{"id":43258,"date":"2016-09-19T14:43:54","date_gmt":"2016-09-19T18:43:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=43258"},"modified":"2020-07-24T14:44:16","modified_gmt":"2020-07-24T18:44:16","slug":"forced-changing-perspective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=43258","title":{"rendered":"(Forced) Changing perspective"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lately, I\u2019ve been feeling the financial crunch of a lot of expenses and debt that I\u2019m accruing, on my own accord, and it\u2019s admittedly got me feeling a little more anxious than I would typically prefer to feel on a regular basis.\u00a0 Typically, I like to live my life a quarter mile at a time<\/span> with fairly substantial cushions, so when I fret over money, it\u2019s not necessarily always because I have no<\/em> safety net, it\u2019s because my safety net is growing uncomfortably small.\u00a0 No safety net would probably have a way different tone; probably even discernable through my choice of words.<\/span><\/p>\n

But as stated, this current round of fretting is really nobody\u2019s doing but my own; I didn\u2019t really have<\/em> to schedule two, two-week vacations, two weeks apart from one another.\u00a0 I don\u2019t have<\/em> to go to Disney, or Worlds.\u00a0 There are a lot of things that I\u2019m doing that aren\u2019t really necessary to the survival of life, but things that I want to do, feel that I should do, and will try to have few regrets doing on account of how much they\u2019re costing me.\u00a0 Easier written than done.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been trying to tell myself that things are going to be fine, and in all likelihood, they will be.\u00a0 It\u2019s just a lot of my savings will be pretty depleted, and I\u2019ll have a tremendous balance on my credit card when it\u2019s all said and done.\u00a0 I can\u2019t speak for the future, but I\u2019ll probably be back to, or remain anxious about such circumstances then, but I\u2019m trying my best to keep my wits about me until we get to that point.<\/span><\/p>\n

And when it rains, it tends to pour, but in an odd twist of irony, it\u2019s through such downpour do I kind of find a little bit of perspective that, kind of helps, in spite of the poorly timed, certainly unwanted $600 expense.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In light of the #fuelcrisisofatlanta2016omgpanic, <\/strong>one of most recommended things to do is not drive<\/em>.\u00a0 Easy to suggest, but hard to do when people have jobs, obligations and the occasional need to procure necessities.\u00a0 But I found a way to make sure you don\u2019t drive; can\u2019t drive \u2013 have a flat tire!<\/span><\/p>\n

Honestly though, I knew this was going to happen eventually.\u00a0 Tires typically have a lifespan of 40-50 thousand miles, and I was pretty much around the 50,000+ mark with my tires.\u00a0 I knew they were balding, and worse, wearing unevenly on account of gradually falling out of alignment over the passage of time.\u00a0 One of them probably had a nail in it or something, based on the fact that my tire light would come on, and it always needed to have air put back into it on almost a weekly basis.<\/span><\/p>\n

I knew that all four needed to be replaced, and soon, but because of all my existing expenses and debts, this was one of those things that I held my breath on, and hoped that I could go as long as possible until it needed to happen.\u00a0 $600 later seemed preferable to $600 now.<\/span><\/p>\n

That all changed yesterday, when after filling the bum tire, my tire light was still on.\u00a0 It turns out that another tire was low, so I filled it up, and the light turned back off.\u00a0 I went to work, and after work, I couldn\u2019t help but notice that second bum tire looked flat again.\u00a0 Undoubtedly, it too, had a nail in it now, leading to rapid deflation.\u00a0 I rolled into the gas station, and upon pressing the air hose to the tire, it would simply not inflate.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Seeing as how I\u2019d pushed my luck long enough, I threw in the towel and hobbled back home on the donut, and at the time I\u2019m writing this, my car is in the shop now, getting its long overdue replacement of all four tires.\u00a0 Including tax, install, alignment and whatever bullshit fees that go with any automotive expense, it\u2019s likely going to be around the predicted $600.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the thing though; I thought about how a long time ago, when I was in a different place in my life, AKA younger, this is the kind of expense that would cripple me.\u00a0 I\u2019d feel like I\u2019d want to jump off a cliff, I\u2019d be miserable and feel like there was no way I could handle such an expense.\u00a0 I know this, because this was an actual reality back then, when I had car troubles and not enough money, and no idea what to do.<\/span><\/p>\n

And then the worst part of it all, I\u2019d eventually have a talk with my mom, trying to be passive but obvious about how I was struggling, and inevitably a check would come in the mail to bail me out.\u00a0 I\u2019d feel like shit, but I\u2019d feel relieved that I\u2019d been bailed out, and then I\u2019d forget about how dumb I was with my money and the debt I\u2019d owe my parents and likely never repay.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s different now, now that I\u2019m all old and shit.\u00a0 Sure, it\u2019s $600 I don\u2019t really want to have to pay, but it\u2019s $600 that I can swing, without being crippled.\u00a0 Yes, this may compromise my financial liquidity when I go to Korea a little bit, but it\u2019s the sacrifice of frivolous for the pursuit of responsibility.\u00a0 And the fact that I need to have a car to function in society.<\/span><\/p>\n

The thing is, tires are something that I can handle nowadays.\u00a0 Tires are something that I have handled numerous times now.\u00a0 Sure, my finances are little more stretched thin now, than they have been in previous incidents of needing tires, but the fact that I can handle them on my own is a reminder and a different perspective, that I can handle this.<\/span><\/p>\n

*Edit* – turns out the tires ended up hitting the $700 mark, once the labor and taxes were considered, along with a camber part that needed to be repaired.\u00a0 That didn\u2019t make me feel too great, but not as not great as when my car\u2019s battery pretty much died in the same day, leading to $160 more for a fresh new battery, and then needing to fill up my fuel tank in the midst of a \u201cfuel crisis.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Totaling up to nearly $900 worth of expenses, it sucks tremendously, and being capable of handling it doesn\u2019t necessarily mean that I\u2019m the least bit thrilled to have to.\u00a0 It fucking sucks, all the same.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lately, I\u2019ve been feeling the financial crunch of a lot of expenses and debt that I\u2019m accruing, on my own accord, and it\u2019s admittedly got me feeling a little more anxious than I would typically prefer to feel on a regular basis.\u00a0 Typically, I like to live my life a quarter mile at a time … Continue reading (Forced) Changing perspective<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[51,79,133,52],"class_list":["post-43258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-cars","tag-cashmoney","tag-old-man","tag-owned"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43258"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43259,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43258\/revisions\/43259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}