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prorevenge · 5 years

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My former employer was stiffing me on money. While trying to get what he owed me, I kinda sorta ruined his marriage and probably his whole life.

OK, I don't know that this actually counts as "revenge", because I was honestly just trying to get money I was owed. I wasn't trying to drop a nuclear bomb on the guy's life in the process. That's what ended up happening, though. And I was told that my redditor brothers and sisters here might like this story, so here it is.

Some years back I ended up doing work for this guy I'll call Dick. It was just a side job for extra money, not my career or anything. Dick had a small business, it's boring, I won't get into any of that. Before me he had one other employee so I made two. Just two employees, that's how small a business it was.

The thing was, Dick ran his business like shit. I didn't know the specifics of his financial situation but based on where he lived, the car he drove, etc., he was doing pretty well. Maybe it was inheritance or whatever, I didn't know. But his situation clearly wasn't due to this business, which again, he ran like shit.

In fact, he ran the business like such utter shit that after about six months after I started doing work for him, the business wasn't making money anymore. So instead of regular payments like usual, the other employee and I had to start asking where our money was before it showed up. Then the payments started getting more and more behind. Eventually I was owed around $500.

Then one day the other employee tells me "I'm done. He owes me like 5 grand and I'm not going to keep working for nothing." I was like whoa shit, because I had no idea he was owed that much. The trouble with pay clearly went back farther than I knew.

So Dick ended up coming to me and said "Look, I owe the other guy money and I need to pay him. Do you mind if I get him all paid up, which means I gotta hold off on your pay for a month or two. But once he's paid off I swear I'll make it all up to you." Because I'm a fucking idiot, and because I felt bad about the first employee who was a good dude, I said fine go ahead.

So I didn't get paid at all for a while, which upped my total owed to about $1500. Then eventually I heard from the other employee and he told me Dick finally paid him everything he was owed. Great, I thought, now it's my turn.

LOL.

A few weeks after I heard the other employee was paid up (which I only ever heard from him, never from Dick) Dick told me he was closing the business. Which didn't shock me at all, surely it had been losing money for quite a while. I go "OK, so where's my money?" and I told him exactly how much he owed me. I got back "uh... well... the thing is... I can't pay you now, but...".

This went on for a YEAR. I looked into what my steps were legally but I'd have had to file something in small claims court and it's only $1500, and having to get a lawyer would probably eat up most of it. So I just kept bugging Dick about the money. I was like "Hey, pay me $25 month, I don't care." But he wouldn't even do that. He told me about how he's gotta go through all this stuff to dissolve the business and everything, and he'll pay me he as soon as he can, and overall he just avoided taking any responsibility.

At one point he said something about how people were currently suing him (big shock) and he'd get me in contact with his lawyers if I wanted so my debt could be added in or something. I said "Fine, give me their names/numbers." He never did.

Eventually I realized that nothing was ever going to come of this and I was just gonna be out the money I was owed. But while I'd been doing the work for him, I had e-mailed back and forth with his wife maybe a dozen times. To this day I've never met his wife, never even spoken with her. Just communicated through e-mail and text.

But she seemed really nice and she'd told me something like "Dick won't tell you this, but he doesn't really know what he's doing with this business and I know you've been a big help." So I just got the idea that, you know what, this next e-mail I send Dick about trying to get my money, I'm gonna include his wife on it too. So she knows how much he sucks.

I heard back from her almost right away and she was like "I'm so sorry about this, please keep me posted on what happens." Then suddenly, magically, Dick started talking about working out a payment schedule. He started sending me $100 every month and the debt got down to $1000. I figured his wife must have got on his ass about it and I laughed to myself about how whipped ol' Dick was.

But then the money stopped coming again. The excuses started coming again. One day he told me that he was just going through a hard time financially right now, which I knew was bullshit. He still had the nice car, the nice house, etc. But it's not like I had a printout of his bank records I could call him out on.

On that exact same day he told me that though, I was watching the local pro team's baseball game later that night and who did I see but Dick. In great seats no less, 2nd row right down in front, just off to the right. Every time they zoomed in on a right handed batter, you could clearly see him. And this was in September in the midst of a playoff race so those tickets were not cheap. It's no Perry Mason moment, but the thought of replying to his "I'm having financial trouble" e-mail with a picture of him in those seats and me being like "Yeah, I can see that pffft" gave me a raging justice boner.

