Quarter Past the New Year

It’s a quarter before midnight, we are all impatiently waiting for the bell to drop. The ads on your phone are spitting these low price gym memberships and healthy food grocery membership plans at you. It's time to change, it's time to improve, is that what really is important to you, however? Let's all get fit! Let's all go to the gym, buy that membership, why not? In reality, you probably aren't going to buy the memberships at all, maybe you already have one and you use it. These things are deemed to be the New Year, new you goals. But they aren't for me, and I’m only a second-year college student.

We all want to be healthy so why am I not buying those memberships? I’ve struggled since I was a Junior in High school with money. I got a job my summer before my senior year of high school as a dishwasher, not the most flattering job but the money needed to come somehow for me. I would spend those four to eight-hour shifts on my feet putting the dishes onto a large tray and throwing them into the dishwasher. All the money I earned that summer, gone. I had spent it, and on things, I actually can't remember. Were those things I bought important to me, or just things I thought were shiny and cool? How could I have spent all my summer money like that without a care, it's fine I thought, I can work next summer before college. I never ended up working that summer, I had no money still.

I went into my first year of college, no job still, and then it was my second year of school suddenly when was I going to work for money? Finally, in the summer of 2020, when everything had finally shifted for the whole world. People were losing their jobs, people were on the streets, some could barely pay their bills or even feed their families. I got lucky, during the time when others needed a job the most, I got one. I never knew how lucky I truly was because these times didn’t seem to make me appreciate that my family was able to keep their jobs. While others suffered around me looking everywhere for a place to work, or begging their bosses for overtime at least. I was working. I was finally making the money I needed, and then again it was gone. I didn’t save a dime of the money I earned. I came to discover I had slipped into the biggest pit ever imaginable. I never had to worry about what it meant to be in need of certain things. My student loans were starting to pile up into the ten thousand that I would be owing by the time I graduate. I just had accepted another loan too which would pile up more and more money I would have to earn. We don’t think about these things when we are young, sometimes we believe that a job while young is meant to pay for our gas, or buy us clothes. We buy the things we want, not the things we need, we never understood one day we would be on our own.

Now, with barely a dime in my pocket, and in my second week of college as a second-year student, I finally am realizing the struggle that others are in. Some kids have parents who pay for everything they need. But not all of us have that, some of us are barely making it every day, whether it's because we can't even afford to eat, to have a roof over our head, or just simple supplies.

If I could’ve known that life was all about money at some point when I went into my first job, I would’ve saved all that money. And I’m not saying money makes life good, money makes you secure, and it makes you safe. Knowing you can pay your bills, keep that roof over your head, and feed your family and entertain them also. These are the things I cant do, and these are things I need to do.

So now, it was a quarter after midnight, and the bell had dropped. I and my mom were watching a movie, and I had checked my bank account after she asked me if I could afford books for school. I nodded, even though I had just around six dollars in my account. The books I needed to study for school, to learn, to get through college and graduate, I wouldn’t be buying.

There are things we learn and understand that are true without experience, and then there are the things that we learn and truly understand with experience. It's the experience of suffering and loss that makes us believe that we must become better. And without experiences, no true person will adapt and come to their senses that change is a must, whether it's positive or negative. My experience last year has pushed me into having to work harder, for me that's a real negative. I never really believed I needed to work as hard as I should, I didn’t realize hard work really gave the ultimate rewarding results. Whether it's studying to death, and getting the best grades or working to death, and earning money. What we know as people is that some things are best left alone, those new brand shoes you really want, is it worth the eighty dollars? What about those clothes, should you really spend that much money on them? I spent over two thousand dollars alone in July last year on clothes and games. I wish, I could’ve saved that money, because now I know those were things I could live without.

So now I sit here wondering, what are my options? Well, let me tell you because once I realized I had zero dollars in my savings I had to start planning my life out.

The first thing will be to ace this semester for me, its only week two and I’ve spent everyday reading from my books that I had to borrow aid money to purchase. Then it would be to apply for the scholarships I now will be in dire need of, then to work all summer long and hopefully have just enough scholarships to pay for my next semester in the fall. I want to also work on projects, whether it's writing projects, video projects, or audio projects. After realizing the students around me and all the work they have I noticed I don’t have anything at all that might make me more worthy of a job. These things never hit me until last month, and now I have to catch up to everyone else. I want to have the experience, and this experience will be positive despite the endless hours of working, studying, and learning I will have to force onto myself. Cause in the end what we do is what we must do, it's all to keep us living in the best conditions that we can.

And now I am here, writing this all up, hoping that my experience with horrible money management might help inspire those to also save. In the end, those shiny things we want should be left on the shelf.

Though in all respect, 2020 was truly not as bad for me, I had started the year changing my major from something I despised to a new degree. The classes are entertaining and enlightening to me, as I found a new love for something I had never put much work or interest in. I also got a job that I enjoyed, making new friends and finding the thrill of receiving rewards through hard work. I also met someone in September, someone who has helped me grow as a person, appreciate my own self and encouraged me to do better. I would never say any year has ever been bad, and I find the idea of throwing out the past year when a New Year approaches to be negative. I will hold the things from last year close to me as they were life-changing experiences that helped me come to positive and negative realizations.

Though the New Year always is time for everyone to get back on track to what they believe matters. Whether it's focused on your health, wealth, experiences, relationships, and etc. We should all try and make up with ourselves on the past year's choices, and respect ourselves, and know we always can improve. Even if these improvements are small are large, we all deserve to go at our pace and come to clear that we are each our own.

Now, I find that this time for me is the time to work harder than ever, to earn and save. To get those A’s and to get that job that is fulfilling, even if it's a small job as a cashier. To write more, to create more, to spend more time with loved lives, and to heal old wounds.

So, if I had just saved any money at all, instead of spending it I would’ve now with this knowledge, even if it was just a quarter.