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askkibbitzer-blog · 7 years

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Money is important but...

I used to think that money was everything until I started to make decent money that I realized I was missing out on a lot of my life because money was everything.

I was like most people. I was a college drop out and broke. My parents didn't teach me anything about finance or how to get a job. They had me focused on my education and that college would help me get a high paying job. To them college was my end all, be all. That going to college I was going to be gifted with the bliss of a happy life. I sometimes think back, what crack pipe were they smoking from that this idea or lack of college would give me a great life.

After dropping out a college it took me a while to find a job. I was a college dropout with no experience. No one wanted to hire me. It felt like a year before I got hired and honestly it could have been a year. I was hired at minimal wage and working part time. I was only getting one or two days of work a week which equates to like 12 hours each week. Definitely not enough money to live on but I was just happy to be making money and at this time living on my own. I owe a lot to my first job. I bust my ass of for this job, not cause I wanted to do a great job but because I was afraid to be unemployed, a fear that would later come true. I picked up shifts and was always available when they called me to come in. It didn't matter to me what I was doing or what I had planned money was more important than my social life and sanity.

Quickly they trusted me and knew how hard I worked and I was put into every area. My favorite was being a party host not because I enjoyed making families happy but because of the tips. This was when my family, co-workers and manager all told me that I would great money being a server but I doubted them but look at me now, a bartender (lmao). But because of my hard work and luck (I've always considered myself a lucky bastard) I was rapidly moving up to become a trainer, head party host and then a manager. The pay raise was amazing and the hours I got, I was rolling in money!

The phrase "Mo' Money, Mo' Problems" never been more true to me until I became a manager and making $10.75 an hour. I was in a good place or at least I thought even when minimal wage went up from $8 to $9. I wanted to live on my own and did so with a roommate but because I thought I had plenty of money, it created more headaches for me. I had to pay bills, rent, insurance and other shit that you don't take into account. That's when I needed more money.

More money? Easy I'll just work more. This is where I wish the inner me would come out of my body and punched me in the face. Working more hours became everything to me. I was calculating how much more money I needed to keep afloat. Work became my life, I didn't take any vacation or sick days. If I was sick I'd come into work with my nose dripping snot, on the brink of death with medicine, cough drops and tissues. I couldn't afford not to work.

This went on for a while, I moved jobs to make more money, then unemployed for a while, worked two jobs and then went back to my first job to become an assistant manager. I was making $15 an hour and it was great but I was spending 38 hours a week there. No weekends off. No set schedule, I was randomly schedule different shifts each week. Most people on here would die for this kind of pay, I know cause my friend tells me she wants a job that would pay her $15. But, even though the money was good and I was financially free I wasn't happy. Not as happy as I thought I would be that I don't have to be so money hungry.

I started to hate my job cause I was working so much. I started to hate myself for working so much. I didn't have time for my friends, my family and myself. I was always tired after work and my days off I would want to relax. Money was what got me here, because I was so obsessed with money I put myself in this situation where I was working full time at a place I hated because the money was too good to give up and the fear of being unemployed again, scarred me. But nonetheless I left that job and gotten a full time job working as a barista with a set schedule but I still hated it. I then got a part time job working at a desk thinking I was done with the food industry but it still wasn't right.

I enjoyed my time off I was having more time for myself, friends and family but the thought of going to work was gut wrenching. I would cough and gag when I would get ready for work, like my body was under stress knowing I hated working there. So I looked for another job and landed this job as a bartender and I love it.

Being a bartender is not something I would consider working full time but also not my career but I enjoy it. I don't gag when I'm getting ready. I work 3 days a week and get to take home tips every day/night I work. It give me time to do things I want to enjoy while financially supporting me. I have time now to test bake and bake for my at home business that I do with my roommate, start and maintain this blog, hang out with friends and family and to go back to school.

Money is definitely important and at a time in my life it was everything but it wasn't making me happy, it only brought relief. Now I'm happy and relieved. I make enough money to support myself, save up and to spend. I'm living my life stress free and with plenty of time to do all the things I want. I know everyone is different and money is everything to someone who doesn't have any but to me money is important but not everything.