So I was looking for a good image of him to use, but every time I paused the video his face got somewhat out of focus. It was clearly him if you watched the video but I needed a still image that was also clearly him. Then in the 7th inning a foul ball got caught about two rows behind him and they zoomed in on that area of the crowd. And there was Dick clear as day, sitting with his wife. I'm thinking aha, I got you now muthafucka.

The next morning I replied to his prior message by sending that screen capture to him. I figured even if I didn't get my money, at least I had that one sweet moment of satisfaction of busting him there.

Then almost at the last second I decided to send it to his wife too, just so she knew what was going on and how the money had stopped again. And remembering how quickly Dick's tune had changed that first time I'd included her, I even thought that maybe her being in the picture would make her light an even hotter fire under his ass this time.

So I sent it but I didn't hear anything back from either of them. Two, three days went by and nothing. Then I heard from the other employee I'd worked with. He goes "You hear about Dick?" I said no, what? "His wife kicked him out and filed for divorce." I'm like ho-ley fuck, no way. "Yeah, apparently she caught him cheating on her."

I thought "Huh, I wonder how... hmm. HMM. You know what would be crazy? What if that wasn't his wife in that picture... and I sent her that picture... and... LOL, no. No way. He was probably talking about the divorce when he mentioned having financial trouble. That would make sense. The divorce was already in the works before the picture. Yeah. There's literally no chance whatsoever that I inadvertently told his wife he was cheating on her. LOL, I mean, come on. Right?"

Nope, that was literally what had happened. The woman at the game with him? Not his wife. Apparently his wife knew the woman though, and knew that Dick had lied about where he was that night and who he was with. And a shit storm of epic proportions quickly followed.

I ended up e-mailing her not long after and being like "Um, hello there, I've been hearing some things and I can't help thinking that picture I sent might have been part of this?" And she said she'd been meaning to contact me, she thanked me, said she'd wanted out of the marriage anyway, and said she might need me as a witness. I didn't know what for, are divorces like trials?

But anyway, she paid me the $1000 he owed me, plus another $500 on top. I don't know if she thought he still owed me $1500 or if she purposely gave me extra. And I didn't have to be a witness for anything, which was good.

Also, Dick's nice car and nice house and all? His wife was the one with the money. Meaning that he no longer has it. They got divorced and he moved away and I have no idea what became of him.

Honestly, considering everything that happened, I feel kinda bad for him. But then I remember there's no reason he couldn't have just paid me. Seriously, why not just pay? He had the money. I just chalk it up to Dick having a lot of negative karma coming his way and I played a part in it catching up with him.

TL;DR: I sent my deadbeat ex-boss (and his wife) a picture of himself in great seats at a sports game to disprove his claim that he had financial problems and that's why he couldn't pay me. He was with a woman who was not his wife. His wife went APE, son.

(source) story by (/u/BartolosSweatSocks)

#prorevenge #by /u/BartolosSweatSocks #pro revenge #revenge stories #pro revenge stories #pro #revenge #last10

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fitzonomy · 5 years

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The 2018 Rumination Spectacular

It’s a long post. It’s gonna be triggering. Blacklist “ash 2018″ and “long post.” Sorry mobile users. Here’s a picture. Use this as a warning that you should blacklist those tags NOW if you don’t wanna read:

For about a week, I’ve wondered how to start this post. How to finish it. What to put in the middle. It’s really a shame, being depressed and anxious and all sorts of other things but maintaining a high self-esteem. It’s not like I want to. My mind and my brain and my body refuse to let me just be. They constantly remind me I have to be center stage, the best, to be adored. Let’s be honest. I don’t have high self-esteem. I have an obsessive, insatiable desire for love because I was born to abusive people. I was raised by more abusive people. I’ve continued to place my trust and well-being in abusive people. And then, when things fall spectacularly apart, I blame myself. I blame my body. I blame my brain. I blame my mind. A lot has happened this year. A big thing: the realization that I desperately crave others to want me. I want to feel loved and valuable and interesting and just wanted. And, I guess, that’s what school gave me. I left my PhD program in May 2017 and it’s taken almost two years to realize I didn’t stay in school or move into higher education because I had a burning passion (okay, I mean, I do still have a passion for my work but it wasn’t the foundation). The American education system gave an abused child something slightly better than I had: praise and positive feedback for jumping hoops. My home life twenty years ago? There was no rhyme or reason to which behaviors would yield which result. School? College? Grad school? Let’s face it. I’m white. At the time I was identifying as straight and female. I was going into STEM. Perform well, earn As, be friendly. Rules rules rules. Two weeks ago, I finally told my therapist of almost five years how my first sexual experience was a doctor raping me. It’s really funny. Hilarious actually how it’s taken thirty-one years to feel like I am my own person. Because before the doctor, there’d been my step-father (”It isn’t really enough to do anything with,” the police had told me when I was sixteen at my then therapist’s office). There’d been the high school boyfriend (”My dad was in the marines. I inherited his anger management problems.”). But there was also my mom. My grandmother who isn’t my grandmother but she “adopted” my mom as her daughter. They met online on a forum for Forever Knight, a 90s Canadian supernatural romance crime show about a woman who has a vampire for a partner. It’s really hard, yanno, to be gentle with myself. Don’t be angry.

