don't sink the boat that you built to keep afloat

I had this idea in my head that over summer, living at home and no longer paying rent downtown, I would be actually building up some money.

I was seemingly mistaken.

There is a long set of reasons. Being irresponsible is a part, though not as big as you'd think. Buying the PS3 at the end of the school year was a big dent, but at the time it went pretty smooth, actually. The only thing that really hurts now is a $140 day last week, seeing Foo Fighters in Indianapolis, the bulk of that money being $80 for one tank of gas to get there and back (take a minute to let that sink in, 80 freaking dollars to get to Indianapolis and back to Chicago). The bigger reasons was the money I missed out on from work being at Disney World, and then a good week and a half where I got pretty sick, both of those led to the two paychecks of the summer being rather small.

This week I fucked up and made the rookie "real world" mistake of forgetting my AT&T bill is on autopay, and winding up being -$5 or so on my account. However, it took me a day to realize, so a few small charges were made after that - a couple meals, a CD, a few bucks of gas... each of those got their own overdraft fee. Today I got paid $325, which is $100 short, since the new web clock for work sucks balls, and I won't get that $100 till next paycheck. $50 goes towards getting me back to $0. $170 (!!) goes to overdraft fees. A few bucks went to gas this morning and breakfast. So my $325 paycheck from midnight, by 10am, has turned into about... $80.

$80.

I called TCF and bitched, and they are actually crediting me back $100, which is kickass awesome, but they also said there is one more $36 overdraft fee for Panda Express that was paid last night, which is slightly annoying since I actually bought it on freaking Tuesday, but they wouldn't do anything about it, so that $100 credit will actually be $64. Better than nothing, but having my account be at $140 or so on a payday is kind of balls. The part that doesn't help is that I have one more ComEd bill to pay (how I wasn't actually billed until recently confuses me, but it sort of made sense when I talked to a person on the phone), to the amount of $180 or so, which means that $140 my account will be at when TCF gives me a bit back later today will quickly be reduced back to nothing. I won't be in the hole with the bank, but I'll owe my dad money since he's lending me a bit to cover the bill, so for all intents and purposes I'll be under $0 again. This is also a bad time since I got f'd over money-wise last week, too, when DePaul dropped the bomb that I magically owe them 4k out of nowhere (long story but it's unfortunately "justified" on their end), and I'm having to put a lot of my money towards that, too... not to mention the looming near-100k debt I have with student loans.

Things I won't be able to do for the next two weeks until the next paycheck...

• Eat lunch with coworkers
• See Pineapple Express or Tropic Thunder
• See Flogging Molly at the Congress tomorrow night (it's $20, maybe I can beg my dad into a ticket)
• Anything at all, really

It isn't an unusual situation for someone my age, I guess, so I can't really complain, but it's still annoying. Actually, I take that back. I have no ill feelings towards any people but I can't help but be a little annoyed with the world that I don't know anybody else (personally) in my age group who's in this position. I guess it's just a coincience that most people I know are more well-off than I am, but it makes it a little more annoying than it might be otherwise. I had a friend in the same situation, who is now off living in LA, and I understand where she was coming from now when she said the same thing.