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The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/Music_as_Medicine on 2023-12-20 03:31:28.

Technically this day was about a year ago or so. But it was the start of a grand shit storm.

Irresponsiblity is a serious thing you need to self reflect on once you get financial freedom. I did not and despite being a rather self aware person, I fucked up bad. I mean bad bad

Now this is gonna sound insane and even fake to some people. But I swear to you, you can go look up the sign on bonuses for Pharmacist at Walgreens and you’ll see.

When I started as a pharmacist I was given a 75,000 sign on bonus! Yes really, a whole fucking down payment on a house and then some. Even after taxes I was basically looking at 50,000. And I had no debts, no loans, nothing to pay off.

But boy did I fuck up in many ways

Starting with forming a rather unfortunate gambling based hobby due to my hyperfixation as one with ADHD and other brain issues.

My childhood self saw I was making good money and went “I’M GONNA LIVE OUT THE DREAM” and so I bought fucking everything from MTG to Pokemon to Yugioh plus a PC and a ton of games. I had a serious gambling issue in the form of what was essentially cardboard crack.

I bought duplicates of practically every product I opened and kept one aside saying it’ll be a good return investment in the future. Unfortunately it’s an exotic investment that takes up space and time and is entirely a gamble or waiting game. And while sometimes I got cool stuff I usually ended up having to buy the cards I wanted anyway CUZ ITS FUCKING GAMBLING

Once I came to my senses I lost a good amount of money, even after selling off 90% of my sealed collection and I’m still sorting through the mess of cards and crap I bought and finding I dislike alot of cards artwork that I bought cuz it was just FOMO FROM THE FUCKING MARKETING.

BUT IT ISNT OVER

I got a 3000 dollar PC, I got my partner a 3000 PC, I got about 50 video games ranging from 20 to 60 dollars a piece, I got a bunch of stupid display stuff of different characters and games and TV shows I liked (halo, skyrim, etc)

THEN MY CAR BASICALLY FUCKING EXPLODED CUZ IT WAS HANGING ON BY A THREAD AND HAD 350,000 MILES ON IT.

SO WHAT DO I DO? do I get a nice normal car?? A cheaper one thats reliable? NO!

I BUY A FUCKING HYBRID RAV4 2023 THAT COST 46,000 AND PUT 15,000 DOWN ON IT.

SO here’s the math:

15,000 for the car + 6,000 for the computers + 10,000 or so in SHINY FUCKING CARDBOARD + 5,000 in other stupid dumb bullshit + GOD KNOWS HOW MUCH IN ORDERING FOOD.

IN THE END I was left with about 7,000

BUT WAIT THERES MORE!

I WAS FIRED CUZ I WAS A STUPID FUCKING MORON.

Then I have no insurance, 7000 to my name, and end up needing to go to the ER!

SO there goes like 3500 of that 7000 and the rest goes to bills and rent.

I eventually found a new job, made some good money back and I kept my credit at around a 790 and ended up with a 17,000 in an IRA.

BUT THEN, THE WORST PART HAPPENS.

I HAVE PAY BACK 70,000

yeah, with 8% interest mind you, I have to pay it all back plus the taxes the government took cuz I only get that back after I get a W-2c. So I have to pay my full bonus and then some back.

And do I have a house or anything to show for it? Anything at all where I can at least say “well I guess it was like a loan, at least we got something out of it”

NO, I DONT, CUZ IM A FUCKING IDIOT WHO IS PAYING A $70,000 LOAN OFF SO THAT I DONT GET SUED BY A COLLECTION AGENCY (if I wasn’t paying it’d go there)

So yeah…take this however you want. Maybe it’ll make you feel better. Maybe nothing at all. Maybe you can shit all over me in the comments and act like you’re better than me after reading this one story. I do not care.

Just make sure you plan things out and think things through and talk to people and self reflect before you make hasty decisions. Especially as someone young looking at alot of money. I’ll never make this mistake again and now am far more concerned about retirement accounts, keeping my debts paid, and saving up for life and actual tangible experiences.

But wow did I fuck up.

Edit: I was fired due to leaving a gate open 2 inches for all of 3 minutes. Aka leaving a pharmacy unattended. You’re not supposed to though many do to some degree. I unfortunately before that had a autolocking door just not fully lock for some reason? By all purposes it was closed but because it didn’t actually close and someone was able to access the vaccine room it was considered unlocked. So yeah first time was the faulty door, got written up (I think that’s a load of crap since it’s an auto locking door that no one would ever bother to even check as it’s a nonvital door as it only leads to a vaccine area) but the second time I absolutely did the wring thing and fucked up there. That was on me

TL;DR : A job gave me lots of money, I spent lots of money, I lost the job, I owe lots of money.