My happiness and how my time is spent is more important to me then money. This is just my financial story and there is a lot more details that I left out to keep this post short but I do hope this helps others see what makes them happy be it money or time. Buddha Bless.

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askkibbitzer-blog · 7 years

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Farewell online privacy

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askkibbitzer-blog · 7 years

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We’re all human. …Oh, wait.

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askkibbitzer-blog · 7 years

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Origins: Kibbitzer

Kibitzer (Kibbitzer), A Yiddish term for someone who offers (Usually unwanted) advice or commentary. This where the name for Kibbitzer came from. No, I don’t speak Yiddish but, somehow searching the internet dictionary I came across this word and it just screamed me.

Originally this blog, Ask Kibbitzer was suppose to be an advice blog where I would answer people’s questions and also post up questions I get asked in real life by friends, family, and co-workers. I am nowhere in my real life an advice columnist but, I hope to be one. But, what I found out from posting is that even though I am giving you guys advice, I am sharing more and more of my life.

I honestly didn’t plan for this blog to be anything about my life but, I felt that I couldn’t share my point of view or give you advice without you having any background about me. As I share my life with you, I’ve realize that I’m pushing my limitations.

Me from 6 months ago wouldn’t dare share my life on the internet but even before that past me wouldn’t let any post be live without having it edited three times where there was no mistakes and every grammar point and sentence structure was perfect. But, now I can give two shits less about the technical stuff as long as you guys can follow my train of thought and understand where I am coming from, it’s all good.

I guess what I want to say is that I feel the shift of Ask Kibbitzer from being only advice to life style. Not saying that I won’t ever do advice or answer questions people have but, I feel that I want to include more of my life and share it with you guys.

You guys can expect a wide spectrum of post from me. With all that life has to offer, I want to share all of it with you guys. Uncensored and raw. So I hope you guys are here to stay and that I can continue to share my life with you as it feel liberating to share my experience. I hope you feel the same as I do and share your stories, experiences and life with me.

Kibbitzer out, Buddha Bless.

#origin #kibbitzer #ask me anything #ask #advice #lifestyle #blog #domain #websites #web hosting #web host #shift #sex #beauty #love #finance #sucess #life #i love you #share

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askkibbitzer-blog · 7 years

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Assumptions: Good and Bad

Assumptions. I’m not going to lie, I do sometimes make assumptions about things and people. I don’t mean to but, I know it happens.

Sometimes my assumptions are right and they protect me from making bad choices or from getting close to someone. Other times, they are wrong and I’ve lost the chance to make a connection with a decent person or missed out on some cool opportunities.

I’ve always made the assumption that living in California or even moving there would be super expensive and that for me to live there comfortably I would have to sell my body or find myself a sugar daddy.

All of that changed today when I was sitting with my friend and we actually did some research about living in California. Compared to where we live in Massachusetts. California was basically almost as close to where we are living now. California has a sale tax of 7.25% but compared to Taxachusetts it’s only a 1% increase. But what makes Taxachusetts, Taxachusetts is how much is taken out of our paychecks each week.

Between the two states California has a minimal wage of $10.50 per hour as Massachusetts is now at $11. But for things to be fair, we used the minimal wage of California for our experiment. If you ever wonder how much you would make each week I would recommend you use the site, paycheckcity. You can calculate your hourly income as well as your salary. The cool thing about paycheckcity is the fact that you can check how much you would make in a different states in the U.S. along with the taxes that are taken out.

What surprised me was with having a job at both $10.50 an hour and working at least 28 hours a week the taxes taken out for Massachusetts is ridiculous. In California you would be making roughly $237 a week as in Massachusetts you would be making $229 a week. It might seem like only 8 dollars but 8 dollars times four weeks in a month is 32 dollars. 32 DOLLARS THAT COULD BE SPENT FOR GAS OR GROCERIES!!

It surprising how Massachusetts tax is $13 and California tax is only $6. Honestly it’s such a big difference when you look at your paycheck and see what taxes are taken out. It honestly surprised me!

