#while her husband is LIVING WITH HIM. there are so many... tones i didnt pick up when watching this before
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shehungthemoon ¡ 1 year ago
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Pls someone talk to me about the quiet codependence Rust and Marty have, the too-easy domesticity they can fall into. Their constant arguing and moral disagreement that blends so easily into sharing clothes and a bottle and a home. The open hostility that silently becomes worry when no one else is watching. The implicit, unyielding trust that's never questioned and always counted on, between two people born and living in a world that's punished trust from the beginning.
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exosmutfactory ¡ 2 years ago
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Double Trouble: DECISIONS 💕
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A/n: No smut; for this part at least 💕
Part 1| Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | PRE 10 [💕✓] | Part 10 |
Full story masterlist
networks — @/superm-net @/bbh-net 
pairing — Hyun & You
word count — 386
genre — romance, domestic!au, husband! (💕) Hyun
category — fluff(??), mutual pining 💕
A request? 💕
⏰✴ Double Trouble Tag List: ☀⏰
@to-all-the-stories-i-love @you-n-me-e-e @insta1010 @bellamendoza @bbhflrt @weirdoome @marovekian1 @pearliejoy @loey0491 @__jxnnx3 @soonvivi @jairahxelle @dynqstyna @xuxibelle
“Make me make—BAD DECISIONS.”
✴-☀-✴-☀-✴-☀-✴-☀-✴-☀
You had talked for a few years, dated for a while, and—as recently as 2 years ago, been married to the love of your life: Hyun.
You still remember the day you met. The overnight flight, stuffy conference room, and brief introductions. His broad shoulders, kissable lips, and bright brown eyes. A sharp three-piece suit, honey toned skin, and a confident stride. He immediately caught your eye, but he was an associate of the company that your own boss was interested in collaborating with. Unreachable. Completely off limits. You knew better than to mix work with pleasure.
But he was so charming. Always a gentleman. He opened doors for you and never looked down on you, knowing full well that you were his equal in the field. A woman worthy of her position after the many years it took you to get there. He listened to you: your marketing ideas and operational insight. The thoughts that swam laps around your mind.
Contract coworkers became acquaintances. Acquaintances became good friends. He drove across 4 districts to pick you up when your car broke down in the middle of the road. He pulled you back from the crosswalk when a truck ran the red light. He was a listening ear for you on the nights that you couldn’t hold the weight of the world on your shoulders all by yourself. And you did the same for him. Tenfold.
Over the years, you laughed at each other’s jokes, leaned on each other’s shoulders, and grew not only as individuals, but as a team. A pair. A couple of 9 to 5, caffeine high, and sleep deprived people who somehow figured out everything right. Not perfect, but for the both of you? Just right.
It wasn’t love at first sight. Sparks didn’t immediately fly. It was slow. Gradual. Continuous. Endless. Then one day, he looked over at you from across his living room and said, “I’d like to hang out with you for my whole life.”
Things have always been steady with Hyun. You both built a foundation together. A sturdy structure of mutual love, trust, and respect. Dating a business partner is not always a great decision—it’s more often than not a bad decision, but you wouldn’t have the life you’ve built with him any other way.
✴-☀-✴-☀-✴-☀-✴-☀-✴-☀
Part 1| Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | PRE 10 [💕✓] | Part 10 |
A/n: I'm slowly getting back into the swing of things. This drabble will have a smutty part 2, I just didn't want to tackle it all in one day and I didnt want to wait to post this little thing.
Life is better. School is going great. I finally found my 'creative vision' again after months of healing. I've found myself again, and with that, I'm ready to begin sharing my bbh stories with the world again.
And oh shit it's MAY 6TH IN THE US. HAPPY BIRTHDAY BAEKHYUN! 🎉🎊🎀🎁🎂🎈💕💖💗💘💝💞💟💓
Happy summer vacation to the students out there too. See you loves, hopefully, again soon 💗💖💞💕
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mournfulpursuit ¡ 5 years ago
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Safety blanket chapter 4: Remembrance
Leon Kennedy x reader
Word count: 2077
Warnings: some swears with a small bit of blood and gore
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The day started out like any other, well you had only been there for a week but things soon you realized there was going to be a daily routine of things. You grabbed your coffee before heading into the workplace. You greeted everyone on the first floor before going to the second floor where you worked. You sat at your desk and realized the desk to your right was empty, it was Maria’s desk. You indistinctly picked up the phone on the desk and dialed Maria’s landline. It took awhile for her to pick up, but then her husband,Frank, picked up which surprised you.
