Flailing Failure

Does anyone else find it funny when people talk about life being more than just money? “Warm bodies, I sense, are not machines that can only make money,” said the band Live on their album Throwing Copper. Perhaps there’s an air of truth to such statements. But then again, perhaps there’s also an air of shit.

People live for it. People die for it. People steal it. People work for it. All of the things that the average person wants or needs are attained by trading with it.

And yet somehow life is MORE than just that.

I think I’m getting fairly sick of it all. I’m sick of money (and mostly the lack of it). I’m sick of all the disappointments and frustration that comes from doing everything you can think of to try and get ahead and failing miserably. I’m sick of living my life one financial crisis from disaster.

I’m sick of working my ass off and still never getting ahead.

So six months or so ago I spent a bunch of money that I didn’t exactly have in order to take some classes on investing in stocks and stock options. I spent hours upon hours, to the point that Allie was getting mad at me for spending so much time on the computer, sitting looking at charts and reading analytical reports and stuff.

When I was learning and practicing with the virtual trading programs, which work just like the real thing and use all the real stock data, I was kicking ass. I was making thousands of dollars a day in fake money and for a while I thought, “Perhaps now I can get out of debt and have enough money to not have to worry about it.”

Due to the fact that I have some rather shitty luck, everything changed as soon as I began putting real money into it. No matter what I did I just couldn’t make money. No matter what I tried, almost every play turned against me and I lost the money in the end. When every indicator said something would go one way or do something, it did the very opposite right after I put real money on it.

Now, I went an extra $40,000 or so into debt in order to pay for classes, travel expenses, and business startup costs (on top of the $20,000-something I was already in debt) which I suddenly had no extra income to help pay off because I suck at trying to make money off of investing.

This means that all of my income had to come from my “normal job.”

I drive a semi on a dedicated route for a living. Every two weeks I spend 130+ hours over 11 days making five round trips from Minneapolis to Chicago. Yet no matter how much I work or how many times I go above and beyond and do extra stuff, I can never add more than about $50 to the amount I normally get for pay because I get shafted all the time.

Not only that, but in order for me to do my job and be on time for my deliveries (which is a big deal due to what I haul since it’s very time-sensitive) I have to do between 10-20 mph over the speed limit the entire way just to get there on time because my dispatchers can’t find a way for me to be able to leave earlier. And as icing on the cake, I’m usually over on my hours of service too (truckers can only legally work 60 hours in any seven consecutive days and can get fines as well as get put down, where you are forced to stop where you are and wait for 10 hours or more, for being over on the hours). So not only can I not make enough money doing what I do, I actually have to risk my own money and driving record just to do my job right.

I know the obvious answer is to find a new job, but the thing is that as far as truckers go, I make fairly good money. I have decent hours as far as start times on the days I leave and I really can’t be gone more than one night at a time or Allie would go nuts being home alone.

Back in July or so I began looking into debt-reduction options. Yet every place I talked to about debt settlement and stuff gave me quotes that were like $500 or more per month above what I can afford. I drained my savings and ended up taking money that was supposed to be used for trading and making money in order to keep up with the bills as long as I could.

Until this year I had never missed a payment on a single bill except one time on one bill because my basement flooded and the bill accidentally got thrown out with all the garbage and I forgot about it since I didn’t have the bill in front of me. And now I’m in the middle of a bankruptcy.

In all honesty, I’m quite nervous about how things are going to work out. Sure, going to bankruptcy court in three days is gonna suck, as does the fact that my perfect credit is now shot to hell. But the thing that has me the most uneasy is the fact that I have absolutely no safety net now. My savings are gone and I have no credit if something goes wrong.

Like when my car died last week. Most likely it’s either my catalytic converter or the computer that is shot, but I won’t find out until the end of the day today (or later) for sure.

Or when I’ll most likely have to take six weeks off of work in the near future to have surgery on my ankle, which I sprained twice at work and tore some tendons.

It really is frustrating as hell to work my ass off and put in as many hours in two weeks as some people do in a month and still not be able to make it. And of course, paying over a quarter of my pay to taxes doesn’t help anything (not me anyhow).

Perhaps there really is more to life than making money. Perhaps money can’t buy happiness. But it sure can make it a lot easier and less stressful.

It’d be nice to at least be able to say, “The worst is behind me.” But for all I know, the worst could be yet to come.