That's great. You certainly have to believe the situation can take a turn. But I'm curious about your thought on this:
"Luck is when opportunity meets preparation." So yes the world may need to present you with an opportunity, but what can you do to expedite it's arrival? What connections can you make? What skills can you build? What positions can you put yourself in?
I did borrow some library books about those types of issues (along with the many Blu-Rays and DVDs). I could read some of these books if I'm not overly distracted. Perhaps reading should be balanced with watching.
GrowingPains said:
This TV interest seems to be quite consuming. Time wise and financially. If you consider your subscriptions alone, you could end them and be going on one date a week.
I could afford to go on a date if needs be at this time. I've been in a worst position before. One time I shoveled snow to pay for a movie that I took a girl ("Just friends, as she had a bf at the time but went out with me as a "friend", we just kept each other company) out to see in an old car I bought for around a thousand bucks and we hung around in the mall after. I have vast ideas of cheap and inexpensive dates and know lots of natural park locations within the city that I like biking around. I really don't think that money is a barrier for dating.
Being on a broke-mode vs actually being broke are two different things. One is emotional because you see your account is going down because of expenses more than you are bringing in and an uncomfortable pace, the other is mathematical. Mathematically I've never actually been broke where I could not go on a date even in situations in the past where I would consider myself worst off than today.
GrowingPains said:
Of course, the choice is yours but I'm just saying. Sometimes you gotta: starve now, feast later. Everyone has to put in different levels of effort to change their situation, I get that, I'm just highlighting the potential ways you could change yours. The TV/theatre room also sounds expensive. If you ruthlessly saved your money, do you think you could pay your debts off quicker?
The theater room so far has cost me nothing. The paint is like $ 30.00. We got a deal with the furniture company with no payments or interest for a year and a half so we don't have to worry about that now. I have not actually purchased a digital projector. However, if I go cheap, I could buy one off Amazon for about a hundred dollars or so. The quality would suck, but you'd still have something. I never said I was buying top-of-the line 4K or 3D quality projector. I get I have to be realistic. If money comes in later, then I can always upgrade and buy a better projector down the road.
The basement TV set-up is about a two years ago. That's too much of a length of time to be relevant today. Nevertheless the basement was a complete mess and I cleaned it up and rewarded myself by changing a portion of it into a sort of private TV/theater room. The image is cramped up if it's a ultra-wide movie, but I don't mind it now.
I can't really save money that I'm not making in the first place. I only ruthlessly save when I'm on a broke-mode. I'm currently on a broke-mode.
I put the plumb-line at about a certain account level to determine whether I'm on broke-mode or not.
Growingpains said:
Since your a believer in God, you may find Dave Ramsey's books or even just his YouTube channel to be quite relatable. I'd check it out. He has a no BS guide to getting out of debt.
It only works if you have a reliable income. For pay debt, income has to be higher than expenses so you have money aside to pay debt.
However, if I just paid $ 30,000 out of a $ 50,000 debt, then I think that's pretty good based on the way I'm portraying myself.
Growingpains said:
Maybe. But maybe you are just disguising your complaining by presenting it as fact. But it is certainly hard to feel as if you are wanting to change because you recognize the problem , like Dave, but we don't see any serious effort on your end to change the situation. Again, a mindset issue.
What effort would you be expecting me to do that would be construed as serious? I hope I have explained myself in this and the past post.
Growingpains said:
You identify the problem and then say you are content with being distracted (from solving the problem, essentially). This is what doesn't add up.
Saying I'm feeling content and saying I'm not working on the problem are two different things. First of all I don't watch TV shows or movies all of the time. It may be hard to believe this, but it's true. A vast amount of time, in the morning, is actually invested in devotion towards God, and in managing the affairs at home that may crop up through the day. I have back-logs of Blu-Rays/DVDs that I often return back to the library and take them out again because I don't have the time to watch them. Even when I'm out, if I watch something on the tablet, it's usually about 20 minutes or so. I have to make this correction in case there is a misunderstanding of the scale of which things are happening.
I personally can't waste time. Allot of times, if I do watch something, it is very late in the evening. Well away from the issues of the day. The only reason I subscribed to these online places was to reduce the backlog, so instead of 20-30 DVD/Blu-rays that are like that, it may just a be a couple or so since you can stream most of the stuff online on demand. You don't have to worry about not having the time to watch something, just pay the subscription fee and relax.