Failing | Finances pt. 1

Story time kids. After graduating from college in 2013 it took me a long time to find a full time job. Between the economy, my ego and not knowing what direction I wanted to go in life I made a lot of mistakes. Especially, when it came to my finances.

I'd moved back home a few months after graduating and finishing up an internship with the Washington Redskins. I spent the next year filling out applications and trying to decide if I wanted to do sports PR, boutique PR or go back to school to beef up my resume. Of course, a few months in the student loans kicked in. I was resentful that they were calling me about loans when I didn't even have a job. I'm not even going to get into how pissed I was when the alumni flyers started coming in the mail. I know ya'll aren't asking me for money!?!? Can I pay for one degree before ya'll hound me about donating MORE money to your asses??

Scoff. Anyway, I ignored the student loan calls. Still no regrets since now I know paying them wouldn't have moved the needle much anyway but that's another story for another time.

So back to this story. Another six months after graduation passed and I landed a summer internship with the Miami Dolphins. I felt rejuvenated and was excited that I'd landed another NFL job, despite it only paying $8 and change an hour working long hours in the heat moving sports equipment. It was the NFL and the bragging rights alone were worth it. Well those paychecks didn't stretch very far with summer gas prices in Florida, rent and food.

So guess what I did!? My dumb ass got a credit card. And obviously couldn't pay off the balance given my disrespectful salary. But wait! There's more! As my internship was winding down my tire blew out. There was pretty bad damage but with new tires it was drivable. So because I was alone and hours away from home I got four new tires to ensure nothing like that ever happened again. And I paid for it with....you guessed it....my credit card. Welp, the next day when the insurance inspector came he declared my car totaled and they towed my banged up Jeep with brand new tires away.That was $800 down the drain. Not to mention shortly after my internship was over and I had to pay for a flight to get back home, buy a new car and drive back down to Florida to get my things. Cha-ching $$$.

P.S. that accident was terrifying so please don't put off getting new tires if you can help it.

So at this point I'm swiping my card for EVERYTHING, I'm back home in Virginia and I'm once again jobless. Luckily, that only lasted a couple of months because I landed another internship...I'm sorry part time job (eye roll)...with the Philadelphia Eagles. A friend's sister let me stay on her couch for nearly 4 months for free. Shout out to Ayanna!! So despite my once again laughable paycheck I was able to stay afloat. Ish. I was feeling entitled. So I bought things because I deserved them. And when yet another internship, I mean part time job, ended, I moved to the Philadelphia suburbs to live with my grandparents. Thankfully, again for free.

It wasn't my ideal situation but it was better than nothing. And don't get me wrong, I was and still am VERY BLESSED to have been able to stay with other people in a major city for free. There are plenty of people that I know would roll their eyes reading this. But this isn't about sympathy. It's simply my story.

The stress from applying to, interviewing for and being rejected by jobs had my self esteem in the toilet. So I coped by spending more money I didn't have. Fast forward another year of serving and bartending and I finally decided to let my ego go and take another low paying internship. Two in fact. Being back in my field and seeing that I could do great work motivated me and I was able to finally land a full time job. Despite that position not working out due to office politics, I was able to make a lot more money in comparison to my old positions. I started paying down my credit card, stopped deferring my loans and saved some money. I was doing so much better with my finances and was able to finally say yes to drinks, yes to trips and yes to living my best life. Things were really looking up.

In my next blog post I'll share how my finances went from looking up to spiraling downhill. Stay tuned kids!