You never realize just how expensive life can be until you’re struggling to pay rent.
I consider myself the most financially responsible person I know, keeping a detailed excel sheet of all my bills, paychecks, and purchases, making sure I always know exactly how much I have, and how much I need to get by. That summer, the balances had been consistently red for the 4th month. Credit cards maxed out, car payment due in a few days, for the first time in my life, I didn’t have enough to pay next month’s rent. My girlfriend and I lived in a small 2 bedroom apartment just half an hour away from work. We both worked at a local medical office, making a decent living, but rent alone was burning through our earnings. We decided it might be best to start looking for a roommate, even though neither of us was thrilled at the idea, the thought of having a couple extra hundred bucks helped us move past any reservations. A few days of hunting on craigslist and being ghosted by several potential candidates, we desperately started asking around at work. A friend of a friend reached out to a brother, who then reached out to me to set up a meeting. Luckily for us, he was ready and willing to move in the following weekend. He didn’t have much else but a torn up mattress and a half-broken IKEA nightstand that looked as if he’d picked it up that same morning, likely from a yard sale. Moving went smoothly and he paid his share that same weekend, it finally looked like we’d have some breathing room.