April 20, 2013

• I worry about money a lot

  I have a classmate, let’s call her [Crisp]. Even though we went through the IB program in high school (where you take a full course-load of university-level classes), she always worked part time at the mall. She’s still working part time at the mall through her university degree and it’s apparent that all her money is spent on clothes. She is always wearing designer pants and shirts that are easily $150 a piece. She always looks fantastic – but what a way to submit to the rat race! How can you stand the hours and hours of retail horror (judging from my experience as a minimum wage rat at EB Games) just to throw it all away on a blouse? The very thought makes me sick.

   

  I don’t know how everyone is NOT blogging about money anxiety. How do people NOT have money anxieties? 

  That’s not to say that I don’t have enough money, but that’s why it’s an anxiety. I always knew that I’d be unable to sustain sanity in my parents’ house so I knew years ago that I had to start saving money. Thank goodness I was brought up frugal so it wasn’t too hard.

   

   

  I’m gonna be one of those annoying Glory Days Losers and say that I really miss being an athlete. I remember jamming my high school weeks full of cheerleading, strength class, ultimate frisbee, cross-country running, and dragonboat. I also remember the constant soreness of over-exercising, but at times I even loved as a feeling of accomplishment.

  Now that I’ve devoted myself with work and school to climbing the economic ladder, it’s all I can do to maintain an minimum level of physical activity. My goal used to be becoming “better and stronger” and keeping up with the best. Now it’s a feeble “trying to stay fit.” (Interesting to note how the two goals are actually quite gendered. Which is another reason why I hate merely “staying fit”, as if women couldn’t do more).

  Cosmo is kind of in the same boat. He was always the nerdy, bookish type who didn’t enjoy PE. But we both know that physical activity is critical to health, and we try to make the most of our busy schedules. Whenever we have an hour to spare, we go out walking in our neighbourhood. 

  So far on our walks, we’ve covered the distance between 4 skytrain stops. There are all kinds of neighbourhoods in between. Cosmo and I live in and amongst a mass of mid-rise apartments, but the houses on our walks range from cute little bungalows to $3 million homes.

  It’s not like I’ve never seen houses before, but it’s kind of surreal now to look at them. We have a widely-acknowledged crisis of housing affordability in Vancouver – a poor quality detached home is at the very least, $500,000. 

  I’m a part time student. I work at two jobs – one is for money and another is an upaid internship for getting experience. It’s not that the “internship” is teaching me anything I don’t already know – and my employers know this. It’s so that I can add bulk to my resume because every entry-level job I’ve looked at is asking for minimum 2+ years of experience in relevant fields. I’m only starting to hit that mark now, but in this job market, you gotta be over-over-qualified to even have anyone give you the time of day.

  So when I see this sprawl of detached homes, it just doesn’t make sense. How can anyone have so much money? How did all these people achieve social mobility when it seems like we never will?

  I voice these worries aloud to Cosmo sometimes on these walks, pointing to pretty houses and sighing. He agrees with me, but after a couple times of this he said it made him feel like we live in a cardboard box.

  I felt horrible obviously; I didn’t mean to make him feel bad about what he is able to afford (I don’t yet pay rent because my job doesn’t pay enough. I do however, do the vast majority of the chores). I don’t even want a big house. Truth is, I really love our cozy apartment (I wouldn’t be able to keep up with the housework if we lived in anything bigger). But it’s about social mobility and the ability to choose. And about not throwing our hard-earned money into years of rent until we can scrape enough together to buy.

  And for me, it’s also about becoming financially independent from Cosmo and my parents. I’m struck with worry sometimes when Cosmo is late coming home and I don’t know where he is. I’d obviously be devastated if anything happened to him. But on top of that, I’d have to move back in with my parents (or quit school and work full time – but that would significantly put a damper on my social mobility).

  I’m dependent. It feels vulnerable. We’re all working hard and not getting ahead.

   

  Thankfully, I’m switching to a higher-paying job next month (it’ll be *just* enough to cover the semester’s tuition, but it’ll help). And Cosmo just got headhunted today for a position that would raise his wage by 150% of his current entry-level job. I don’t want to influence him too much, but I hope he takes it. He’d be doing work that he is passionate about, and the money would help. It’d be a sigh of relief.

  • 12:21 am
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