Whirlwind trip there and back again

Something I have, unfortunately, needed to do is a trip back home in the middle of a long trip visiting family.

Weirdly the first one that I did turned out very well. After getting up at the crack of dawn I headed home. I hit up a local renaissance festival that I was passing . I had thought that I would just go home the next day so I stopped at it for 1-2 hours I think? Then I finished my trip home for my laptops power cord.

I was home for about five minuets more before I couldn't handle the boredom and I just... Drove back the same day. I pasted by a terrible rain storm on my way out and then I was back at my families house. 

All in all the sun was up the whole time for my round trip. Sun rise at the start and then sun down when I returned. I was going the speed limit. There was no rush but I know how long the drive Should have been and with the stop at the renaissance festival? Even with out it I should have been getting back int he midnight to 2am range.

Not the first time weird things have happened while driving. 

I'm still looking for the exist that doesn't exist for the city whose name I don't know that also doesn't exist. I can find the area were the On Ramp to get back on the interstate had been. It went from a one lane construction-narrow road back to a three lane. But there is no on ramp there. Every time I have passed by since I look and there is nothing.

Also the random cryptid in the tiny town with the stop light that google now no longer takes my rout past. Both were separate one way trips.

Have I gotten a sash cam? Yes. Does it have a memory card big enough for my whole trip? Nope! But maybe next time.

I'll point out that big rig truck drivers are legally not allowed to drive more then 8 hours a day since around 2008-ish. I was working at a moving company at the time and it was a Big Deal. You never realized how dangerous it was and they got into a LOT of trouble if the messed with their logs.

Can you afford your job?

An odd title, but an important question that I never thought much about.

So way, way back in 2011 I wrote about debt & controlling mothers... By the end of that summer we got into another argument and this time she said "fine! then you can do it!". I haven't grabbed anything so fast in my life. ((Small recap, my mom wanted to be, and was in total control of my finances because blah blah blah and I was lazy & trying to do too much at once.))

After all was said and done I know have savings. Mostly because I finished paying off my card. I would have more if I have done my credit card balance transfer a hell of a lot sooner.

I transferred two credit card balances into one credit card bill. I had two bills that my mom had insisted on paying more then the min on. $275 each was what she had been doing before I got control of it. After? I'm paying $200 because that is the amount that works and is slightly over my minimum.

Unfortunately I chose to do a little math and looked into what was the minimum I would have to make per hour if I wanted to get a new job. I'm using really bad math but it makes for a nice cushion when planning.

Example:
$11 hr x 40 hr = $440 x 52 wk = $22,880 - 40% = $13,738

I played with my pay check and found that 40% was pretty close to representing taxes and health and 401k crap.  I should have just gone with 50% and made my life a tad easier.

My old job? didn't pay anywhere near that. In fact, my bills were $3,000 over what I was making. Not counting the trips my mom encouraged me to go on and starting a jewelry thing. All the while saying I could afford it.

I was very lucky that I am so boring or it could have been much, much worse.

From a financial point, this was a very bad situation. Emotionally? Nah, I'm good. Yes we argue and such but it's a 'normal' thing. She has stopped asking if I want her help because I was mean and laughed evil.

Personaly I would be much better off if I could move out. But that is slowly in the works (p.s. the first time home buyers club is evil) but I don't know if I can scrounge up the closing costs. Closing costs are the devil.

On Debt and Controlling Mothers

By controlling mothers I mean less on getting them to do what you want and more on them trying to control every aspect of your life.

My mom has done everything she can to avoid talking to me about my finances. While I do blame her for conditioning me to letting her handle all this. I do blame myself for letting this go on for so long. I know I should have dug my heels in back 11 years ago when I first noticed. My sister agrees that she turns our words around to make it sound like she is doing us a favor. Unfortunately I have no idea were she keeps my bills or even were she keeps my check book.

Yes, she insists on holding onto my check book for me. Hell, she still tries to hold my hand if we cross the street together.

Don't think I don't love her, I do. I just can't grasp why she feels the need to control everything I do. She gets upset if I don't ask her for her opinion/permission when I do things. I tell her what I plan on doing so I don't have to listen to her complain about it for the next days/weeks/years/forever.

A lot of my debt can be blamed on blind trust. Blind trust in my mother that I willingly did and still do. I think I am conditioned to do it. How ever that don't put the blame on anyone but myself. My conversations with her would be something like this.
Me: Can I afford this?
Her: Yes.

Every single time she will say yes. Upon getting a bill I would ask her why did she say I could afford it when I couldn't. She would say "You can't afford anything I don't know why you bought that." This was the start of the mother of all arguments. It was also when I stopped asking my mom for advice.

However the damage was done and it was done well.

At this rate back peddling is not an option. I need to do everything I can to take away what ever power she thinks she has over me. Fortunately my dad is helping a little, but only a little as he has to live with her after I move out. If I move out. God I hope I move out.