I fail at check-writing. I think Margarita is paying the price. Well, I am too, with a stab of 25 bones in an overdraft fee. Twice. Four times if you count the fact that I am recompensating her.

I happen to think that I am very responsible with my money, especially lately. Way early in my career as an Aide I stopped buying things I didn't need. I cut back on everything, consolidated trips home to multiple tasks just so I would not waste the gass money. For the past year especially, I will go a long time without eating because it costs me out the ass just to survive. Everything has a dollar sign.

Something happens when you get older, though, and it's something that I often take for granted: grown up needs are absurdly expensive. Whether they are tickets (guilty), loan payments (guilty), car payments (sort of guilty), or medical costs (guilty) They will drain the shit out of your meager bank account. Sometimes I feel like even when I am way overestimating how much something costs, it ends up costing even more. For example, my dental bill? If I do everything that they want me to do, it costs me literally 1/6 of what I am paid in a year. And they want to do it within three weeks. Not a chance in hell.

On top of that, and this is not a complaint towards my employer as much as it is a complaint towards public opinion dictating how much government employees should make: I don't make nearly enough money for the work that I do. When I tell people I work for a politician, they think two things about me: 1) power, and 2) money, of which I have neither. My power is limited to my resolve in granting myself enough self-respect and backbone to resist the blame for all of my constituency's ills. My money is limited to enough for me to survive on (most of the time) and little else. Let's be clear, my savings account is a joke. There is nothing in there at any given time, because it all goes towards something. I live paycheck to paycheck.

Do I want more? Well, no. I don't think I need more than it takes to maintain something that qualifies as a standard of living. What I would like is enough that I don't have to bounce checks to Margarita or be late on my car payments. My credit score is probably not so much bad as it is struggling to still be a number at all. It doesn't bother me to be poor, because I don't want much in terms of riches. It bothers me to be unable to make good at least with the obligations I have. I could care less about a nice car or a big house (or even a house). I want to just break even.

On top of this, budgeting is extremely hard for me because I am so forgetful. I have even forgotten plans to make a budget. Instead of planning, I just change the way I think about expenses. Urgent needs are all I am typically willing to pay for. Occassionally, I will buy a drink for myself and someone else, or fast food.

Someone said recently that our society has made it a crime to be poor. I think that's oversimplification. I think the nature of money ties virtue to a balance of wealth. If I have enough to pay my debts, I am a good man. If I don't, I am not. If I have so much that I pay off my obligations and have some left over that I am not donating, I am greedy.

In Star Trek, people have jobs which are pursuant to their ambitions, talents, and desires. Money does not exist, and poverty does not exist. Maybe once we reach a technological age where machinery and computers can accomplish rudimentary labor, all goods will be socialized and we will be free to pursue purpose instead of the dollar.

I am not a commie.