I though you said you had a job and so I thought the $11K was savings. You want scary financials? $4,000+ in debt and can't pay it down as the minimum payment is too high and I have other financial commitments I can't get out of right now so all I can pay is a minimum payment. Family also won't let me move in to save money for awhile. Etc. Anyway good luck with your situation.
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dude 11k?
You're doing good for your age. trust me.
That would get you into a place and pay rent for 6 months while you find a job. Just get that EBT and relax man.
Keep grindin, follow through with your passions. Learn everything you can about them. Whatever it is that you like to do, or feel you are skilled at. Hone those skills. I was in a rut for a while in my early/mid 20s, and can relate to your original post. Im sure things are different in NYC, my struggle was based in Portland.
It gets better with time. Dont settle, know theres something out there for you, you just have to be there to grab it when it comes along, so prepare for it.
Cheers
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are you a mirror, cause what you described i see myself rn
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I live in Iowa and the cost of living is pretty low and employment is pretty good.
Hey @Bender2K1. First let me say keep your chin up man. Life does hit like a sack of bricks and it can suck. You however made a great step by reaching out to a community that you at least felt comfortable enough with to open yourself up and share. Thanks for bringing us in. We are a family here at Tek Syndicate and we take care of family.
I think first a few recommendations (take em or leave em) -
1.)Have you considered Military Service (probably not Army or Marines, unless you like the idea of most likely getting shot at and sleeping in the desert. Maybe Air Force or Navy? I have personal experience here that I will go into more after the recommendations.
2.) As many have already said, relocation. Lower cost-of-living area, regardless of wage levels should help relieve some stress.
3.)What are your talents, what are you good at or passionate about? Figure out how to get paid to do those things, and then at least the grind is worthwhile.
4.)Identify and eliminate waste in your life and in your financial decisions. As I will get into here in a minute, it's amazing how little you can live on when you are forced to do so.
Now a little about me to maybe help you feel not so alone, and not so isolated.
I am 32 never went to college and live with my family currently. When I was 17 my father passed away, it was my last year of high school and I handled it poorly, starting a pattern of bad decision making that would follow me still to this day. I ended up getting my GED because I was too lazy to complete a summer course for the 1/2 credit I needed to graduate and get my diploma. This hurt me from being able to go to college or from getting a good job, so I had to get what I could and go into the full time work force. It sucked, I became extremely depressed and was forced due to other events to live completely on my own, which I had never done before. I had no "life skills" to speak of and I was lazy with shit work ethic. This led to me being kicked out of where I lived and forced me to move across the country to live with mom again. Sleeping on a couch and having virtually no room and no privacy I began to weigh my options. That's when I decided to join the navy. I wanted to be Jonesy from Hunt for Red October and I wanted to be a Sonar Tech, and that's what I did. (Although I was never on a submarine.) It sucked. Boot camp sucked, and at the time i felt like it was the hardest thing I had ever gone through. I almost quit multiple times. Luckily I had the support of friends and family and I was able to stick it through. This led to one of the greatest experiences of my life. I learned discipline, work ethic, the meaning of hard work, and the meaning of true loneliness. I still made some bad choices, like getting married straight outta boot camp to the first girl to show me some real attention. To say the least one of my worst decision of my life. (she was a tad legit crazy.) Still, I learned skills, I learned people, and I got to see the world. I worked harder than I ever have in my life, and I had more fun then I've ever had doing anything else. I built long lasting friendships that will never ever die, and I had a family that was there for me(my shipmates.) Then one day I made a really bad decision and allowed myself to get involved with Spice (a.k.a. Legal Lab made Weed alternative if you don't know.) I became extremely addicted to it, spending all that money I was finally making, and wasting my free time, until it started to effect my job. This led to me getting kicked out of the one thing I loved and destroyed my career. After separating I was left worse than I began. Now with no college, a marriage that was non-existent, and a Other than Honorable discharge it seemed life was over. And for years it kinda was. I had a major breakdown, and finally came to terms with my drug addiction, kicking the habit (5 years sober now and never looking back!!!) I had jobs here and there but ended up having to move in with family at the age of 27, and still to this day I am with them (granted that is now because I choose to stay to help take care of my 74 year old grandmother who has dementia.) I finally landed a job in the IT world and began growing my skills. Eventually I was able to go into business for myself and was making decent money for a change. It seemed life was doing so much better. During this time, when least expected I met thew woman of my dreams and feel madly in love. Luckily this one wasn't crazy. Then the main industry in my area providing me clients went bust and my clients went buy buy. I have spent the last 6 month barely scraping by and struggling with depression again. But this time I had the support from family and friends I needed. This time I didn't give up or turn to drugs/alcohol. And as of the typing of this message I am in the running for a full time IT Admin position at a local University. I don't know if I'll get it, but if I don't it's on to the next opportunity. The point is never give up, never stop trying and you will get there. However even once you are "there", it never ends. Life is always going to be there waiting to knock you down. Just learn from it and take it in stride. Remember those that love you and care for you and support you. Lean on them and trust in yourself.
