This really sucks..

[blas]

I don't mean to drag everyone down, and I've been pretty chipper lately save for my idiot text-aholic friends, but I was spying on my ex roomate and his gf on their Facebook pages the other day and my blood started boiling.

Here I am a few months after moving out. I had to swallow my pride, and with my whole body shaking, ask my parents for a LOAN to get a new apartment to get away from this idiot. Even my mom, as harsh as she can be, was very understanding and gave me the loan (only after making me sign a promisary note). I now had enough to get a new apartment. But then I had a NEW bill I had to pay every month. $100 bucks a month to pay back my parents.

So the first two months I lived at my apartment, I had to dig out my credit card just to get by. I had the strictest budget. Often I chose cigarettes over food. Bad choice, yes, but what could I do? I'd make a pizza and make it last for 2 or 3 days. I BARELY made enough to get by, even when mandatory overtime started knocking at my door.

I met my boyfriend and he (even though he didn't have to) went out of his way to help me with my groceries. I kept telling him not to, and that I had to budget better and prioritize better, but he felt awful for me after I told him the ex roomate story.

I still have a strict gas budget. I can only have a tank of gas per week. That's enough to go to work every night and maybe two or three little random trips to the tanning salon every other day. So any of my friends that lived any distance away, forget about it.

Things have a way of working themselves out, and I SLOWLY started to break even with all my bills and expenses. Thanks to my overpaying my monthly bills while I used to live with ex roomate, my minimum payments on all my bills are much lower than they used to be. That still doesn't say much though when you add finance charges.

Every day I start to get a little futher away from breaking even, and I calculate within the next few months I will finally be ahead.

But this is what pisses me off.

A bad and immature habbit as it may be, I like to spy on my ex roomate and his gf. They are both Facebook addicts, they update their status it seems every freakin hour and they both have extensive photo albums of everything. Including their new house.

So my ex roomate threatened to sue and all that jazz after the old landlords cleaned the old apartment that my ex roomate refused to clean before he left. He was cheap as hell and threw temper tantrums over any and every type of bill acrued for any reason and refused to pay them and made them my responsibility.

Why is this, boys and girls?

Looking on his and her pages, you see that they remodeled and re-painted and totally "extreme makeover"ed their new house. Now they have the picture perfect white house with the white picket fence for their picture perfect relationship as him as picture perfect Step Daddy. Cheap ass BASTARD. Demanding money from me because he wants to have a perfect new house for his perfect family and he doesn't give two shits if I rot in a cardboard box in the middle of the street.

It's disgusting and disappointing that someone got away with so much shit, avoided so much financial and LEGAL responsibility, and now is living the great life and the American dream, while I still await the day until I don't have to scrounge to make ends meet!

My whole point here isn't that I want revenge. I've already been yelled at not only by friends and family, but fellow CSers have warned me about my lust for revenge........I certainly don't want anything to happen to his gf and her baby....it just irritates me that people who pull such shit can GET AWAY with it, hurt others, bury them in debt, and STILL end up on top of the world and living the high life.

I'm so mad...

[ArenaBoy]

For your monetary concerns:

Do you really need two or three trips to a tanning salon? Eventually it will get to a point where you will have to choose between food and looking good. Think about how much a session costs and then compare it with the cost of groceries. Your needs have a more important role than your wants and right now they're top priority. Will it suck giving something up? Yes but after a while you realize that you didn't need it that much to begin with.

As for the Facebook thing, I remember you saying that when you moved out that you wanted nothing to do with him. Why are you spying on him then? You're wasting your time and energy doing that and there's no point, it's just making you bitter. Right now you should be focused on yourself not what your roommate is doing. Move on, there's no point dwelling on past idiots, just get rid of them and get on with it.

[Greenday]

I'm with ArenaBoy on the tanning salon thing. Maybe it's because we are guys, and we don't understand why in the world you'd need to go that often, but tanning shouldn't be so high on the priorities list. You look great as it is.

My mom pays my phone bill and my car insurance. During the summer, when I work my ass off, I give her money for my phone bill and then some. That leaves me whatever I can save over the summer for spending money for when I'm in college. I walk most places so I don't have to spend cash on gas. Somehow I made $1,500 last me the entire year and I still had enough left over to buy a new catalytic converter for my car ($900). I also don't know if you are like my sister at all, but I've noticed a lot of her money goes into clothes. Clothes cost a lot of cash. It can quickly drain a bank account. My sister gets paid every three weeks at her summer job. She makes A LOT more money than I do, and somehow she's completely out of cash by Christmas. Yea, so ranting on my sister not going anywhere, if that happens to be something you are spending cash on and aren't thinking about, you might want to think about it.

