No-Kill Finance

I came across a post on Budgets Are Sexy about some guy in Vegas who, as a challenge to himself, voluntarily tried being homeless for 24 hours.  This reminded me of something from my past that merits discussing here.  (No, I was never homeless.  Sorry, but my hard-luck stories aren’t nearly that interesting.)

In the Spring of 2007, or thereabouts, I was very used to the idea of “too much month left at the end of the money,” as Dave Ramsey (and others before him, I’m sure) puts it.  As a fairly reckless 23-year-old, I’d regularly run out of cash long before my next paycheck was due, at which point I didn’t worry too much because I had a credit card to cover my costs.  (Let me say, too, that my “costs” included a fair amount of video games, tons of concerts, books, CDs, and far more alcohol than I should’ve been consuming on a daily basis.)

Eventually, I discovered that banks place a limit on how much credit they’ll extend to you.  Apparently it’s called a “credit limit.”  (Who knew?)  After this point, one must find real money to exchange for goods and services, as the fake plastic kind of money doesn’t work past, in my case, the $5,000 milestone.

I’ve since grown used to the idea that eating cheaply and limiting discretionary spending can stretch a paycheck far past a single pay period, but I recall one occasion in particular when, after an enjoyable week of drinking at bars, attending concerts, and buying books, music, and movies, I still had a full week to go before my next paycheck.

At the time, I was fortunate enough to have a fair selection of not-quite-expired nonperishable foods, which lasted several days…after which I had nothing.  I think there were about three bleak days left when my kitchen cabinets were finally empty.

I decided with a significant amount of shame that I could probably manage to “borrow” a meal a day from a charitable friend.  So I made some calls, penciled some lunch plans, and spent three days eating what probably amounted to about 500 calories a day.  I was shy about money and embarrassed about my irresponsibility, so I told a few minor lies and treated the money situation as though I just didn’t have any cash on me at the time…”Crap, I forgot to go to an ATM, would you mind covering me for a sandwich?”…not an uncommon back-and-forth exchange in most of my friendships, so I didn’t raise any suspicion and didn’t have to admit to my circumstances.  Dishonest, I know, but the thought of confronting my issues terrified me.

I will say that going [mostly] hungry wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be.  If I recall correctly, I had all three days off from work, so I had the option to be sedentary (watched a lot of those movies I’d wasted my $5000 of credit on), and was able to keep my stomach filled with water…not to mention taking home leftovers and stretching a single Jimmy John’s sandwich into three tiny meals.  Certainly, I’d like to avoid ever being put in the situation again, but it wasn’t so intolerable that I broke down and begged a friend to loan me fifty bucks to get through the week.  Not that they wouldn’t have happily come through for me.

Anyway, that “not-quite-a-conclusion” to the fairly-long-winded story about my not very traumatizing financial trauma brings me to my point:  I have money now.  Money to spare.  I’m working the same low-wage job as I was then for what probably amounts to less pay (comparing my raises against inflation), but I have a positive net worth and plenty of cash reserves for rainy days.  And it’s great, not just because I know that I’m in a position to take care of myself, but also because I’m now in a position where, if one of my friends ever ran out of money, I could repay my karmic debt with actual cash.

That last broke day three years ago, when I was taking the last few bites from the sandwich with which my friend Rob had unknowingly made my day, I was too wrapped up in self-pity to really realize how great a thing friendship is, and how much more valuable that sandwich was than the $5 bill used to buy it.  I’d love to repay that sort of debt, and it’s an amazing feeling to know that, finally, three years later, I can.