What also surprised me was the cost of living in California. For what I pay right now I live in a 2 bedroom apartment that has old appliances, half which don’t work. A door buzzer that doesn’t work and air conditioning that cannot be set to a lower temperature then 60 degrees Fahrenheit or else it will freeze over and my landlord will charge me for the damages. Guess how much I pay for this shit hole? If you guessed under $1,000 you are bat shit crazy and I would love to live in your world. I pay $1,050 that’s including electricity and internet. In California for about $1,200 in a certain neighborhood you would be getting a 3 bedroom house for rent. A WHOLE FUCKEN HOUSE!

It blows my mind at how reasonable California is. I’ve always had the assumption that it cost too much to live. That I need to be famous, I need to be making like $20+ an hour to be able to live comfortable with a roommate. But this shit here blew my mind. Like with what I make know and if possible living with my two friends or stranger I would be able to afford to live there.

I hate that I assumed things about California and not doing research earlier. I was so afraid to do that research that it might be true. That California was too far expensive for me. That I’ll never be able to move there. I was scared of crushing my dreams with the truth. But, it wasn’t the case. As I’m typing this post. I’m kicking myself in the butt that I should’ve moved to California a LONG time ago. But, hey! You live and you learn and now I know that I can make it in California to live. Hopefully in a year or two. I’ll be in California enjoying the sunshine and leaving all this shit cold and snowy weather behind me. Trust me, snow isn’t everything as it seems. It looks nice but try living in a full season of it, it SUCKS ASS!

But, I hope this help you guys realize but more of a lesson for myself that because I assumed that California was unattainable along with the fear of facing the reality of it not being possible. It hinders me from making the move to California that I could’ve done a long time ago when I was making $15 an hour as an Assistant Manager. But, I’m happy now knowing that I can do it as a bartender who is certified and that my certification applies to the state of California’s regulation.

Hope everything is alright with guys and Buddha Bless.

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askkibbitzer-blog · 7 years

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Emoting: Wanting More

Originally I had a post planned for today about budgeting but, today I had a very intellectual conversation with one of my closest friends. It was such an inspiring conversation that I felt the need to share it with everyone.

A little insight into the situation and why it just made a lot of sense to me. Lately this month I’ve been feeling a lot less like my normal self. I’ve been feeling my head is cloudy and that I’m not just right in the head but honestly when am I ever “right” in the head with the messed up shit I say and think about. But I feel out of it,uninspired, stuck and just lost.

At first I didn’t feel it as strong as I do now. I think it slowly started building up in the beginning of this month. It wasn’t until like two weeks ago that I realized that Mercury was in retrograde. I know a lot of people might not believe in astrology or follow astrology but, I do. I don’t believe that astrology is super precise and accurate all the time but, I do think that it is a great guideline and if you can read the signs or know how the planets and stars can affect your behavior, I feel that you can benefit a lot from it (I will go later into my love of astrology, tarot, divination and other supernatural things in a later post). The last time Mercury was in retrograde I felt the same way and I just waited for it to past but, having this conversation with my friend just really helped me pass the hazy phase.

We went to the mall and grabbed a drink at Starbucks. We actually walked all the way to the Targets across the mall from Starbucks and just sat down in that weird little pizza hut area in every Target and just talked.

We had a light conversation in the car about how a mutual friend of ours is in California right now and he had just got a job. I said that I was actually envious of him. I was proud of him but, a bit of me did envy him. I envied him that he was out there in California. That he got a job there. I wanted that. I wanted to be that. I felt like I exhausted all the resources I had here in Massachusetts. That I was ready to go on with my life, ready to grow and expand myself.

It used to be the destination that I cared about. I was always thinking about moving to a specific place. But I've not grown but I think I have changed or become more flexible that it now doesn’t matter about where I go or where I live now but the fact that I get the fuck out of Massachusetts.

In that Target cafe area we talked a lot about human beings in society and human beings in general. We talked about me having kids in the future but, also about our culture.

If you didn’t know from my first post, I am part Cambodian. We talked a lot about our people and how people in the Asian community including both East and South East Asians, that the people in the community have a hard time trusting each other. We lie to each other and try and con each other. We also are so passive aggressive by nature and that pisses me off. I am not a passive aggressive person, I like to be direct and honest. I feel that the best way to talk to someone is to be straight up and not beat around the bush. It doesn’t do jack shit to baby someone. Just tell them the way it is. But in talking about our community I brought up a topic that made my eyes water and wanted me to cry.

