Finally finance and how it's all a dumpster fire

Good morning future readers, as one of my categories I have for this blog, this is my first post venturing on the topic of personal finance. I have a hard time finding the words for this. I'm not sure if it's just because I finally am facing it on a public platform or if I wanted to be more informational, but I think it all can be useful to maybe even one person out there. Maybe......who knows?

Growing up, I didn't have the best modeling of good finances. In the earlier 90's, both of my parents worked and between them made a decent, middle class salary. We were able to go big back-to-school clothes shopping trips (always on sales though,) trips to Tahoe in the winter and were afforded luxuries I know not everyone had access to. In the late 90's however, that's when my dad's mental illness came spiraling. He wasn't diagnosed Bipolar I until he was in his 30s and has been self-medicating for most of his life. One day, he finally broke. He woke up, cracked a beer open at 7am and was never the same. He ended up out of work and literally in bed for a year. We didn't see much of him that year and our finances went to shit with only my mom working and supporting us. They took on a lot of credit card debt and never really recovered. They filed for bankruptcy once already but with my dad's compulsive spending, alcohol addiction, and inability to hold down consistent work, they ended up back in debt not too long after. This cycle of debt has been an ongoing situation for my parents for most of my life. Even though I knew I wanted better for myself financially, it really took some growing up to do and learning the hard way about managing my money. I accumulated debt and I had to learn how to unbury myself. I'm thankful that I never accumulated tens of thousands of dollars in debt or anything like that but it was still a couple thousand and that's a lot, especially when at the time I was only working part time jobs while going to school. In 2015, I finally moved out and got my first full-time job. That's when things started turning around and my real personal finance journey started. I didn't know anything about 401k's or brokerage accounts or emergency funds. I first had to learn how to support myself and be a real, self-sufficient adult. After about a year at my job, that's when my focus on personal finance, outside of just supporting myself for the basics, started.

Personal finance is something that I have spent years reading and learning about. It started probably 4-5 years ago, figuring out how to track my spending and learning how to save. I then started looking for personal finance blogs and I came across so many over the years and have subscribed to many of them. I loved reading about people's triumphs and struggles and how I can apply the lessons and information to my own life. I finally learned how to invest, how to automate my savings and get myself out of debt. I was able to pay for my wedding as I went and went into my big day with no debt, some savings, and a sigh of relief. As much as all of these blogs and websites have been very informative and useful to apply to my life, it also left me with feelings of inadequacy. Whenever I would run the numbers in the FIRE calculators and things like that, it always showed me that I wasn't going to be able to retire early and I would never truly reach Coast FI or anything like that, even though I'm doing as much as I possibly can with my 401k contributions of 12%, my money market account I put money into monthly, the HYSA I have with my husband for our future house, and my brokerage and Roth IRA with money in it too that I resumed funding as well. I am not a big income earner and some of the advice given isn't terribly applicable with living in the Bay Area and my current living and educational circumstances. I do what I can and have accounts with money in them for my parents to help them out and an account for my little brother so he can have money for a car in the future or for college or whatever he chooses to do with it when he's 18. Not to mention just adding money to my own personal emergency fund and sinking funds.

I spent so long always being a hustler. I never only had one job. It was either multiple part time jobs while I went to school (while living at home) or a full time job and 1-3 side hustles. Sometimes even a full time job with 1-3 side hustles and part time school. No one can ever say that I was lazy or didn't try my best to earn as much money as I could and fund the life that I wanted. Overtime though, certain circumstances in my life have altered the way that I can function with all of these jobs and school. Five months after my wedding in 2018, I fell into the worst depression of my life. My body literally gave out on me and I could no longer function. I was in school with I think 2-3 classes, working full time, and working my side hustles. I could no longer do everything. This is when I had my first medical leave from my job and I was off of work for two months. With the absence of work, I still managed to finish my semester of school with A's since I didn't have to spend energy at work. I also had my emergency fund to get me through this time. I was two months ahead on my car payments so I didn't have to make payments and my insurance covered my outpatient program (which I know I am very fortunate and privileged to have access to.) My expenses were less at the time and we split our bills between my husband, our roommate, and myself so I was able to maintain my financial necessities during this time away from work but it was still such a hard realization to know I couldn't keep going like I was. I was burned out with no direction. I am someone who needs to have structure and some sort of goal or plan to work towards. I liked to stay busy but I never let myself rest and just do nothing. I never put any work into self-care and doing things just for the love of it. Outside of softball, work was my livelihood and my hobby. To this day, I still have problems with finding hobbies that aren't money driven.