[BookstoreEscapee]

I agree on the tanning, too...plus your skin will thank you ;)

One small thing, if you don't already do this...do you have direct deposit for your paycheck? I have my check deposited into my checking account, and I take out a certain amount each week and try not to spend more than that on random stuff...then if I run out of cash I have to start thinking about what I'm spending it on, and if I really need it. Whatever cash I have left at the end of the week I throw in a jar...it adds up quick and you can use it for an emergency stash or for something fun. Plus whatever you are left with at the end of the month is already in the bank. It's a little no-sweat way to start building up a little savings cushion.

[Boozy]

Arenaboy makes a good point about not looking at those Facebook pages. It'll only make you bitter.

You need to put this behind you and move on, for your own sake.

[NightAngel]

Whatever cash I have left at the end of the week I throw in a jar...it adds up quick and you can use it for an emergency stash or for something fun.

I have a change jar. I take any change I get, plus I pick up any change (even pennies) that people drop and put it in the jar. Then if I'm short for gas or cigs some week I just cash it in at the CoinStar.
Alternately, if it builds for a couple months and I haven't used it then I cash it in and buy myself a treat. I was once pleasantly surprised when I discovered I had $85.00. :)

[blas]

Yes, I have direct deposit and my entire check goes into it every pay period. It only costs me $20 a month to go tanning. Like I said, I'm not as broke as I used to be, I'm just starting to break even...I just got a raise too, so I will have an extra $40 per pay period.

Like I also said, it's a bad habbit, but the two of them are addicts to that page, and remember when I made the thread when ex roomate said he'd sue me? He's also one of those people who isn't very smart and will write flammatory remarks about other people (including bosses!) on his pages.....I'm always curious to see if he's written anything about me and his "Case" yet.

I just happened to see his albums had pictures of their new house and it infuriated me that here I am, just recovering and starting to put the pieces back together, and he's living the high life. It should be the other way around. God only knows, if they break up and he does the roomate thing with someone else, he's just going to do it again!

[Millahtyme1983]

If it makes you feel better chances are they are just posting the good stuff on their Facebook pages and actually went way overbudget on their "extreme Makeover" and racked up huge credit card debts where they can only afford the minimum payments. I have seen it many times where I would think someone was having a "perfect" life and it turns out they were struggling worse than me just to keep up that image. hang in there it'll get better.

[ThePhoneGoddess]

Blas, you know this guy well. Do you really think is going to last? Someone like that is lazy. Life in a relationship is not all peaches and cream, it takes hard work (as I'm sure you know). His life may be all peachy now, but what do you think he is going to do when it needs maintenance? He's going to do one of two things: either cut and run, or try to load it all onto her. A leopard cannot change his spots---he WILL eventually try to take advantage of her too. People who take advantage of others do so because they are too lazy to work for things. It becomes a habit, then a lifestyle, then an addiction. His 'wonderful' life is built on a house of cards, and I promise you that someday it will come down around his ears. He will eventually mess with the wrong person, and they will smack him down good. There is a lot of truth to the saying Living well is the best revenge.

And as for the tanning issue, I understand why you do that. When you spend months and months completely broke, it becomes very wearying to always deny yourself even one little pleasure. I have been that broke before, and I was actually living off of vegetables I fished out of a local grocery store dumpster (they had to toss them by a certain date, even if they weren't bad yet. I took them home, washed them well, and survived that way.) The one pleasure I allowed myself was a trip to the movies once a week. I couldn't buy popcorn or soda or anything, but I got to go see a movie. It kept me sane throughout that entire period.

[Broomjockey]

Blas, good for you for being able to pull ahead like that. And yeah, at $20 a month, I think the tanning would be a good deal, as it's something to make you feel good about yourself, isn't crazy expensive, but still feels maybe a little extravagent. Because frankly, the cheap ways to treat yourself are the keys to not blowing a budget, I think. :)

As for the facebook, you probably should try to limit how often you visit their pages, especially if it's going to make you angry. Because a guy like that? He's definitely going to put the best face on everything, so you won't have any idea how he's really doing. Unless you know someone still "friends" with him who's willing to dish a little dirt. :devil:

[blas]

Tanning, as silly as it may seem, is really my only guilty pleasure I have left. And it's a quick nap I can take right after work and then a short trip home....much cheaper than other salons in my area.

You guys have made me feel a little better. The only thing that irks me is that it will take time for him and his perfect life to fall apart and for him to drop to the same parallel that I was on a few months back. He hasn't used this girl for anything yet, she's a single mother and was on welfare and he "rescued" her, so I doubt she has anything he really use her for, money wise. He's the sole provider for the three of them (which is yet another reason he refused to pay any bills). But hell, I guess if he gets desperate enough and mommy and daddy finally say no....who knows!

I just can't help it with the Facebook. People who are so addicted to putting up pictures and personal information like that........it's my own personal way of getting "the dish" or "the gossip" about those two. I don't need a third party. Just one click and I know everything that's happened lately and everyone he's flaming online.