So, 2018 was a year of me working on this. I’m still working. I’m angry at everything nowadays. There’s no good resolution to it other than to sit with it. I don’t understand how people can say, “Let anger go,” like I intentionally hold onto it. This anger and pain and trauma is carved into my bones and it gets carried through like oxygen in my bloodstream. Whenever I think about this anger at myself, the regret and the hurt, the left side of my left arm hurts. It starts about the middle of my forearm and goes to my pinky. Asking when this started isn’t a useful question. I’m angry because I let myself be used and hurt by people. I’m angry because I ignored my own needs and wants. I’m angry because now I’m thirty-one and it feels like my life is over. I made a lot of decisions and they were all made for the benefit of others. “Be your own person,” only works when you’ve got a person who isn’t desperate for love. I’m angry because I feel like I’ve wasted my life worrying about other people. Yes, yes. I’m not old. Don’t bother telling me. You don’t pay my bills. You can tell me what I feel when you give me money--substantial amounts of it. In 2005, I gave my step-father $1500. I’ve been working at the local Dairy Queen for years, saving money religiously because I was desperate to get a car, drive, gain independence. My parents told me the insurance was too expensive. My step-dad was the only driver because my mom has MS. It would probably never happen, but just in case. I should save, just in case. I gave my step-father money because he said, “The van needs fixed. Without it, you know your mom can’t get to the hospital.” I can’t remember any night between the ages of 15-17 when the police of the EMTs weren’t at my house. All of my homework was usually left abandoned in red and blue lights. I’d get back to it at midnight. Nothing mattered to my teachers except that I made As. At this point, I don’t know where blame lies but it seems pretty solid that I get stuck with the anger. 2018 was the year I realized that I don’t know how to have friends, how to keep a job, how to think about a career. 2018 was the year I realized that I have to make peace with living in poverty again. I was doing so well. Grad school was the best my finances had ever been. Until December 2013. I tried to kill myself. It’s old news. I was in the hospital. They forgot about me and I ended up spending three more days than needed. PROTIP: don’t try killing yourself during the holidays. Everyone will just tell you the holidays are rough for everyone. And finals. Mid-December is the time for students to also feel the pressure. If you’re neither of these, good luck. I took out massive amounts of student loans to go back to school. To pay my hospital bills. I was so desperate to get back into school because it was the only place that made sense. 2018 was the year I decided to change my name, my gender. I’m learning how to live in my body. It’s taken thirty-one years, but I’ve come to the realization it was mine. For six years, I took meds that made me weigh over 200 lbs all for the benefit of the high school boyfriend. For five years I starved myself because I wanted everyone to see what a successful PhD student I was. My body has never been mine before. This is a new thing for me. 2018? It started off with hope. There was less hope for most of it. I think it’s ending with hope. I hope it is.

My mom refuses to stop calling me. Five years ago, I stopped answering her calls. I begged her to stop. I was polite. I was rude. I was angry. I was at peace. I’ve tried everything. Her contacting me isn’t about me, it’s about her. It’s about what she wants. in December of 2013, I tried to kill myself.

It’s so old news, my mom told my partner when he called her, “Oh. Well, let me know when everything’s okay.” In 2009 I was admitted into the hospital for exhaustion. I’d had a breakdown in college. I was told to try yoga. Meditation. I was told it was just test anxiety. All I’ve ever desperately wanted was to be the priority.

