In the last 3 years I’ve lost everything I’ve ever loved except for my three kids. I mean everything: favorite car, sense of self, family, money, house, credit, job…like a massive tsunami of bad luck.
It’s taught me one thing: The more you think you have, the more you have to lose.
No matter what happens, that fuckin’ sun is gonna rise every. goddamned. morning. All you really own is the air in your lungs, and all you can look forward to is the sun coming up tomorrow. The rest is fluff.
There are folks here who can’t seem to reconcile your story with the desperation in your OP because compared to others, you’re way fortunate and lucky. At my best I don’t think I’ve been in as good a position as you’re in right now. But it’s all relative. I’m pretty much at the bottom. For me, the falling is all but over. You still have a way to go and the drop you still face must be harrowing. I hope you find the answer soon.
Note here that I’m not arguing against selling off assets. When you gotta, you gotta, and I don’t think anyone is seriously arguing against it.
My beef is the financially ignorant mentality of “Oh, you have 2 Corvettes, you’re in such wonderful financial shape that you couldn’t possibly complain.” Perhaps I shouldn’t have said people are petty and stupid, but they are locked into the hopelessly low-class mindset of cars, especially muscle cars, as symbols of status and power. I sense an undercurrent of Schadenfreude at the fall of Icarus. You flew so close to the sun in your two mighty Corvettes, the envy of high school seniors everywhere. You thought you were so grand, but now you’ve fallen and must accept your humility. Some people love to see stories like that. Realistically these would net in the ballpark of $30,000, enough maybe to pay a year’s mortgage. And then you don’t have them anymore… what gets sold next? Personally I think a car fetish is dumb, but then again I have marble countertops. I can’t sell my marble countertops if I get in trouble, so who’s made the better choice?
My point is, when you’re looking at being a year away from being able to pay off the mortgage, a fellow with a family has a right to be freaked out about it. He does have a right to be sad about the possibility of selling items that give him pleasure in exchange for a roof over his head for a finite amount of time. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have some manuevering room, but it’s understandable that his cage is rattled.
Not unreliable, just an '85 that hasn’t been driven much (as UB said). Worse, it was parked the greater part of my college years, and so, didn’t get driven much then. Add to that the mouse that took up residence in its engine, and there you go. But I’m going to be rectifying all that, soon, just as soon as I get it in for a tune up and general look over. Then she’ll be right.
…And my dad has a 64.5 Mustang (which I’ll be fighting my brother to the death for, but I can take him). But he’s not the original owner, and it’s currently not running (apparently needs brakes, and who knows what else). Probably not worth anywhere near that much, but still a damn sweet ride. You’re right, tho’ - way cooler. Sorta. Well, maybe not.
What gets sold next? The house. First the luxuries go. Then expenses that can be stepped down are stepped down. A year’s mortgage (though $30 thousand would be enough to pay off my house) is a year. A year! That’s plenty of time to make the adjustments in budgeting so that nothing else might have to be sold. A year is a freaking long time.
If he were poor and living beyond his means for luxuries, everyone in here would be bashing him. But since he isn’t poor but is still living beyond his means, then anyone who rolls their eyes is just bitter and envious?
The family situation deserves sympathy and support. The financial situation, which was a major focus of the OP, all anyone can say is, “You might have to make some tough decisions in the upcoming months. Good luck.”
And still he’ll have choices, not life-threatening sacrifices like some people have to make.
The only think standing between you and a peaceful and happy existance is your own mind.
These things that are happening to you are stressful because you believe they are.
If you can change your attitude to such an extent that you are not quite so fear based (stress=fear) and so you live in the present moment rather than worrying about what isn’t here yet you’ll be much better off.
I think this sounds harsh but it is true. Remember the serenity prayer,
Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can
and the wisdom to know the difference.
What you’ll realize is that the only thing you can ever really change is your own attitude, yourself, your perception of events, your own feelings about life.
Try to remember that this journey is your life, your “ever after”. You get to decide if it’s happily ever after or not.
Take care of yourself and your family and I hope you see the other side of this soon.
[QUOTE=Unintentionally Blank
We are not your usual live by the credit card people. The Corvettes, today, are non-negotiable, and really incidental to the mental losses we’ve sustained. Pick the bestest thing you’ve ever had, then have a stranger say ‘meh’, pitch it, it’s financially wise. How would you feel?[/QUOTE]
Sorry, no sympathy there. I lost almost everything but what I could fit into an omni hatchback bailing out of a violent relationship. I am talking family heirloom furniture, something on the order of 5000 books, about 300 or 400 were irreplacable, most of my wardrobe, and a fair amount of not particularly unusual or valuable furniture and kitchen crap that were the first things I bought myself when I moved out of my parents house.