Wow I really shared way more than even I thought I would, but I guess sometimes that's what we need to do.
I hope my story can help you in some small way, and I hope this didn't come off as an attention grab, or an attempt to lessen your struggle. I don;t know you, but you are my comrade in the Tek and I am your friend and here to support you.
Good luck with everything man. I wish you the best.
Carl
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Mate if you can't touch-type then learn now while your not doing anything, this skill will come in handy.
When I was unemployed I spent a lot of time learning as I could, and this is where I learned to type (I'm not a proficient touch-typist, but it certainly helps when I'm involved in club meetings)
Possessing the ability to touch-type when programming would be an asset (I taught myself Ruby many years ago)
Ditto
@Bender2K1 Hopefully by now you understand from accounts that others have given that even in your situation of limbo and uncertainty, you're in a much less bad situation than you could be. You have no dependents, no debt (which is absurdly rare in this day and age), You have a savings account that is modest, but which can help you move somewhere with greater opportunity and lower cost of living or at the very least get by until you find a steady source of income that can support you. Live frugally while you get there - that should go without saying but it's so often the case that people are irresponsible with the most meager of funds. Don't make the same mistakes others have made - learn from them the easy way.
I know I've already said it but I'll say it again - I highly recommend that you go out and network with people every opportunity you possibly can. Even a small get-together like a LAN party would be ideal. I didn't think I'd really network with anyone at LAN Syndicate but as soon as I got there I found about half a dozen people who I would consider friends now, and the three days we hung out were the most fun I've had in a long time. Who knows what it would have turned into if we didn't all live thousands of miles away from each other.
First of all @Bender2K1 , I think it's brave to share this. Asking for help and advice is always a good start. We all need help at some point.
You are at a dangerous place right now. It's easy to get completely consumed by depression and negativity which takes away all the energy you would need right now to plan and make your next moves. At some point, the frustration, fear and anger become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I'm wondering why nobody has asked you what you did so far. What degrees do you have, what did you learn, what did you work? I think that's important to asses the situation and to see what ur options are.
From my own experience, and believe me I've been there, making a clean cut and making a fresh start elsewhere is often the best if not only way of getting out the hole u r currently in.
You say u don't have any friends and are often lonely. Do you have an idea why that is?
I'm not from the US, so I'm not going to say anything about what city would be better or something. But, maybe trying another country for a year or two would be an option. You don't need much money for that. You can work. there is organizations that can help. Check out this article right here:
http://matadornetwork.com/notebook/how-to-find-paying-work-while-traveling-in-europe/
I mean, you are 22, so c'mon. You are still very young. These could be your most exciting years.
Right now u r obviously stuck, so changes have to be made otherwise u will drown in this shit. Self-pity is ur worst enemy. It's going to cause u to make urself comfortable in a shitty situation. So moving to another city or country shouldn't scare you. It can't be worse than it is right now, can it?