And I bent for other people. I broke myself and put myself back together in ways other people would find pleasing. I bend and I break and now my body hurts. Chronically. In 2016 I was in a car accident. My partner has told me most of this story. I remember almost nothing. I spent two months locked up in my house with a concussion. More debt. More weight gained. My partner tells me at one point the doctors kept poking and prodding my feet. He tells me that I wasn’t responding and that my legs weren’t moving. He was horrified that the accident had left me paraplegic. I don’t remember any of this. The doctors eventually told him it was just shock. My body overloaded with too much too fast. And not enough neuron action, I guess. Too much, not enough. I discovered yesterday that Jack Kerouac said something similar. I’ve never read anything by him. Must be a common human feeling. Everything is too much. Everything is not enough. 2018 is right now still and I’m still working on reshaping myself for myself and not for others. 1987 was right then and thirty days before it ended, I came at the last minute. I’ve spent my entire life trying to make sure I was early to make a good impression. Now, I arrive when I arrive. I live in the land of -ish. Work hasn’t yelled at me. Yet. 2018: I started drawing again. I started writing again. I am trying not to feel like I’m too old. I’m working. I’m trying. I’m doing. I’m poor. I feel like my college degree warrants me not that but que was que is. I obsessively think about contacting my mom. No matter the meds, I have to count 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 every time I lock the door to the comic book shop where I work. If I don’t, the door isn’t locked. I’ve never had wide hips but I’ve always had thick thighs. My butt has always been big. My culture rather I’d accept my fate as a woman, bend myself and break myself to be one. They don’t belong to me. My thighs eat anything that comes between them. I wish I was being literal. I wish my thighs had eaten other people’s hands and other body parts. Vagina dentata is too late for my tastes. I want my thighs to reflexively snap like a bear trap and break someone’s neck. But I have a hard enough time finding clothes I can live with. I’m wearing the pants of Theseus right now. I’m tired of sewing patches into the holes my thighs keep eating. 2018 and I’m wondering if I will ever stop hurting. But it’s 2018 and I know I’m a better me than I’ve ever been before. And right now, that’s enough.

#ash 2018 #long post #cw #everything?

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dressedupkiss · 3 years

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84 days

12 weeks until March 2021.

Twelve weeks doesn’t sound like much.

But I don’t have much to do in my days so the time goes by sort of slowly but at a decent pace. I don’t have any habitual places to go or things to do.

Sometimes I play guitar and ukulele, I sing every now and then each day, I listen to music, I browse the internet...

Sometimes I go for walks but not much in winter time like now. I meditate and burn plan material, sometimes smudging sometimes smoking. I watch movies sometimes.

I lay in my bed basically all day long. Some days I will exercise for around an hour. But most of the time I feel like laying down. I do my laundry and dishes. I keep my place tidy as I can with all these random things.

I won’t be having any visitors anytime soon. My best friend stayed for over a week and left yesterday evening. I’m gonna be alone for a few weeks until Christmas dinners start happening. I’ll get money for Christmas from my dad and I’m not gonna get much from anyone but I don’t mind. It’ll be a chill Xmas this year.

It’s the 7th Monday and on Wednesday I get the dreaded injection again. Oh well. I had a bad dream about having to take another med and it was really stupid, it’s like a hospital and my elementary school and people are bothering me about my health. But there was a sexy lady turning me on so that felt good. She was a redhead and really beautiful.

I’m gonna try to spend lots of money on my MasterCard this month and next month. My friend gave me money for staying here so that covers my Mc payment. I spend $70 extra dollars this month so far though and I usually don’t do that. Oh well.

I just paid 120 on my mc and I have $394 for 20 more days this month. I’ll have free food a few times for early Xmas dinner and on Xmas dinner and I’ll stay at my moms and get fed on Boxing Day too. And my dad will give me money so I’ll have $19 a day for food and any money my dad gives me I will save for my MasterCard.

I’m at $1006 and now $886 but there is about $11 in interest each month so $897 I’ll be at. Hopefully I can spend another hundred on it later this month or next month. I’ll save it for January. And in January I get gst cheque of $160 so I’ll save that for February.

Feb and March will be low fund months cuz I only get $484 a month for all my bills and food and I have to put $120 on my Mc each month at least. So that’s $364 for food in feb and March. Hopefully my dad will get my groceries again for those months.

And then in April I will get $160 gst again which will help and I’ll put it all on my Mc.