Corvettes? meh. Items. Items can be replaced.
DO what it takes to pay everything off, move the relative closer. Items are transient, freedom from bills and stress are what is valuable. If you dont feel like you are drownding in debt, and at sea for not being able to do anything because he is 125 miles away your job will become a lot more tolerable. Life is what counts, not items.
<and yes, I could walk out with nothing more than the clothing on my back and start over again if I had to with minimal regrets>
I’m just now checking back in, I’m in a bootcamp Computer Security class, and it’s pretty hard to keep on up anything else.
I think, like many things, it’s better than it seems. I appreciate the sympathy, and I understand the criticism. I sympathise with the people that have dealt with extreme loss. Sympathise, not Empathise as it’s something I’ve not yet experienced. And it’s not a merit badge I’m looking forward to wearing.
Uh huh. While I agree most of it is a matter of perspective, 2am phonecalls (thankfully over), child rearing, and death of love ones are not things you can really say ‘gosh! I’m not gonna let it bother me!’. U_B turns to camera: this is why I use BuProprion! The generic version of Wellbutrin! It smoothes things out.
U_B wonders how much it’s gonna cost without life insurance.
Divorce? I’m thinking divorce here…if so, you’re right. That’s be a nice a la mode. I’m certain my marriage is sound, and it’s a great source of stability. I’m not sure WHAT I’d do if I lost it.
Life’s got a bunch of wildcards left it could deal.
[QUOTE=Unintentionally Blank]
Nah, my skin got thick enough to handle the criticism of random internet strangers years ago.
Actually, I was refering to myself when posting my last message.
How can I know I don’t want kids if I haven’t taken the time to figure out why I don’t want them? It isn’t just a feeling, ya know? Kids are a major responsibility. Unless you are fabuously wealthy, your standard of living will drop. When you have kids you have to sacrifice to raise them properly. That means you may have to give up some of the things you like. Something say, like a car?
I use Outlook at work. I keep the amount of email in my inbox to less than ten items. I do this by acting on email immediately. Many people have hundreds of items in their inbox. It would drive me crazy to have that much. I’d feel swamped. By dealing with things as they occur and not putting them off, I have a far greater ability to deal with emergencies. I don’t have to worry about the emergency and all the other niggly things that people are waiting for my input on. I can deal solely with the emergency. (I also have a reputation for getting things done because of it.)
This works with everything I do. I solve the simple problems so I can then focus on the major problems and deal with them effectively. Or, don’t solve anything, worry all the time, and feel like life is steam rolling me. Which method do you think is more effective?
B]Unintentionally BlankB** is complaining about many things some of which have easy resolutions. He doesn’t want to sell ‘stuff’ because this ‘stuff’ mean something to him. But it is just ‘stuff’ even if he calls them Corvettes. And he is placing this ‘stuff’ over his ability to deal with things that are important like his family. Maybe if he pays off his bills, he can then see that the cost of gas to visit his grandfather isn’t such a bid deal at that point?
Believe me, our income has been seriously curtailed since having kids. That’s my concern. It’s not that losing the Corvette would ‘suck’. It’s that losing the Corvettes means it’ll be, perhaps, a decade, before I can go through the pain to get a replacement.
I spent a five year period with $850 a month payments, for a car I could use 8 months a year. I do not want to do it again. buying a corvette is not an experience I want to relive.
And to clarify a minor point: We can hold our breath for nearly two years on our liquid assets, and not selling assets or touching equity or retirement with one income. Luckily, I work for state government, I doubt I’d be fired, but still.
Man, you’ve just got to let the car thing go. Here’s reality: You have a FAMILY now. You have priorities. When we were single, we had an airplane. I loved it. Planned to be an airplane owner all my life. I saw it as a liberating symbol of my freedom to go places and get above it all, in a literal and metaphorical sense. Well guess what? Reality intruded. It became clear that an airplane just wasn’t going to fit into our life plan for a long time. So it went away. Along with all the stress associated with maintenance, parking and insurance fees, etc.
If you can own two vettes without putting any stress on yourself or your family, great. Go for it. But when you find yourself on anti-depressants and writing rants that include your vehicles as major stressors in your life, you need to take a step back and start re-evaluating.
