#better than a shitty job that doesn't pay enough and i'm stressed and physically tired

[hotvampireadjacent]

i feel like that. comic about the person talking about how sometimes people act like. abused dogs and don't know how to accept kindness.

I was so sure my work friend forgot me and she didnt she added me to the group chat :^) i'm so used to people irl always forgetting and leaving me out of things..

[altheterrible]

I'm so fucking tired of being poor.

I got paid today and I have $3 left in my checking account.

I make $13/hour at one job and $10/hour at my second. So I make about $325 per week at the first job and $150 per week at the second before taxes. I pay roughly 25% in taxes, leaving me about $250 in take home pay a week. My sister takes $150 a week before it even touches my bank account for rent and bills, leaving me $100 for a week. I'm stuck in a cycle of payday loans through the Earnin app, totally my fault, and they get roughly $50 a week. So I have $50 a week to spend, and that goes towards Uber rides and bus fare to get to work and doctors appointments along with things like toiletries.

I need to make more money, but I cannot work more as I'm already pushing my shitty, chronically ill body past what is healthy. I feel like death all the time, headaches, cough, body aches. I'm in constant pain thanks to neuropathy and my shitty crooked spine.

So I need a better paying job. But my education is useless, I can't admit to having a doctorate, let alone use it, for at least another year. I have a very highly developed, niche set of skills so until I'm licensed again, I'm essentially useless: I can do minimum wage work or very skilled work and nothing in between. Or nothing exists in between that doesn't require it's own certification and licensing. Could I do medical lab technology stuff? Absolutely, but I'm not certified and can't afford to be certified so no one will hire me. It's all like that.

I'm stuck in this situation for another year, another long, exhausting, stressful year of scaping by paycheck to paycheck. And I'm lucky! My housing situation is pretty secure, I have Medicaid so I'm not incurring medical debt, I live in the city so I don't need to own a car. It could be much worse.

But being poor begets being poor. I've always been poor so my physical health is shitty, and that limits my earning potential because I can't "just hustle more" to get ahead. I work myself until I'm exhausted and it's still not enough because I don't have the stamina of a healthy person, my threshold for exhaustion is too low and I HATE IT. I HATE MY BODY. I would love to pick up extra shifts every time I can fit it into my schedule, but overworking makes me physically sick. So being poor made me sick, and now it's hard for me to escape being poor because I'm sick.

I keep reminding myself it's only another year. The first year went by fast. It's less than a year until I can get licensed, actually, but I need to find a way to pay my $1000 fine before I can get licensed again. No fucking idea how that's going to happen, but one problem at a time I guess.