Welcome to Episode Fifteen of: Chris McGinty – Enemy of Debt
For an explanation of this feature, and disclaimers that talk about how I’m not a professional money anything, go to Episode One. If you are caught up to speed though, we’ll begin discussing my friend who called me in financial desperation on July 10, 2011. Out of some, perhaps slight respect for his privacy, I’m not using his real name. I am instead referring to him as Genghis Confucius Say Man With No Cents Doesn’t Add Up To Dollars.
You know, last episode, I defended my method of trying to help Genghis as giving of myself what I was able to give. Yes, I just summed up 1,600 confusing words in a simple sentence. Well, I guess I’m going to have to write a rebuttal to my own argument, but we’ll get to that in a moment.
I told the tale about Genghis getting a bonus at his main job, and then, how the big payday loan cashed his check. The truth is that made things a lot easier, especially when I found out that we would have to deal with insurance and his suspended license. Because of the word limit that I’ve put on most of these episodes, I didn’t explain how we took care of a lot of this. I told you that his wife and I went to take care of the insurance, but I didn’t explain how I gave him a To Do List and set him free on his own. He went and paid the fees on the other two payday loans, and a few other things. I was very impressed with him, because he did everything just as he was supposed to. I didn’t get a call from him saying that he was short on anything, along with some excuse about why he had to use some of the money.
The reason I wrote last week’s episode was because I wanted to segue into what might be a new age of the Enemy of Debt saga. My plan was to have him start calling me and telling me how much money he got on his check, and then giving him instructions. It would make him take responsibility for himself, and let me get some sleep. All that would be required of me would be to play accountant to make sure he’s doing what he’s supposed to.
The problem is that the one thing he didn’t do on that To Do List was to get his pay stub showing how much he got on that bonus check. Nor did he ever remember to get it between then and his most recent check. I was understandably curious if he was just forgetting, or if there was a reason.
I showed up at his work that morning. We looked at how much he had, and then we went to his apartment where I made him sit down and work out a budget, based on the money he had in his bank and the money I held onto from his last check so he would have enough to pay his bills this time. Between his main check and his guard check, he would not have enough money to pay his bills if I didn’t.
When the budget was done, we went to the bank, and I insisted that he get a 30-day activity report. If you haven’t been paying attention to all of the hints, that asshole pulled out $80 prior to my arrival the week he got the bonus, which is why he wouldn’t bring me the pay stub.
I could go into the bitch out session I gave him. Heck, I could go into the bitch out session I gave him a few days prior when I went over to take him lozenges and his wife told me that he was saying that he was going to tell me not to help him anymore because he could handle it from there. But really, I want to spin this so that I don’t look like the fucking asshole that I was to him.
I’m so frustrated with him. When I confronted him about his plan to tell me he could handle it on his own, he told me that he was tired of not having any money. I told him that that was why he needed my help, because he didn’t have any money whether I was helping him or not. If he believed that he would have money just because I wasn’t in the picture anymore then he’s a fucking idiot. He was like, “Well, since the payday loans will be paid off this time.” And I was like, “This is what I’m talking about, idiot. The only reason they will be paid off this time is because I was going to loan you enough to get them out of your way. If you weren’t such a dumb ass, you would know that you fucked yourself up when you called into work three fucking times, and set yourself back by $300 dollars. You have no money, you idiot. You can’t even pay your bills this time without my help, you idiot. Do you not get how fucking stupid you sound, you idiot?”
I’m so nice.
So, to find out that he was trying to sneak money past me when I’ve been loaning him money and giving him time and counsel… I’m so frustrated. I really thought we were making progress, and not just on the bills. Now I think the only reason he didn’t fuck up that To Do List was because he had already fucked up.
And before you tell me that it is his money and his choice. No. It’s my money, because I was going to loan it to him to pay his bills. It means that by the time his rent is paid on the Monday coming up at this writing, he will be $80 further into debt with me than he should have been.
There is a part of me that feels like giving up at this point, but he still needs to get some money saved for a vehicle so that if his mother-in-law finally gets sick of helping, he’s not without a vehicle.
I told him that he was going to set up a $1,000 emergency fund that would be in an account in his wife’s name. He asked me if he could do it in my name, because she would spend it. I told him that I wasn’t going to hold on to that much of his money, and that if she screwed up their emergency fund that all the nonsense she’s been lording over him about how she’s better with money than him would be easy to debunk. It’s not so easy to debunk now, because he would never let her have any say with their money without a fight.
The last thing I said to him after paying off the payday loans the other day was that we were still going to set up that emergency fund, and I feel bad for him, because the way he’s acting… she’ll probably end up using that emergency fund to move in with her mom when he gets them evicted early next year. Because he hasn’t learned a fucking thing.
[NOTE: This was written a few weeks ago, as I explained last week. I also explained that Enemy of Debt is over (at least as Genghis goes). I have to write an explanation of why I’m no longer helping Genghis, and that will be next week. Depending on how long the explanation ends up being, I might take two weeks to tell it, but at this time I think one week will do it, unless I get off on tangents and philosophical nonsense. See you then.]