My guess is that the real issue here is that you can’t make the conceptual leap from being a cool single guy with sports cars to being a family man with children. Hey, we all go through it. But that’s life. Other than your father dying, EVERYTHING else you’ve ranted about is really just life as it happens.
Let me count up the problems: You had twins. You have an aging grandfather in a retirement home. It turns out that high-paying IT jobs are also unstable. Your sports car has a mechanical problem. Your kids occasionally get sick, and have some issues you’re going to have to parent them through. Guess what? There’s nothing extraordinary or unusual about ANY of this. It’s not rotten luck. The universe isn’t out to get you. You are leading a normal, if somewhat privileged life, which comes with challenges and opportunities. Deal with it.
My guess is that the real problem is that you are depressed. Sometimes depression is situational, but other times the depression makes ordinary situations seem like the worst things that could ever happen. You’re taking various anti-depressant medications, so my guess is that in your own head you’ve translated a bunch of what are really very minor problems and turned them into oh-my-god-the-world-is-collapsing-around-me.
And some obvious financial advice: A person with the comfortable financial situation you appear to be in has NO excuse for carrying debt on credit cards. You’re pissing money away for nothing. Stop doing that. If I were you, I’d dump the least-favorite Vette, use the money to pay off your cards, and then vow to never again carry a balance from one month to the next. You can obviously afford to do that.
Another thing you might consider: Even if she hasn’t said so, if your wife is stressed, part of the reason is that she’s seething inside that you are having financial problems while you’re sitting on tens of thousands of dollars of sports cars that are doing her and you no good. Don’t let that become resentment, or it will do damage to your relationship. You need to have a talk with her and see if that’s bothering her at all. If it is, you really, really need to consider selling that stuff. Or at least making a compromise of selling one of them.
BTW, your argument that you’re keeping useless cars around because they are paid off and you don’t want to go through the pain of buying another new one makes NO sense. None whatsoever. Those cars aren’t new NOW. You could sell them today, put the money in the bank, and then in ten years buy the same year of vette back again at a much lower price. And in the meantime your money will have gone up by 50% or more, instead of depreciating by 70-80%, which is what it’s doing now.
Unless the cars are collectible, appreciating assets, you are losing thousands of dollars every year by hanging on to them. It’s a stupid financial decision, so don’t couch it in financial terms. If they mean a lot to you and you can’t bear to part with them, fine. But don’t fool yourself into believing you are doing something smart. That’s just the justification you’ve invented in your head for your unwillingness to let them go.
Oh the horror! No corvette for a whole DECADE! Oh whatever will we do!
Oh cry me a fucking river. :rolleyes:
My family of four has ONE car, a six year old Saturn, and the AC needs to be replaced to the tune of seven hundred bucks. My dad uses his company vehicle, a mini-van, but it’s not really our’s.
I’m very sorry about your father. Just now, my mother, my sister and I all had a big fight over what we’re wearing to my grandmother’s visitation-the funeral’s on Monday. I’m very sorry you’re depressed. Depression fucking sucks.
But you need to face facts, suck it up and realize that sometimes the solution to the problem will suck. Yes, keeping the kids at home might drive you nuts, but hey, why become parents in the first place? Hey, Mom, this is what parenting is all about. Take the kids to the park, when you need some time off, keep the daycare on notice, but sending them just because you can’t deal with it? I’m sorry, but that’s just cold.
Yeah, you love the cars. But if you insist on hanging on to them, don’t stand around and whine about your financial problems. So you might not be able to buy one back for a decade. Oh well. Some people can’t even afford a piece of shit car. There are many, many worse situations. There are a lot of things I want in life, that I’d LOVE to have, that I’ve given up because I just plain can’t afford them.
If you really are depressed, anti-depressants alone are not going to cut it. See about talk therapy.
We’ve all fucked up in some ways, and sometimes you have to do things that you don’t want to do. Venting is fine-but this ain’t venting. It’s whining and refusing to face up to what you need to do.
CARS:
I’m sorry you couldn’t keep the plane, and that it was time for you to move on. But where was it said you must get rid of the things you like when you have kids? If you really really liked Plants, and in your wild youth you bought and built a greenhouse. Then paid it off. Would you get rid of the greenhouse when you had kids? Or would you teach them how to plant?