I will be paid off by July next year by paying my most reasonable amount and not overdoing it. I should be saving my money to put every little extra bit on my mc but if I just have until summer to have to keep paying I think that will be okay.

I won’t have much extra spending money for the whole summer but I guess I will have to manage. Hopefully my dad buys me groceries and that lasts me all month long so I can buy little extra things here and there. I like spending my money on cool things and treating myself.

I’m glad I’ll be debt free next year. I spent $105 while Joel stayed with me. I bought cds and a sweater and random snacks here and there. At least it was only a hundred but that’s still a lot. Joel’s influence has me spending my dough. But they gave me $150 so I guess I spent my extra. And I paid my Mc and I still have a reasonable amount for food. Roughly $20 a day isn’t bad for a month. And I’ll get Xmas food.

If I can go the rest of this week without buying anything I’ll have a lot extra money. I’ll have to eat rice and soup and such. I have bananas and apples and not much of an appetite. So it should work out. I might even have extra for my Mc which would be awesome.

I want to pay it off before July, maybe I will get lots of birthday money in April and I can use that on it. That would be so nice to spend summer with all my extra money, having my full $484 for everything. I shouldn’t have spent money on random bullshit in earlier months this year but I guess I wasn’t thinking. I remember wasting $70 on clothes I don’t need. Oh well.

I’ve wasted a lot of money on clothes in my life. I’m doing better now but still spending on cds and stuff but I need these cds cuz they are super important music to me. Even though I won’t have a lot of extra spending money I’ll still spend money on things. I try to buy low money food and not eat out much. I think everything will work out and I’ll be paid off before July. I’m excited to be debt free, I will feel so proud.

Joel gets me into money issues kind of. They had $1500 to themselves this month and they’ve already spent almost all of it and it’s only the 7th. They really know how to waste money. I know how to spend and still save and not spend when I’m getting low. If I had $1500 to myself without having to pay rent I would have paid off my credit cards. I’m glad I only have the one credit card.

I’m waiting for my hair to grow and for my Mc to be paid off. I don’t have much else to wait for. I don’t know what kinds of fun things will be happening in springtime summertime because of covid. I wonder if they will solve the virus and everyone can go back to normal. I’m not afraid of the virus and I want to meet new people. But all in due time.

I’m alone a lot but I need to be. Having one best friend who is spiritually inclined and Métis and two spirited is fulfilling enough for my social life. I don’t need much socialization. I like the peace and quiet of the world. I like meditating and praying and being silent and chilling out. I don’t like bullies or loud mouths or rude people. I don’t like dirty stinky people that want to ruin a pure persons clean. I like being clean. I’m also wild and respectful. I love nature and nature loves me. I’m ready for the spring.

I’m gonna be on social assistance for a few more years probably. I don’t know how or where I’ll get a part time job eventually but that will probably be good for me. I just want to keep chilling out for now though.

I get all my time to myself to do whatever I want. That’s a blessing of mine. I’m never bothered by anyone and nobody expects any responsibilities of me except myself. I gotta keep my clothes and dishes clean and bedsheets and body. I have good hygiene and I’m attractive and in decent shape. I’ve got extra tummy poundage but it’s ok it’s not that bad but it’s not the best.

I’m very comfortable and I feel good here. The breeze kisses me and I have a spirit with me that encourages me to feel my best. When I look in the mirror I see beautiful eyes and a nice face. I like myself.

I still dream of Laura a bit but I know I’ll have to wait for death or a miracle day to have any time with her. She completely disregarded my need for love and hurt me deeply. She still looks fun and beautiful but she is not that way to me. Only in my visions is she kind and giving. When I die I will have a lot of satisfying conversations.... in my dreams last night there was a sort of video game with Laura in a car and she was in a wheelchair too and I laughed at her for having a problem in life. Some part of me wants her to have a hard time cuz she made me have such difficult moments for so many years. Her consciousness is riddled with drugs and abuse and she hurt my soul deeply. When I am dead and she is dead I will have a comforting interaction with her and she will probably see why I am fun to love too.

It hurts a lot to find someone fun to love and they don’t feel like loving you back. It hurts a heck of a lot. She was the most elegant beautiful skin I had ever witnessed up close and I fell deeply for her in a way I’ve never experienced before; I lost consciousness yet I was still awake when I fell in love with Laura. I had so many beautiful visions of her... I wondered why nobody else ever could tell how beautiful my love for her was. And I loved her for 8 years. I now feel like I can wait for death or a miracle before I get to talk to her for real.

