friends without money
My visiting friend isn’t worried about money, she tells me.
She’s working part-time, the night shift, at a resort. She mans the desk and does some paperwork/payroll stuff. Pay? $9/hour.
She’s about to take add on another part-time job, for which she is willing to stay in her hometown. It isn’t her dream job or anything; it’s not even in the field she’s interested in. But, she says, the people are nice. And it’s something. Pay? $8/hour, with a chance to move up to $9 after 90 days.
I’ve tried to talk her into a move to Chicago, where I’m convinced she’d make much more than that, even in a low-level office job, but she wants to stick with this plan. I think in part she doesn’t want to move away from home again, and in part I think we’re both silently wondering if we’d still love each other after living together not in college.
I’m happy for her, in the sense that I think she’s made this decision and I support her. But I’m worried for her, too.
She just spent the last year living in New Orleans, making around $12.50 hour and having few expenses beyond rent, food and entertainment. She’s still enjoying the money she saved, in her bank account, then.
She has no health insurance, no savings, no back-up plan outside of family.
Today at lunch, I asked her if this is what she really wants or if it’s what she’s settling with. She said she didn’t know. We talked about money—about the future. She knows what I think.
But I don’t plan to bring it up again. At some point, you have to realize you can’t make someone else’s financial decisions for them, as much as you love and want to help them. You have to let go. What else can you do?
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2 Responses to “friends without money”
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I think moving to a bigger city for higher pay is overrated. I moved from a 50K place to a 500K place, and all I got was a 100+ percent rent increase and a slightly higher minimum wage. I can’t say moving here has made me better off financially or in any other way. This place is teeming with bums, street people, gangbangers, and other lowlifes which were rarely seen where I came from.
I think that likely there would be more oppotunity in a larger centre, but that you are taking a good approach and allowing her to make her own decisions.
Everyone is different and some people need more time to figure out their way. And coming from someone who has been in the position, sometimes some people need comfort & familiarity at home before being ready to embark on other plans. Or it may be that some people are happy with just moving along in PT minimum wage work. I did that for a few years (mainly due to some circumstances), but I hated it.
I’m now ready to make some decisions and get things in my life moving. Maybe it will be similar for yout friend, maybe not. But again, I think you are taking a good approach with just letting things “be” for now.