Enough with the fucking vettes already. I have, to this point, bucked the trend of getting rid of an important part of my psyche for the sake of the kids. That’s an emotional statement. If you don’t ‘get’ cars (and the key demographic of the dope seems that way), and you see them as ‘just’ a pile of money not working for me, then I cannot make you understand. It wasn’t about cool, pussy, or ego. It was because I liked FAST. I liked being on a racetrack in a drift. Turning a perfect light at the drag strip is IT. The best advice I got about kids was: don’t change your life for your kids, bring your kids into your life.
The second vette is my wife’s car. There is no seething or marital discord.
Just know that when one truely has to go, it’ll be a very VERY black day.
MONEY:
A large chunk of the debt was in suprcharging that car when, heck, we probably shouldn’t have. THAT was the attempted act of defiance that got the credit card (single) to the point where it took a LOT of work to get it paid down. An act that was rapidly occurring before getting tapped twice by the fickle finger of fate.
many many people have done much stupider things.
Is maintaining a revolving balance fiscally stupid? maybe. If you’re willing to pay someone else for the benefit of what that money purchases, then no. You live in a credit based society. You get a 30 year loan to own your house, you have a 36 month lease so you don’t have to sell a car and get a new one every three years. You put your underwear on the mastercard so you can pay for it at the end of the month. nobody would be able to purchase a large item if it were any other way.
HEALTH:
My teenaged years were spent with a father (the newly deceased one) that brought his stress home to the family. It wasn’t pretty. I vowed I would not turn into my father, so I internalized that stress. After the kids were born, I found that the little shit wasn’t rolling off like it used to. Then I found myself feeling hunted. then I found myself getting irrational and panicky. Then I got some help. Get off the ‘suck it up and get over it’ schtick. It was affecting my health.
Life sucks:
And it’s not sucking only for me. And there’s plenty of things I can do to make it better. And there’s pretty much nothing new that can be added to this thread that hasn’t been hashed out by three other people earlier in the thread. And the Sale of the Corvettes will occur the month before we have to tap into the retirement savings, and the cash fund will be used to pay off the credit cards this month, and life will go on.
It’s not about getting rid of things you like just because you have kids-it’s about getting rid of things that cost you too much money when there are other PRIORITIES that are more important. Luxury cars, going out to eat, vacations-if you can’t afford them, and are in DEBT, then you need to do without them.
But that IS part of being a parent. Sometimes you have to do without, and sacrifice things you can’t afford. My parents did it, their parents did it before them, and they survived.
And when I said “suck it up”, I did NOT mean your health-depression and anxiety SHOULD be priority numero uno.
I also have a hard time feeling sorry for you, other than the loss of your father and your job possibly sucking more than it should. Whining that you were dealt twins or that your grandfather managed to live to old age and that you can’t go out to eat to pay for debt on a sports car that is sitting around losing value. Frankly it just sounds like you need a kick in the nuts.
And it really bothers me how you seem to view your kids as a burden. I can’t really see how your wife can’t deal with taking care of the twins 24/7 if necessary. Boo-fucking-hoo. Unless she finds a solid, well payed job taking the kids off daycare to be with their mom is equivalent to earning a salary worth as much as daycare itself, which for two young children must be a truckload of money.
Truly hope things will start to clear up for you soon.
I know this isn’t a competition, but here goes:
No Corvettes, or for that matter, no paid off cars
(No dick, so I can’t get into the “dick size” thing)
No savings, one pension between hard working couple
Mother in law: Alzheimers, has to be put into board and care
Father in law: Cancer, post radiation but can live on his own
My parent: Mentally ill, needs help on multiple levels, lives 4 hour car ride from us
End result: 2 in laws and 1 parent die within 5 month period (1 suicide)
Sad result: end of good marriage because I began to suffer from PTSD and psychotic episodes, end up alone and on disability for 2 years
Today: financially weak, but happy to be able to work - even if I have to take a lot more than Wellbutrin to function (and ain’t it a bitch to deal with those side effects - feh)
Bad things happen to good people. And then we find a way to keep on living.
It’s difficult for some, including me, to read about your life and all your “things”, your wife and kids, nice house, etc., and not think about how if they (and I) posted it, it would be in MPSIMS and titled Why My Life Is So Great.
I’ll allow you that of course, losing your father must have been a very difficult time for you. And that true worries of financial insecurity can be highly stressing. But for the most part, to me and I’d say a good part of society, you do appear to be living the American Dream, and bemoaning your state seems incongruous to some.
Just out of curiosity, does your use of Buproprion (an antidepressant/antianxiety as I recall) indicate that you have/have had depression? That would explain a lot.