I think subconsciously, I knew this bothered me but this was the first time that I vocalized it consciously. I am upset about what happened in Cambodia about the genocide but what upsets me more is the fact that the United States bombed Cambodia during the Vietnam war. A part of me wants the United States to offer free mental help or evaluation to those who immigrated to the United States during this time period. I know a lot of immigrants who are suffering from PTSD because of this my mother being one them. She cries every night remembering everything that happened. Worried that one day it could happen again. She cried when they took away her father, when they took away her siblings.

I know a lot of people suffering mentally and emotionally from this. A lot of them don’t want to share this crucial event with us. When they die, we won’t know what happened. We won’t be able to tell our children or grandchildren our parents journey leaving their home to a foreign place. They don’t want us to worry about it but, I also fear that they don’t want to relive it again. That they are blocking it from their memories but this isn’t a healthy way to deal with trauma at this scale. I just wish people could get the help that they need to move on and live a better life. Maybe one day I will interview my mom and share with you guys her story.

But this isn’t what made me want to cry. I’ve been dealing with this issue for a long time like every other child born as a second-generation immigrant. It is a struggle to get our parents to talk to us. But what made me want to cry was the fact that the bombing destroyed Cambodia. Because the United States decided to bomb Cambodia during the Vietnam war destroying it’s beauty in the process, I felt that I was robbed of my culture before I was even born.

Cambodia has always been pictured as this wondrous and beautiful place, with amazing temples and architecture. But because of the bombing by the United States, I won’t be able to see that. There is no possible way in this time that I’ll be able to see it in it’s prime unless time travel is possible in the near future. It saddens me that I will never get to see the Cambodia that my parents and grandparents saw, lived in and loved. I feel robbed. I feel like apart of my culture is gone that I am disconnected. That my soul is incomplete. I just can'Tribe this sad feeling I have when I think about it. It just makes me want to cry, that I will never be able to see what Cambodia was really liked. All that is left is ruins.

But, this wasn’t what made me get through the fog in my mind what made me realize that I was ready to grow and explore was when my friend asked me “Is it wrong that I hate my life?”. I replied back to here instinctively, bullshitting a response “No, it isn't that you hate your life. It’s that fact that you are not happy with your life now and want to grow more.” She went to the bathroom after this and I realize how true that bullshit statement I made was for me.

She came back and we discussed more about how true that was for us. How that we are not content with our life now. We were content maybe at the beginning of the year but now we want to more. We want to grow, we want to live in California, we want the experience that Massachusetts can’t offer us. The opportunities that seem to be more ample in California. The environment where we can nature our new stage in life.

It was then that I realized I needed to go and move on with my life. I owe myself that. When will I go to California? Who knows? I know that it will be soon. I’ve seen friends and other people go and come back with the broke ass with nothing to prove but I envy them that they did it and that they now have that experience. But, I want more. I don’t want to come back unless I am visiting and coming with gifts. I want to come back home, to Massachusetts with news that I live in California. That I have a job. That I am successful in my own terms.

I definitely wouldn’t have come to this revelation without having these deep conversations with my friend. We try to at least, once a week to see each other and have these kind of talks. Sometimes we works out other times it just the superficial things we talk about.

I do highly recommend finding a friend or having confidence in a friend that share this same deep connection with you. That you are on the same wave length. But’s what more important is knowing what you are feeling. Sometimes when you think you are stuck or you hate your life now, don’t think of it in a negative light. Think that you are ready to grow, ready to proceed to the next stage in life. Our bodies, emotions and the universe are sending us signs constantly but it’s up to us to align ourselves and interpret the signs. Other times you just need a friend you feel comfortable with and you’ll see what you are truly feeling slip out.

I hope you all benefited from this post and once again guys.

Be Loved, Give Love and Share Love.

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askkibbitzer-blog · 7 years

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Wanting vs Capable: Living on Your Own

I wanted to move out from my parents home at a very young age. To give more insight into my reason of wanting to move out at the age of 12-13 you have to know more about my life and how I was brought up.

I’m a second generation immigrant. Both my parents came from Cambodia and was relocated to the United States because of the Khmer Rouge before I was born. My mother was previously married in Cambodia and had my older half-brother but was separated from her husband during the genocide.