She made me feel like my life doesn’t mean anything. I felt judged to an insane degree. Slander swarming the air around me, hatred and disgust, rumours and disrespect. There are a lot of angry people in this city of Saskatoon and I dealt with a lot of their inner thoughts about me. Good thing I always know I’m gorgeous and strong and a healer and mighty and beautiful because their slander was unwarranted yet I had to witness it and get through it with a positive new day in my future.

I’ll get to eat sleep and breathe calmly for the next 3 years on social assistance. I wonder when I’ll be weaned off the injection.

Life doesn’t have a lot going on and it is easy. You welcome death and people help you. Be brave enough to suffer and aid will come. For how alone I am, I am still not alone. The spirits bless me and I am kept safe. I have my own family here and my brother died so my life can be more safe with his protection. I fell in love with Laura because love is protective too and the angels blessed me in Laura’s beautiful vision and I got through the toughest part of my life so far.... getting a home to myself.

I am left alone to rumerate and soak up my peace. Nobody has a lot of time for me except my best friend sometimes but she has her own issues and can’t be by my side every time.

I am on a spirit walk to find the nature that needs me.

I’m not close with my mom anymore because she wants me to be feminine and I’ve always been masculine; I feel disrespected by her and it hurts me deeply.

I’m not close with my step dad because he doesn’t like homosexuals and since I came out of the closet I know he has an issue with me.

I’m not close with my dad because he is sick and says horrible things and expects everything to be fine forever. He has serious emotional issues and doesn’t deal with them and he abuses drugs and alcohol and I don’t have any respect for that person.

I don’t like my dads girlfriend because she doesn’t understand what I am and she assumes disgusting things and has a sick understanding of the world. She judges my life and she wastes hers away. I don’t respect her either.

My living triplet brother has shown me time after time that he takes my power away when I am weak and he weakens me more so he can be dominant. He doesn’t respect me and I don’t feel safe around him. He isn’t a good guy and I don’t admire his way of life. He has let me down too many times for me to keep a true love for him.

My older brother is a hermit and never contacts me and he seems like a pussy and he doesn’t enjoy being a man. I lost my communication with him years ago when I was having stressful mental times. Everyone in the family judges me now because I am the crazy one.

My best friend spends time with me out of their convenience and gets me to help them with stuff and we don’t hang out to hang out it’s always to fix some issue in their life. They don’t have the energy to talk to me about what I want to talk about so I feel stepped on and disregarded by them. They say they love me and I know they do but they also don’t have a lot of time for me. I am quiet and calm so they assume I have nothing to do and nowhere to want to be. They are a loud busy person and conceited and annoying and repetitive and they think I’m a pussy but I think they are too. We fight sometimes because they’re not true best friend material for me but they’re all I have. I don’t have a deep thinking artist friend. I don’t have a fun loving musician friend. I just have a self hating erratic friend that doesn’t respect me a lot of the time but is impossible to see that. I am challenged to stick up for myself most times I see them and that’s not a friendship situation. That’s a bully. But they’re all I have for social life so I take what they say with a grain of salt and I enjoy them and their dog as much as I can. They’re still a person that cares about me, they just have a lot of self centred habitual thinking that bothers me.

I don’t have anyone else in my life. My family doesn’t feel like family anymore for years now and I only have one okay friend that my family doesn’t like. So I have no beautiful woman today, I have no beautiful best friend.

I have issues with people and I have a lot of alone time. I feel hurt by everyone and I need to find someone who appreciates me for me.

Time will tell who in this city will fall for me.

I will be respected one day.

And I will live every day until I die.

I probably have over 25000 days to live if I die of old age. That’s a thousand days 25 times over. I have a lot of days to get through.

And the sun will shine and the birds will sing and the fluffy kitties and puppies will play. And the world will be okay. And people will heal.

It is a good life.

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andrewdburton · 4 years

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Pizza Delivery is for Millionaires

My son and I are having a beautiful Saturday night here at home. The sun is setting over the mountains outside my bedroom window and I’ve just finished baking a pizza which I am about to serve up for his dinner.

Although our day has been very simple, there has been an underlying magic within it that triggered an epiphany that I just had to write to you about. Because within this simple moment seems to be the secret to pretty much everything.