“Maria can’t come to work today,she’s sick”,he said it in such an exasperated tone,even at the time it made you feel uneasy.
“Is something wrong”, you asked him obviously worried about Maria.
“Oh no she’s fine, she uhh just needs some rest”
“Can I come see her after work?”
“Hmm we’ll have to see about that”
“Well just tell her I said-”, you were cut off as he hung up.
The rest of the day went by as usual, you receiving calls for clients that may be interested in investing in the company. You were about to get up and use the bathroom when everyone heard a scream from the upper level and the sound of glass shattering.
You got up from your desk noticing everyone else had gone silent looking towards the door. The silence was eerie and unnerved you. You heard the sound of something slamming against the door. Nobody moved, not even you, everyone just stood very still. Mark,whose desk was next to yours, got up and walked toward the door. He hesitated for a moment but then opened the door. Not a single soul could have guessed what happened next. A figure stood at the door groaning. Mark reached out towards it, big mistake. It quickly latched onto Mark's neck biting him in the jugular. Marked screamed in pain before falling to the ground, dead. The next moments felt like a blur.
Everyone stood up screaming and started to bolt towards the door that went to the lower level. You got up too rushing towards the door before getting shoved to the ground. Soon everyone was trampling you. Every time you tried getting up you were immediately trampled. After getting stomped on many times you were finally able to get up until a man who wore a mask grabbed your head and slammed it against your desk. You realized this action was very deliberate as you fell to the ground stumbling to the floor, your head in obvious pain. You looked towards the man with tears in your eyes. He then grabbed your neck and pulled out a syringe.
“This is the last thing she would have wanted”,he looked down at you sorrowfully, something about his voice sounded familiar, ”be thankful i’m doing this' ',he then looked you dead in the eyes. He waited a moment before stabbing the syringe deep into your neck. He injected something into you but you had no idea what it was. He let go of you while you fell to the ground gasping for air. You tried reaching out towards him pleading for him to help you.
“I didn’t want to be a part in all this”,he said rejecting your pleas for help,“I’m sorry you're going to live through all this but I promised I would fulfill her wishes and this was one of them,please do her a favor and live through all this”,he said with a sad smile.
Your vision started to haze and blur and become fuzzy. You became dizzy and tried to stand but fell to your knees. You looked up to him, trying to form a sentence but unable to. You had tears in your eyes confused by this whole interaction.
“Consider what I gave you a gift, the only of its kind”,he had tears forming in his eyes,”It was meant for her,but she's gone now”, he then got up to walk away from you.
“P-Please”,you begged him.He walked back towards you the final time you would see the man he then grabbed you by the shoulders looking you straight into the eyes.
“These are the last words she wanted me to give you”, he said taking a breath,”don't get left behind”, he then dropped you to the floor as you slowly lost consciousness. You saw the man get up and walk towards the door, the one where Mark died. He took off his mask revealing very brown hair. He exits and as the doors close you slowly close your eyes passing out.
***********************************************************************************************
You woke up with a start as the sound of thunder broke you from your slumber. The moon barely illuminated the office. A phone was off the hook and you could clearly hear it. You got up slowly realizing the horror that happened. You put your hands to your mouth desperately trying not to scream. You stood up very slowly noticing all the chairs pushed on the ground. The fact that you were the only one in the room scared you the most. Ever since you were a kid just made your mind race and heart pump. You didn't know why this was but it just happened and constantly woke your parents up as you would cry.
They quickly realized that you wouldn’t cry if you had a blanket, well a special blanket. If you had that thing wrapped around you like a cacoon you would never cry.It made you feel protected and safe so your parents officially dubbed it the “safety blanket”. Your parents teased you as you got older about still using it but you didn't care. Yeah it isn't soft anymore and it was ripping at the seams you just didn't care. This definitely got older as you didnt use it as much but that wasn't until college. You wished that you could just wrap yourself in it escaping the world but alas it was in your apartment.