My parents met in my hometown and started dating and had me. My mom was older then my father by about 10 years. Coincidentally that’s about how much my older brother and I are apart.

Growing up, my family was a mess. My brother joined a gang and started to get into a lot of trouble. My father only knew one way to discipline my brother was by force. My father would beat my brother and threaten to hit him if he continued to do more bad things. Later it would be me in the same situation getting beat and threaten that I’ll be beat if I continued my bad behavior.

While this was going on my mother was helpless. To her she was a woman and that her role was to follow her husband’s rule and that he is stronger than her and he had more power than her.

When I was 5, my brother got sent to juvie and my parents started to argue more and it escalated to physical fighting between the both of them. I saw and heard them yell at each other, curse each other, made each other cry and also saw them shed blood on each other.

When my brother was gone, I was the main focus on my parents radar. I wasn’t allowed to go outside, play with the other kids in our apartment complex. I was only allowed to go to school and come back home, that’s it. I was only allowed out only when my parents took me out. Luckily I was able to go outside and hid it from my parents for a while before they let me out. But because of that I got beat a lot for stupid things.

I wanted to get away from everything, to runaway. My parents were always constantly fighting each other and I just had enough. When I got to high school, I lied to my parents more and more so I wouldn’t have to go home. When school would let us out early I wouldn’t tell my parents and just hanged out with my friends. I lied about having clubs or tutors after school, just to avoid going home. I knew when I was a junior in high school that I was going to dorm in college. Somewhere far away, away from them and everyone.

I wanted to move away but something in me told me not to. So i listen to that voice and commuted from my hometown to the big city via train, subway and bus to go to my classes. It was exhausting. My parents were still fighting and it wasn’t until my mother had enough that she moved out. I wanted to leave with her but my father refused it and his word was finally.

During this period of my life, I felt actual sadness. I was sad all the time. I locked myself in my room and only came out to eat and use the bathroom. I let myself starve waiting until my dad left the house before I would go outside my room to eat and shower. My father knew I wasn’t happy with him and when I asked him to let me live with my mother we were both crying. I was crying because I was sad, sad that he wouldn’t let me go. He was sad because he knew he was the one hurting me, but he let me go.

Living with my mother was great at first. I got to experience freedom. My father was not here to tell me what to do or what I have to do. I dropped out of college already and was looking for a job. When I got my first job I was so happy. I was one step closer to moving out. Living with mom was great at first but then I didn’t have any privacy and mom had a bit of a money problem. She couldn’t save money but dad would gamble it away. I came from a family who didn’t know how to manage their money. I had to learn on my own. That was the first thing I had to teach myself before I could move out.

I knew I couldn’t move out without a job. So I fixed that by getting myself a job but then I didn’t know how to save my money. I would spend my money on fast food and random things that I wanted. I had to learn how to discipline myself. It wasn’t easy, but I restricted myself to what I could use my money for. I stopped buying fast food and hanging out with my friends. I also started to think of things not in value of money but in time, such as how many hours do I have to work to get that new laptop? I would think of everything like this and see is this worth the number of hours I worked and trust me, working at a crappy place does help.

After killing my social life and thinking of how much time I have to put in to get something I was able to save up and make a big purchase. I bought my very own car. It was my first car and I named him Bulbasaur. I bought him for $600 and got it insured and registered. I paid the insurance and maintenance on it myself with no help. It was at this moment, I knew that if I had my own place I needed to be able to pay my bills. So I got off my dads phone plan and signed up with Sprint (Worst choice I ever made). I realized that my bills was almost my whole months worth of pay. I knew I had to work harder and get more hours at work to make more then ends meet.

I started picking up shifts and would come in when work called last minute. I started working 30 hours each week and would sooner be promoted to a manager. I was making good money and able to pay my bills off and still had money left. I though I was ready to move out on my own, but I was wrong.