Ever since that breakdown in 2018, I've never been the same. My ability to function at that level is long gone, which in the long run is probably a good thing, but still I find myself feeling guilty for not being able to do everything that I used to. Comparing my current self to my past self is never a good thing to do but I find myself dwelling in the past more often than I'd like to admit.

After this second psychiatric episode, finances are definitely a little more distressing than before. I had a good emergency fund going but I had used a chunk of that money as the first month's payment for our new place, plus now at this new dwelling, our expenses have increased since we don't have a roommate anymore. It's unfortunate that all of this happened around the same time so money has been super tight. To also fill the void in my days and have something productive and constructive to do, I went a little crazy with spending money I didn't have on helping to furnish our new place and buy the seasonal decor I always wanted to have. Should I have spent the money I did? Probably not. I have more debt than I've had in a long time but its not something that's completely unmanageable to pay down. Do I like having consumer debt? Of course not, but you know, sometimes you need a little bit of something to bring happiness into your day, even if it means paying a little bit of interest on it while I work on getting back to work. I have the money and could pay it off right now, but I know I would rather carry a balance on my credit cards and not burn through what's left of my emergency fund when I need it to pay my rent while I working my way back to full days at work.

Coming to grips with my mental illness and how it impacts my life, especially now as I get older, it brings up some harsh realities about what my future could be like. I could end up like my dad who is on permanent disability for his mental illness and he can't work anymore. He tried for so many years but it got more severe over time and no matter how much he tried, he couldn't maintain a job. I'm glad my parents have that stability of income with my dad's disability but I realize that could be me some day. I'm hoping I can last another couple years at this job until we finalize what we want to do as far as moving and hopefully buying a reasonably priced house somewhere. I don't want my husband to feel the entire weight of financial burden, so I wouldn't mind buying something smaller or less expensive if it meant we had a low mortgage that can be sustained on one income and I can have the opportunity to work part time or find a job that can bring me more feelings of purpose. I always want to be a financial contributor to my household but I also have to be realistic. Even with effective management of my illness via medication and therapy, I can't control every aspect and can't determine if in the future I will have more of these episodes. Within the past few weeks, knowing where my finances stand, and seeing all of the blogs I've subscribed to over the years, I realize part of my feelings of inadequacy come from reading these blogs and I don't see myself in any of these people. They may be of similar age and in varying stages of their financial journey, but from what I've been able to see, I don't see personal finance blogs ran by people with mental illness. Many of these people benefit from health privilege and they may not even be aware. They don't know what it's like to not be able to get out of bed and find reasons to call out of work because you're depressed but you feel guilty to keep saying you're depressed (even if it is the truth) and then you feel guilty for calling out and then it becomes this perpetual cycle of feeling shitty because you can't function. Yes, some blogs have people document that they get burned out and need a month or two or a year off and then they can come back revitalized but those with mental illnesses, that's not usually the case. Taking a month or two off allows me to try functioning at work again. I don't come back feeling invigorated with a new sense of being. I come back because I need the money and I am functional enough to get out of bed, maintain my basic hygiene, and make the drive and hope for the best. Then I come home from work completely depleted and am essentially useless around the house. My husband will come home from a full day, still manages to cook for us when we have HelloFresh meals to make, and will do laundry and clean. I am envious that he doesn't suffer like I do and can just come home and do these things without a second thought while I sink further into the couch feeling like a useless piece of shit since I work a fucking half day, do an hour and a half of an online skills group and can't even grab the vacuum from the closet to run a vacuum through our downstairs. I know, beating myself up over what I can't do right now isn't helpful to my psyche but it is genuinely how I feel and I don't know how to explain it so other people could understand. I love my husband for being able to do what he does and never makes me feel bad about not feeling up to participating in household chores. I have some days where I have more energy than others and I can do a bunch of tasks one day and others I can only perform basic hygiene and occasionally feed myself.

Sorry for the long post and rant, but overall what I'm trying to get at is I think there is a whole demographic of people on their personal finance journeys that don't get enough exposure. Maybe I just haven't found them, but I think if there were more blogs like that out there, I think it could make the world of difference to know that you aren't a shitty person for not being like MMM or retiring in your 30s after aggressively saving and investing while maintaining a six-figure job. ( I know that isn't the case for everyone but just an example.) I'm hoping maybe I can help bridge that gap and show others they aren't alone in this world and it's okay to be where they are, even if it's at the very beginning or feeling like there is no end in sight buried in debt. I'm not a finance expert but I hope I can at least give people some ideas of how they can do better for themselves while still being cognizant of their feelings, situations and mental status.