Money Is So Goddam Dumb

I'm having a super hard time being an adult today.

I work a full time job that doesn't pay enough to support my family.  My wife has a part-time job, and that helps, but we still don't really make enough to get by.

So I took a second job.  And my wife took a second job.  And together, we were able to make ends meet.

Or so we thought.

Turns out, my second job actually cost us money in the long run.  Because of the way my second job was operating (very similar to the way my wife's previous job was operating), I end up owing taxes at the end of the year.  So when we thought we were making ends meet... we weren't.  In fact, and this isn't hyperbole, I was losing money by having that second job.  If I had gotten a legitimate job, I would have been fine.  But now I have to scramble to find deductions I can make so that I don't end up owing more money than I will be able to make the whole year!

I work hard, and we don't make enough.  I work harder, and we have less than that.  I can't get ahead.  I don't understand this system and I don't know what to do so that my kids can have clothes, my wife can get some goddam glasses, and I can get a diet Pepsi every morning so that I can have enough fuel to keep going through the goddam day.  I don't know what I'm doing wrong, except maybe listening to the people who keep telling me that I'm doing it wrong and all I need to do is work harder and save more.  If I work harder and save more, I end up spending more money than I just worked for.  It's a losing battle.  I can't win.  I don't know what to read or study or do.  I don't know what kind of job to get or what kind of degree I need.  I'll do whatever it takes to make sure my family and myself are taken care of, but this is absolutely ridiculous.  Utterly ridiculous.  "The poor get poorer, and the rich get richer."  Yeah, you can say that again.  And if I knew how to make it to the flip side of that sentence, you can be damn sure that I would stay there as long as I could and make sure that nothing flipped back over.  I worked 50 hours of overtime last month.  That's one week and one day more than normal.  And it's all gone.  We haven't even gotten paid for all of it yet, but it's all gone already.  Almost like I was never at my office for an extra hour every day.  Almost like I was never at my office on two of my days off.  Almost like it never happened.  My work doesn't look any better.  I'm not any closer to a promotion.  I don't have any extra money to show for it, or clothes, or food, or a goddam ice cream.  I get to pay the attorney who did my fucking taxes for us who ends up telling us that we're going to owe the goddam government.  That same government who is currently not voting on gun control measures because the fucking Republicans won't allow a goddam vote through their goddam filibuster.  But they take all our money to sit there and not vote.  To sit there and not do their job.  One.  Hundred.  Seventy.  Four.  THOUSAND.  Dollars.  Every.  Year.  $174,000.  That's their STARTING pay.  And they work approximately half the year-- 150 days.  And their salary comes from me.  And you.  And I can't take my family out to McDonald's tonight even if we wanted to go.  And they make this for four goddam years!  If you cut their pay by $100,000 a year, they would STILL be making more than double my annual income!  And they work HALF the time as I do!  So it's almost like they're getting paid FOUR TIMES WHAT I MAKE!  TO DO NOTHING!!!

I just wanna live under a rock.  Where nobody can see me.  Or hear me.  Or see me.  I'm just so goddam dumb.