I wanted to move out but looking on Craigslist and other sites that showcased apartments for rent I couldn’t afford it on my own. So I had a co-worker who was also my best friend and we decided to live together. It was here when I realize a lot of places require you to have good credit which we didn’t have any. First, last and a security deposit, which could be the equal to the rent, was required to move in. We didn’t have that either! We didn’t want to tell our parents that we needed help moving out. We wanted to do it on our own, but no one told us how important credit was and that you should be saving three times the amount you could afford to rent. No one told us also that your rent should be like two-thirds of your monthly income. We were second-generation and nobody taught us shit! We were fucked in the ass hard.

Fortunately (Unfortunate later), this guy came up to us and said he had an apartment for rent. We just needed to wait about a month for him to fix it up. He wasn’t asking for a deposit or last. All he wanted was the rent for that month, when we moved in. Looking back now, it was a shit apartment. It was above a liquor store and we didn’t have a designated parking lot or space. I parked Bulbasaur in front of the liquor store dumpster and had to over it every morning. It had bugs and carpets that were not changed. Mold was growing on the bathroom ceiling and our oven wasn’t even working. But, I was doe-eyed. The apartment was perfect. We found our own place. Funny thing was we never invited our parents to come over and see it.

Moving in was easy as we both didn’t have much. The hard part and the first sign that we shouldn’t be living in this crap hole was the electricity was still on in the apartment and remained in service until we “moved out”. We thought it was just the previous tenant not disconnecting their electricity service and we would just use it until it got disconnected which never happened but, we needed heating which was gas. We told them the address and they couldn’t find us to service us. They had to come to our apartment and told us that we were the rear and not apartment 2. There was only “two apartments” above the liquor store. This was the first inconvenience of living in my own apartment.

The second one came when we started to get cable and internet. I knew how to set iy up on my own and to save us some money cause we were broke, I opted for us to self install our cable and internet. But, this apartment was like fuck no and when I tried to install our network and cable it didn’t work and we had to go through customer service and have a technician come out. The technician had to rewire things and had to go into the liquor store and needed access to the basement. When following the technician with the landlord into the basement, there was someone living in the basement! The basement was furnished into another apartment I didn’t know about and the backroom of the liquor store was a place for people to gamble!

This was when I knew I had a shitty and sketchy landlord. He didn’t care about us. He only cared about the money we were giving him. But this is what we wanted. We wanted to live on our own. So we ignored it and continue to live in our apartment that was finally service. We had electricity, cable and heat. They only thing was furnishing the apartment, it was hard. We had to go to dollar stores and Wal-mart. Even though our apartment was crap it was ours and we wanted it.

Less than a year later, problems arise. My roommate got a cat and wasn’t taking care of him. It annoyed me that I was taking care of him, when it wasn’t my pet. I was cleaning the apartment and doing the dishes. Half of which wasn’t mine! It drove me mad, but we were stuck together. Both of us couldn’t face to live with our parents again and none of us knew other people looking for roommates but I won’t lie I did try to looking for anyone who needed a roommate. Even though we were the best of friends living with her is something that I would not do anymore. I thought living with my friend would be easy, that we were the same person but,it wasn’t like that. She was getting on my nerves and her dirty habits, and laziness was bothering my living space that I was sharing with her. I was making money just like her and tired from work as well but, I managed to clean the whole apartment and take care of HER cat! It drove me crazy and still I live with her now with two other roommates I know very well and it’s still driving me crazy. I clearly haven’t learned my lesson yet that living with your friends is not the best choice. If anything live with strangers because you have nothing to lose and you don’t have to be friends with this person.

My biggest lesson living on my own for the first time was renter’s insurance and smoke alarms. My apartment got caught on fire due to a candle my roommate left and the cat knocking it down. The whole place caught on fire and we were homeless and my roommates cat was taken to the nearest animal hospital as it was suffering lots of damaged from the smoke and fire. The cat survived but we he suffered from neurological damaged and had to be nursed back to health and rehabilitated to learn how to walk. We both cried at the hospital as the treatment he needed we couldn’t afford it. My roommate had no credit and it was my choice to either try and save him or not. Turns out I had good credit at the time (Not so much now). The fire alarm in our apartment didn’t work and the fire alarms in the whole building were faulty or had dead batteries in them. Going off randomly and making sound that there was smoke but there wasn’t. Make sure your landlord knows about these important issues and make sure they fix it. IMMEDIATELY!

