich-ass person doing something really nefarious to where they’d want to feel the compulsion to pay me off without the necessity of me having to explicitly blackmail them. At this point of my life, I’m not above taking some blood money if it were offered to me and I didn’t have to threaten anyone to receive, and hopefully with it, I could solve a lot of my current expenditures, and then have something to build a growing cushion to where I could be at that late state of Final Fantasy where money flows like water.
