When I used to be undisciplined in money I used to get the late fees a lot, like almost every month. Of course one cannot sustain such a thing. Sooner or later it all falls apart.
I remember talking to a guy at my old job years and years ago. He told me how many credit cards he had and he would borrow from one to pay for the other. There is no way that can be sustained. Well, if it is kept up then bankruptcy is most likely.
In my case I was going through a divorce and I just didn't have enough money. Well in such case there is only a few things to do. Spend less money, or make more money, or do both.
Well sometimes answers come right out of the blue. You see if you get a divorce and as a couple you just bought a house then there will be no equity at all in the house. I was going to give the house to my ex, but after awhile of thinking about it she didn't want it as she thought the only way she could keep the house was to bring in a bunch of roommates.
So she gave me back the house. I didn't like the idea of doing bankruptcy, but a friend asked me if him and his three kids could live with me. Well, he needed to get out of the neighborhood he was in, but couldn't come up with the usual first, last and deposit to get into another place.
So he wanted to rent from me without all that. Well, I wasn't so sure I wanted to live with all those people, but it was a way to avoid bankruptcy. So after thinking about it for awhile I did agree.
That did help, but I still needed more money. I was fortunate again in that the office was getting really busy at the telephone company. You see this was in the early 90's and we were going through a heyday at the telephone company.
Some people were getting 3 lines into there home. One for the regular telephone and one for the computer and one for the fax machine. Well, one could put all of them on one line, but that would be a little more hard.
What I did for myself later one was to have one line for me to talk on, then a second line for the fax machine and the internet.
With my roommate situation I had to order in another line that he would have to put in his own name. Thing was that he was undisciplined with money too. So sometimes I would come home and he is talking to someone with my personal phone.
Well, he had to do that as I guess he didn't keep up his phone payments and it got temporarily cut off at times.
So anyway, I was talking about the telephone company going through a heyday. Well that gave me a chance to work overtime. You see I was thinking of even going back to McDonald's as a secondary job, but since I was working overtime like never before. It was so bad for the company that they even had mandatory overtime.
Well, overtime for me was a really good blessing and I notice that I can make more money working the overtime than if I had an extra part time job at McDonald's.
So that is how I handled the bills, by taking in roommates and working as much overtime that I could get my hands on. I even found that if I would switch to doing split shifts I could even make more money.
Then I even signed up to work all the holidays. Well, the split shift helped out in that I could still go to my mom's during Thanksgiving during the split, only to leave again after a few hours to get back to work. Well, sometimes you just have to make it all work.
Now that I have retired from the telephone company after 31 years of service, I don't know if I could do it again. Thinking about it now sounds very tiring, but I did get to keep the house and I only had to live with roommates for about 5 years and I got all caught up so that I could live by myself.
I do get people that want to be my roommate, but I think it is better for me and my cat that I live alone for now. After all the only reason I did take in roommates was because I needed the money.
Now days I make it just fine. I do have to help out my mom financially, but it is all doable.
If one is having a hard time financially a good book to look into is Richest Man In Babylon by George S. Clason. If one would really study that book and would put those principles into practice then that one could get ahead, instead of getting behind and we all know that getting behind just costs too much.
Let's end with a scripture, Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. Romans 13:8.
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Thank you, David.
Image is mine, taken with my Moto G.