We woke up to a cloudless blue sky and were treated to summer-like warmth even though it’s November. I served up a French toast breakfast and then we ate together as we made plans for our day. We decided the first stage would be some computer work for him, while I went out to do some yard work and a bit of maintenance and cleanup on my construction van, to get it ready to lend to a friend.

Stage Two was our big walk downtown. Little MM wanted to get some shots of old buildings as part of an assignment for photography class, and I wanted to fix a minor leak in the roof of the MMM HQ Coworking building, so we decided to combine the errands. The walk was long and adventurous and we even stopped for some exorbitant ice cream cones on the way, courtesy of a gift card I received for helping someone last month.

We got it all done – Little MM got his 24 required shots, I fixed the roof and also ran into my co-owners Mr. and Mrs. 1500 who were setting up the building for a group breakfast tomorrow. So my boy and I strolled the 1.5 miles home through the sunny leafy autumn streets of Longmont and settled in for the night.

I popped one of my homemade pizzas into the oven. Because it was a big one, it was going to take at least 25 minutes to cook so I figured I’d use that time to shower off the day’s dust and sunscreen. But then I noticed my hair was starting to get a bit out of control so I gave myself a quick haircut before the shower.

And as I stepped out of my room, dressed in clean clothes and feeling sharp and healthy and arriving in the fancy kitchen I built last month just as the oven beeped to indicate the pizza was finished, I realized that this is the secret to wealth. Days like today. Monetary wealth for sure, but also every other kind of wealth.

We had just enjoyed an almost perfect day almost effortlessly, just by having the right habits in place.

We had a shitload of fun, socialized and exercised and advanced the projects that are important to us. But simultaneously, we spent very close to zero dollars, and left the world mostly unscathed as we finished our day.

The beeping of that oven full of homemade pizza was what really set off the epiphany in my head.

“Damn”, I realized, “even with all this excess money building up over the years, it didn’t even occur to me to order a pizza. It’s just automatic, and thus faster and cheaper and healthier, to make my own.”

Plus by avoiding the delivery I am saving my neighbors from one gas-powered car bringing an unnecessary extra serving of danger and pollution onto our street. It’s a three-way win with no losing involved.

Ordering a decent extra-large pizza including tax, tip and delivery: $20 Dad’s Homemade pizza: about $4 Difference: 500%

Sure, the difference here is only sixteen bucks, but I wanted to highlight the percentage difference instead. Because if you apply this philosophy of efficient, automatic habits all through your life, it really does tend to cut your costs so that your life becomes 2, 3, 4, or even 5 times less expensive.

So I thought to myself “WHY does anyone who is not even a millionaire yet, or even worse who has a mortgage or credit card debt, still do something as frivolous and easily avoided as ordering a pizza?*”

With that example drawn out in detail, let’s look at some of the other details of this day:

New kitchen in my latest frugal fixer-upper house in progress. Even the toaster is fancy!

My new kitchen which made that pizza cooking so enjoyable was built on a total budget of about $6000 including changing the floorplan, electrical, plumbing, cabinets, countertops and all the appliances.

This is less than half of what custom-ordered cabinets alone would have cost, and a full kitchen remodel of this type usually tops $25,000. But by getting assemble-it-myself cabinets from Ikea and my appliances from Craigslist and doing all of the work myself, I cut the cost by about 75%, while earning plenty of great physical exertion and satisfaction at the same time. Savings: about $20,000 or 80%

My son is in the public middle school rather than in the private school across town, which is where some of the other multimillionaire parents send their kids. If the private school were better for his needs, of course we could afford to send him there too. But we gave the local option a chance and it has turned out to be an incredible place for him. Savings: about $20,000 per year or roughly 100%

We chose walking as our means of transportation, and if we were in a rush we would have ridden our bikes. This habit of not driving doesn’t just save me gas and maintenance money, it also allows me to keep an older vehicle. I have a 1999 Honda van that is still in sparkling new condition.

She just reached drinking age, all cleaned up for her first can of Coors Light!

It stays new because I barely use it, because I have designed my life to be within an entirely muscle-powered radius. But this brand-new van is worth less than two grand and insurance is about twenty bucks a month. Maintenance is less than $10, registration is $5. Savings versus owning an “average” $35,000 American car and driving an average amount: about $600 per month or 90%.