This was a bad time for me. I was homeless. My roommate stayed with her mom for a bit and I kept moving from friends to friends until one friend opened her home to me and I was able to stay for a bit but, I commuted from her place to my roommates brother place to rehabilitate the cat and sleep on the floor to watch over him. My parents didn’t know this happen not until about a year later when my cousin had told them. I didn’t want my parents to worry, I didn’t want to cause them more grief in their life. My parents were finally happily separated, they were no longer fighting which involved me on some occasion. I felt guilty that I was apart of my parents arguing. But this was when I learned that some people in my life are genuine. Those who let me stay with them and help donate to us to get a new apartment (the apartment I live in now).

Living in this new apartment almost a year after the fire at our last place a lot has changed. I asked my other best friend to live with us, my old roommate and myself. Sad to say, but happy it happened I’m no longer best friends with that friend anymore. Living together I learned she wasn’t really a friend but a friend who comes in and out of my life and we weren’t as close as I thought we were. We didn’t have the same mindset or goals anymore. We drifted apart. My old roommate and I also drifted apart because of the drama that happened between the three of us and we still are drifting. My other best friend moved out and at the time I was unemployed. My roommate and my other best friend paid the rent for that month to cover me. It was the last kind gesture they did for me and that I would let them do for me.

After the drama disappeared and my roommate and I were civil to each other we received a phone call followed by a letter that we were being charged for the damages of the fire that was ruled as an accident. We were told we had to pay over 50 thousand dollars or they would take legal option. They told us that renter’s insurance would of protected us and lots of people told us we should have gotten it. We resolved the issue by getting in contact with a lawyer who helped us with our case. The fire alarms were not up to code, there was no fire extinguisher and also the apartment was not registered or permitted as a residence or to have people living in it. We got off and that’s all we cared about.

Fast forward to a year later and our lease is over and we are now living on a month to month lease. I’m ready to live on my own and do my own thing. Living on my own is no longer a want but a need.

You need to know the difference of wanting to live on your own and being able to. Wanting is just a feeling but to be able to live on your own you have to be able to handle everything that comes at you.

Learn how to manage your finance. Budget everything to what you can afford to pay monthly. Make sure you save three times worth of the rent you can afford, that’s the money for you to move in. If you have to CHANGE or DOWNGRADE things in your life, DO IT! Trust me when you eliminate things you don’t need you realize how much money you were wasting and how much you are now saving. Every dollar counts, as it means less time you need to work.

I decided we didn’t need cable so we cut that and changed to an internet only plan. For electricity we unplug everything we don’t use or when we are asleep also turning off the circuit breaker whenever we can. For heat, we dress warmly or layer up. We leave the thermostat at around 70 degree Fahrenheit and if you are still cold, take an empty two liter soda bottle with hot water from the sink and use it as your own personal heat warmer under your covers.

I changed my cellphone plan from Sprint to Ting. I used to pay like $120 a month and now I pay between $30-$60 dollars a month. I pay for only what I use and I recommend it highly to those who are always connected to WiFi and isn’t on your phone constantly. Even if you use a lot of data it is still affordable. Sign up with Ting using my referral link: https://zm3rcj4e11d.ting.com/

When you successfully sign up using my link you will get $25 in Ting Credit that can be used towards your first bill and I will receive $25 in Ting Credit as well. You can bring over any phone number (even your current one) and any unlocked device to Ting. They support both CDMA and GSM phones.

Living with your friends isn’t easy, it can either drive your crazy or you have a crazy time living together. From my own personal experience I would live with a stranger or on my own. It makes it easier and causes less drama, awkwardness and less pressure for you when you live with a stranger or own your own as you don’t have to be friends. All you have to do is be civil and do basic things. No need to hangout with roommate or feel the need to be close.

Definitely get renter’s insurance if you can. Renter’s insurance doesn’t not protect you from being charged for fire damages but it does protect your stuff when accidents do happen like floods, fires and theft.

I hope this post helps anyone who reads this. I like to share my own personal story to those who are looking for help or advice. If you have any questions or looking for any advice, you can ask on my tumblr and remain anonymous. No subject is taboo and nor would you be judge.

Be Loved, Give Love, Share Love.

-Kibbitzer

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