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A little while ago, I got an email that was clear to be pertaining to the settlement of some class action lawsuit that I clearly put my name in the hat in, some time ago.\u00a0 I do that when I can, sign up to be a plaintiff for class action lawsuits, when they are applicable to me.\u00a0 Sometimes, the eventual payoff is nothing more than a few bucks, if even currency at all, but there have been some in the past that I\u2019ve actually gotten some substantial money from\u2013a true set it and forget it kind of reward that\u2019s always welcome if and when they inevitably settle.<\/span><\/p>\n This particular settlement wasn\u2019t paltry; it was like $129, automatically deposited into my PayPal account.\u00a0 Ordinarily, this would be something that\u2019s I\u2019d be happier about, since a basically free $129 would be welcome at any time of my life, and it\u2019s not that I\u2019m not welcoming any sort of monies incoming, it\u2019s just that especially over the span of the last month, I\u2019ve been hit with constant atom bombs of expenses, and I was already two feet underwater before December started, but now I\u2019m basically in the line of sight with the Titanic currently, and $129 is going to do absolutely dick or butt as far as my current levels of debt is concerned.<\/span><\/p>\n Years ago, I used to have this thought process that when shit was going poorly, expenses would just start coming in from out of nowhere, at around $300 at a time.\u00a0 Unexpected bill, car issue, pet emergency.\u00a0 Eventually, it kind of went up to $500-600 an incident; needing tires, appliance malfunction, unexpected kid-related expense.<\/span><\/p>\n Over the span of the last month, it\u2019s clear that the rubric has once again changed for the worst, and it\u2019s like the array of unexpected expenses are just starting at $1,000 a pop, with no ceiling on them.\u00a0 The fucking bus-passing ticket cost me a grand, new tires for my car are exceeding $1,000, another critical expense that I had no lead time to prepare for was like $6,000+.<\/span><\/p>\n Naturally, like many people who understand what the concept of economics is have pointed out, the rate in which people are compensated at the rate in which expenses globally have increased are not even in the same galaxy of being commensurate, and it all leads to the conclusion that this has basically been the worst financial year of my entire life.<\/span><\/p>\n And I say such without any hyperbole, or trying to deliberately exaggerate for effect, this year, twenty twenty-five, has been the worst year of my life as far as finances go.\u00a0 I have never racked up as much debt in my life as I\u2019ve racked up this year, and there are very long and uncertain futures as far as paying such debts back without them suffocating me any worse in the future as they are doing in the present.<\/span><\/p>\n My outgoing expenses are obliterating my incoming earnings like Georgia Tech vs. Cumberland, and an ungodly amount of expenses typically just fall back onto my credit cards, neither of which have a particularly favorable interest rates, and it\u2019s in my best interests to pay them back as soon as possible as to not get sucked into the vortex of interest.<\/span><\/p>\n And the worst part is that almost none of these expenses are really the case of me being an irresponsible shithead and having overleveraged myself or living way beyond my means.\u00a0 I have a wife.\u00a0 I have kids.\u00a0 I have an au pair.\u00a0 I have a family member that seemingly absolutely refuses to help me help him.\u00a0 I\u2019m basically everyone\u2019s fucking ATM and everyone\u2019s fucking safety net.\u00a0 All of which amounts to everyone vacuuming up my money, leaving me with absolutely nothing but scraps, debt, anxiety, depression and a whole lot of pent-up frustration.<\/span><\/p>\n So as one might be able see, getting a free $129 at this current juncture of my life doesn\u2019t really have much impact.\u00a0 It merely scratches at a mountain of debt that has materialized massively especially over the last month.<\/span><\/p>\n Needless to say, I\u2019m depressed as fuck, which is kind of sad considering we\u2019re in the throes of holidays currently.\u00a0 I can\u2019t afford to Christmas shop, and even if I could, I\u2019m so over gift giving again, because I\u2019ve been in such financial peril for so long now that I can\u2019t get in the right headspace to where I can be happy to give gifts because I could afford them without jeopardizing my ability to survive.\u00a0 I\u2019m sick of feeling obligated to have to get gifts, and I would rather receive nothing so I didn\u2019t feel like I had to reciprocate, and the only gifts that I actually want to see are those going towards my children.<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019ve been so depressed that I can\u2019t bring myself to write about the number of things that under normal circumstances, I\u2019d want to carve out some time to write about.\u00a0 The John Cena retirement.\u00a0 Philip Rivers\u2019 return to football coincidentally timing with his existing retirement benefits nearing expiration.\u00a0 Mick Foley vs. Politics.\u00a0 Pluribus<\/em>, the latest Vince Gilligan masterpiece.\u00a0 The Braves actually not having a shitty offseason for once.\u00a0 Notre Dame being bitches about missing the CFB playoffs, and the shitshow that the CFB playoffs are doing to bowl season outright.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n These are all things and topics that I notated to myself as things I might want to brog about, but I just can\u2019t seem to bring myself to do so, because when I\u2019m not working, I\u2019m parenting, when I\u2019m not parenting, I\u2019m fretting about finances, and when I\u2019m not fretting about finances, I\u2019m cleaning up my house because nobody else gives a fuck to help out.\u00a0 And if I\u2019m lucky, I get a little bit of time for me to get my daily exercise and Duolingo in, and then it\u2019s off to bed where I have to be the first one up every single fucking day because nobody else is going to ever relieve me of, duty.<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019m always operating against a clock of some sort, I have no time for myself, I\u2019m drowning in debt, with no relief in sight.\u00a0 I am a tiny solitary planet of stress, anxiety, depression, frustration and rage, with no relief in sight.\u00a0 Everyone in my life deserves to get a better version of me than what\u2019s currently in existence right now, but short of the momentary glimpses of light that my children bring me, without more help than the nothing I get from the world, this is the only version of me that is available.<\/span><\/p>\n Happy holidays, everyone.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A little while ago, I got an email that was clear to be pertaining to the settlement of some class action lawsuit that I clearly put my name in the hat in, some time ago.\u00a0 I do that when I can, sign up to be a plaintiff for class action lawsuits, when they are applicable … Continue reading Money woes, the 2025 edition<\/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":[36,79,100,83,52,105,58,146,49],"class_list":["post-50972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-angst","tag-cashmoney","tag-comparison","tag-observations","tag-owned","tag-rage","tag-sports","tag-triggered","tag-wtf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50972","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=50972"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50972\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50974,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50972\/revisions\/50974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}