We didn’t go “shopping” (100% savings), watched a movie at home instead of the theatre (100%), I cut my own hair for the something-hundredth time (100%), we advanced our health rather than chipping away at it (100%), and built this warm caring relationship with each other as well as with our friends (priceless).

And there were all sorts of other less tangible things working in the background too. I bought a commercial building and started this coworking space as a way to pass the time and spend time with old and new friends – the same reasons that someone might buy a vacation home in the mountains or at the beach.

But instead of costing me a few thousand dollars per month and requiring 100 miles of driving every time I visit, this building is just a pleasant walk from home and it generates thousands per month in cashflow and appreciation. It is great for the mental and physical health of all of our 75 members and growing, and we all save money by being a part of this community.

Mr. 1500 and I hosting a party at MMM-HQ for the first screening of the Playing with FIRE documentary, April 2019

The funny part of all this is that today was a completely normal day for us – most of my days are very similar to this one. The only unusual part was that I happened to take a step back and actually notice it. And that is really the point of this whole article:

We get used to our daily routine, and think of it as “normal”, even if it is completely ridiculous.

In recent months, I have just had my eyes re-opened as I have had more contact with people who are living more typical American lives than me. Their normal is different than mine, so when I visit I happen to notice the differences – more car trips and impulse purchases and pizza deliveries.

These people are not living lifestyles that appear exorbitant at all, and their houses aren’t packed with expensive things. But these little 5-to-1 differences just silently happen, quietly and consistently and add up to perhaps $100 per day, when compared with a more streamlined lifestyle.

And $100 every day becomes $36,500 every year, and if you invest that conservatively it will compound into about $520,000 every decade.

$520,000 per decade. Just from the tiny mindset switch between “hey lets order a pizza” versus “Hey, let’s throw a pizza into the oven.”

I really think this is important, and as this whole “FIRE Movement” thing grows, some people are getting soft and complaining that Mr. Money Mustache is “too extreme”, and so we should take a gentler and easy path and let our spending get sloppy if that is what’s right for us.

The thing is, this is usually just wrong. It’s laziness rather than practicality. Because Mr. Money Mustache is already plenty spendy, and plenty sloppy – well beyond the level required to live a happy life.

I can afford to live this way, because I’m old and wealthy now. If you are still young and poor, you should be spending less than me, not more.

So, pizza delivery is for millionaires, and it’s also time to put away those car-clown keys and get back on your bike. We’ve still got work to do.

* Of course, this is a perfect-world generalization. Real life has room for joyful exceptions and imperfections. But you have to know the reality of what you should be doing, before you can safely start making exceptions like ordering your pampered ass a pizza.

from Finance https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2019/11/18/pizza-delivery-is-for-millionaires/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

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shandragdotson · 4 years

Text

Pizza Delivery is for Millionaires

We had just enjoyed an almost perfect day almost effortlessly, just by having the right habits in place.

The beeping of that oven full of homemade pizza was what really set off the epiphany in my head.

Ordering a decent extra-large pizza including tax, tip and delivery: $20 Dad’s Homemade pizza: about $4 Difference: 500%

With that example drawn out in detail, let’s look at some of the other details of this day:

New kitchen in my latest frugal fixer-upper house in progress. Even the toaster is fancy!

She just reached drinking age, all cleaned up for her first can of Coors Light!

Mr. 1500 and I hosting a party at MMM-HQ for the first screening of the Playing with FIRE documentary, April 2019

We get used to our daily routine, and think of it as “normal”, even if it is completely ridiculous.

And $100 every day becomes $36,500 every year, and if you invest that conservatively it will compound into about $520,000 every decade.

$520,000 per decade. Just from the tiny mindset switch between “hey lets order a pizza” versus “Hey, let’s throw a pizza into the oven.”

I can afford to live this way, because I’m old and wealthy now. If you are still young and poor, you should be spending less than me, not more.

So, pizza delivery is for millionaires, and it’s also time to put away those car-clown keys and get back on your bike. We’ve still got work to do.

from Finance https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2019/11/18/pizza-delivery-is-for-millionaires/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

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wandering4ever · 7 years

Text

#wanderbloop #game plan #at least im trying #why couldnt my auto payment have just fucking worked #it worked for so many months before hand #and then suddenly it just fucking disnt

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katzirra · 7 years

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I think you are great and ypu are doing a good job! No matter what the other people said you are awesome! Keep doing hard work! Slow progress is still progress! 🙌

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damonbation · 4 years