Have I Told You I Used to Be Terrible with Money?

February 25, 2020 By Big Freddy Smidlap

I wasn’t a stupid dumb dummy about money.  I just didn’t care!

Let’s take a chronological journey year by year to see what not caring about finances looks like.  I took the hard way.  I hope you took the easy way or at least easier than I did.

1986 – Start college 800 miles from my rural home in Northern, NY State.  College was in Norfolk, VA and as soon as I got there I found out you could just sign up for unsecured credit cards right on campus.  I must have signed up for 2-3 cards with about $1,000 limit each.  That might have been a nice way to build credit but I went and used them.  I don’t know what I bought.  I think the student loan this year was about $2,500.

1987 – More college in Virginia.  I had fine grades and was in an Academic Honors Program.  I also had a full tuition scholarship but borrowed another $2,500 for room and board.

1988 – Transfer colleges back to Upstate, NY to a fancy liberal arts school.  I probably borrowed another $2,500.  I did OK in school here but started spending on those cards to go out and socialize with a substandard girlfriend.

1989 – I must have gotten antsy and I quit school.  A friend invited me to move to Buffalo, NY and hang out and sleep on the couch in a house with a bunch of the track team.  At least housing was cheap but quitting school was another $2,500 loan with zero credits to show.

1990 – I worked a series of temp jobs in Buffalo and got hired at a cruddy environmental lab.  It seems like every future or starting chemist had to pay their dues with this garbage work at some point.  At least most of my chemistry friends did.  To this point I had never made more than 4 grand in a year but this big year it was almost $12,000!  I still spent on those credit accounts I opened in the 80’s. 

I didn’t pay anything on those student loans that were accruing at over 8%.  Interest rates were high in those days.  I spent most of my money eating at Denny’s or on beer.  I hadn’t discovered the glory of wine yet.  My share of rent was $150/month in a nice apartment and I had a car.  My best friend and I got fired from that lab job the day before Thanksgiving and that was a blessing.

Happy Thanksgiving, you boys are fired!1991 – We had spent the winter needing heating and electric assistance from the gub’mint due to our unemployment claims being delayed.  We still had cable and never fell behind on rent.  We played darts, watched a lot of Beavis and Butthead and continued to eat late night at Denny’s.  I moved to my benevolent Uncle’s place in my home town. 

The economy was tough and it was hard to get a decent job without having finished school.  Student loan and credit card interest continues to accue.  I didn’t care.  I was a fry cook and grill man at a chain pub called The Ground Round.

1992 – I would do anything for a J.O.B. including answering jobs ads in the Boston Globe.  I landed another crap job in another crap environmental lab outside Boston.  That’s a very expensive city.  I lived in a boarding house  full of dope fiends and degenerates who were mostly harmless. 

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