Waste, Finance, and Change
We grew up poor. Not the kind of poor that left us on the street or going hungry, but there was always a strain where money was involved. My dad worked two or sometimes three jobs at a time, about fifteen to eighteen hours a day. Starting at 2AM with the Brownes Milk delivery rounds in Perth CBD, ending at 2PM for a quick nap and back from 5PM to 10PM to load the truck he would take out again the next morning. My mum was at home most of the time, first with myself and my sister, then another two sisters a few years later. We had a house in the ‘posh’ part of Perth’s ghetto, that was at least partially paid for by my dad’s parents. Before that, my mum, dad, and I lived in a granny flat in my grandparent’s backyard that’s actually still there and has been used by a few family members since, including me.
With dad working all the time and mum getting stoned all day to deal with the stress of early motherhood, my sis and I had a lot of free time and independence. We grew up on Chicken Tonights, copious amounts of cereal, and flavoured milks that dad brought home from work every week. Often there wasn’t bread in the house to make sandwiches for school, though that wasn’t because we couldn’t afford it, it was just that grocery shops were inconsistent.
I should probably clarify that we didn’t grow up destitute, it wasn’t that we didn’t have income. Dad worked like a horse and there was definitely money coming in—it was just getting wasted as soon as it got into the account. I had no idea of any of this at the time, but looking back, I see now that my parents just managed their money poorly. They would have ‘piss-ups’ every weekend with friends and family, and usually supplied the alcohol, the amount of weed that was consumed each week was a huge expense, and for some reason, mum insisted on having meat every single night. Feeding a family of six on 3kgs of chicken and a jar of sauce most nights will hike up the grocery bill. We also practiced Takeout Thursdays, when every week, we would get $80 worth of pizza, or Chinese or whatever it was. Some Thursdays mum’s family would come over and the bill would double.
My dad never drank, never smoked, spent upwards of 60% of his life working, and still we had overdue bills, credit card debt, weeks without groceries, and constant lectures about the length of our showers.
We also got gaming consoles, a computer, literally three thousand-plus DVDs (after the culling of as many VHS tapes), large TVs for every room with the DVD players, a running Foxtel subscription, a steady rotation of cars, silly knick-knacks, board games—you get it—my sister and I had a fun childhood, which we paid for in unnecessary stress, malnutrition and abuse. My parents had a fun lifestyle, which they paid for the same way. I can say with absolute certainty now, that I would have slept on a single mattress on the floor with nothing but my books to get a healthy home-cooked meal every day (that wasn’t solely meat), time with my dad when we he wasn’t exhausted and grumpy, and a calm house in which a fifteen-minute shower wasn’t followed by an hour-long anxiety-ridden rant from mum.
It’s easy to condemn our parents for the crappy job they did with us—I think its a universal commonality across every single generation—evolution dictates we be better, we find fault and fix it. It’s hard to acknowledge that they did their best and at some point we become solely responsible for our own shit. Especially in the age of free information and widely-accessible internet. You have money problems? Get on YouTube and learn how to make a budget. You have anger issues? Go to a free community meditation class and cultivate some resilience to the world. You depressed? A five minute internet search will yield countless articles on how cold showers, meditation, physical exercise, gratitude practices, etc will literally CURE your depression.
If you have access to information, you have the potential for wisdom. The latter does not automatically come by ingesting the former, but over time and with consistent dedication to your own evolution and education, wisdom will come. Perhaps with a little wisdom you won’t make the mistake of spending your time and money on entertainment rather than nourishment. You will learn how to invest and set up a future in which you don’t have to work for another person ever again.
With wisdom comes a clear line-of-sight to freedom. Bright lights and pretty things don’t give you a happy life, they make you a prisoner of comfort and entertainment. To the point where you will trade your health, your precious time, and your potential for season tickets to the footy, or the largest OLED TV you can mount in front of your bed.
A couple things my childhood taught me retrospectively about money—you don’t need it to have a good life, and, your use of it can make your life very easy or very hard.
My parents later bought their own business, ran it into the ground, and declared bankruptcy when they failed to pay their taxes. They sold our childhood home out of necessity and my dad still works 80 hour weeks at 53 years old, just to cover rent and the bills.
Change is hard, and it gets harder the longer you wait to do it. I started working at 13 and moved out at 16, I enjoyed almost all my work and spent all my money on travelling, eating exquisite food, learning new skills—but I still didn’t set myself up for real freedom until recently. Genuine change is hard, but what else are you going to fucking do?