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The best advice that I can give and that will help anyone starting out is no matter what job you are doing, do it right, be consistent, and don't be negative about it. It doesn't matter if it's your dream job or not. You can bitch about it later when youâre at home or at the bar but stay as positive as can when you are on the job and itâll help you get through it. At this point, itâs not just about learning skill, itâs about proving that you have work ethic so when you go to the next job you have good references to build upon. You would be surprised at how many jobs you can land over people who claim to be more skilled if can prove that you are reliable, dependable, and adaptable. If your bosses need something done, you want them to be coming to you because they can trust you to get it done without giving them a hard time about it. Donât limit yourself just to the area you are in now. New York is a very expensive place. $12G a year can go a long way in other places, like the South East. The world is a much smaller place than it used to be.
If you have a dream job, by all means go for it, but be realistic about it. Understand what the time line should be for you to develop the skills youâll need to get to where you want to be. I donât have a dream, never have. To me, a job is a means to an ends. I work to earn money in order provide for myself and to do the things outside of my job that I love doing. I found a job that I can do well and I donât dislike. When I was 22, I was making $7.50/hr working fulltime at Wal-Mart and getting my B.S. at the same time. Now, Iâm in my mid-30s, have no debt, and a 6 figure salary. Iâm not working in the field I got my degree in but that doesnât matter. The degree is important to show that you can set a goal for yourself and accomplish it.
@Bender2K1 I think on some level perhaps I can relate to you. When I left university I was the loser with no job, no girlfriend, no social life, living with my parents right back where I started with the added crutch of student debt. Things didn't change. I struggled for years as a freelancer but still couldn't support myself while old friends had long since moved on, it all made me more depressed. Eventually I did something about it and managed to get into a stable job in a field I actually enjoy. I was out of university twice as long as I'd been in by the time I finally broke into a proper job.
The important thing is that you want to do something about it. You are still just 22 but don't let yourself waste any more years, you will never forgive yourself if you do. I can't say for certain what the correct means is of course, everyone's challenges are different.
Bland statements like not feeling sorry for yourself are useless unless you really know what will actually make you happy. Nobody chooses depression after all. It sounds like maybe you need to spend some time on self development.
A job is more than just money, it's about identity... I would suggest the first thing you should do is really ask yourself what you enjoy doing - you need to distil this down to it's basic essence. For instance a Math graduate may really like working with big data and desire a career in computer science. But why? Perhaps a love of making things more efficient and problem solving. That same graduate may also find the same mental stimulation in city planning, traffic management or even a lowly (/sarcasm) stockist for a supermarket. Don't think in terms of 'I like x/y/z' think about why those things actually appeal to you. Once you start thinking this way you can also find creative ways to apply your skills to jobs not necessarily in your field. Getting on the right career path is damn hard. Bottom line, everyone is normally chasing the fancy job title with the high salary, it's what we've been programmed to do.
Hopefully if you have a clear idea of what you love in life you will be more determined to figure out how to make it happen and put together a plan.
MeetUp is great, you should given it a go. It's very non-committal, at least for me. I get as much social interaction IRL as I need, then you can pull the plug whenever you want to take a step back.
As for everything else, perhaps like me you need to re-appraise your place in life. All I can say is that I've come to terms with the no girlfriend, no social life thing. These are all things we think we want, but we don't all actually need them. I'm not suggesting you are guilty of this but make sure you have your own expectations of life and not someone else's. Our expectations of life are often just a mould that benefits society not the individual. Hope my rambling is of some help, all the best!
Hang in there. What are you in debt for?
EBT lol hahah i'll see about that.
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Portland is nice. Yeah it gets better with time, it's hard though when reality hits.
Yeah it sucks i know but let's keep moving. At least have some direction, you know? probably why i made this post. I'm basically homeless if my family didn't give a fuck, fortunately they do.
Try not to get discouraged. Most people don't get anywhere until their 30's and you are only 22.
I have a feeling that this age is when everyone learns the most about the world that they live in.
Message me i need more info on the employment over there. I don't party, iowa seems perfect. Probably buy some land out there too in the future.
30 and failure... Shit's fucked...
It feels like the past 5 years just flew. what you said is what I'm afraid of. I'm trying to prevent being 25 with nothing, and i most likely am gonna be 30 and not anywhere fuck. I think so too this is the age people realize how hard life really is. We can't all be Heroes more like we can't all be trust fund kids lol.