You snapped out of your delirium and began to quietly walk towards the door to the lower level until you felt something under your shoe. You looked down to discover the syringe that the mysterious man stabbed into your neck. You quickly grabbed it and shoved it into your pocket. You don't know why but something told you to grab it and take it. You continued walking towards the door when your shoe stepped onto another thing but it sounded more fleshy. You looked down to see a hand and a pool of blood. You screamed and scanned the body to recognize who it was,Mark. You sneakily walked around his body that played in the middle of the room which you questioned why but didn't want to find out. You got to the door to the lower level.
You placed an ear to the door and heard the sound of groaning. You cursed under your breath and gritted your teeth. You had 2 options, rush down the stairs and face whatever those things were or go up the stairs and hide but you had a feeling that they were up there as well. You wanted to get out as soon as possible so you went with the more risky option. You took a deep breath and opened the door quickly. You saw at least five walking up the stairs towards you. You hoped for at least 1 but this might be a problem. Luckily they were slow but this wasn’t going to be easy. The stairs did spiral down meaning there was a space you could jump down but it could be painful. You could rush past them but risk getting bit.
“This is going to hurt like a bitch”, you said out loud to yourself and started to climb over the railing.
It wasn't a long way down but yeah it was going to hurt like a bitch. You flipped your self over as you didnt want to jump from the railing but instead drop from it. You dangled for a while fearing the drop. You held your breath and counted to 3 in your head. One...Two…..Three! You then let go feeling the air push you as you fell. It surprisingly felt like a long time before you hit the ground. You looked back at the monsters with their decaying flesh and blood staining their clothes. You then hit the floor and attempted to land on your feet normally but you couldn't position your right ankle in time causing you to land on it sideways.
“Fuck!”,you hissed through your teeth before realizing you were on the first floor now. You tried to stand up but like you predicted your ankle did hurt like a bitch so you opted to just crawl instead. You were at the lobby now saw two men with guns. They noticed you and one of them ran over towards you.
“Are you ok?”,He said with a thick russian accent while you just nodded at him fighting back tears as your ankle was in ridiculous pain. You just kinda latched onto him while he tried to calm you down.
“Everything will be fine, you are safe”,He said patting your back,”We need to get her to the subway”,he said to the others.
“Is she infected?”, one of the others asked the man then began to examine your body checking for something.
“She is fine, I see no bite mark”,He said nodding towards the others,”can you walk?”, he asked you.
“My ankle it-”, you couldn't finish as a wave of pain flowed through your body causing you to scream in pain.
“She needs assistance, Nikolai help her to the subway”, the man you assumed to be Nikolai walked over to you rolling his eyes. He eyed you up and down eventually looking down at your ankle. “What is your name”,nikolai asked you
“(Y/N (L/N)”, as you said your name his eyes widened and he cracked a smile.
“She’s dead weight for us just leave her here” Nikolai said to the man that had called him over.
“Our duty is to evacuate civilians nikolai, you know this”
“Yes but she is too injured and could waste our medical supplies”, he said walking towards the man and whispering something into his ear that you clearly heard, ”She’s also on the list”.
He backed up after he heard those words while Nikolai just smiled. You could tell he was conflicted at his decision. You looked at him pleading at him to help you.
“I’m-i’m sorry”, he said, turning to look away from you and pulling out a walkie talkie, “all civilians evacuated from this area returning to the subway, he said in a defeated voice.
“Wait, you're just going to leave me here with those things!”,you yelled at them,“you said that you’re here to rescue civilians!”
They looked back to you, Nikolai smiled while the other man looked down at his feet.
“Goodbye dead weight”, Nikolai said exiting the building
You looked at the other man with a look of desperation in your eyes, “please help me”
He looked at you one final time and said, “Good luck”, before he walked towards the door.
“Wait help me”, you pleaded, “please just help, please help me,help me!’, you remember how your words of desperation echoed through the air of the building as he exited through the door.
You snapped back into reality after you heard Marvin groan in pain. Tears formed in your eyes as you remembered those events,you could see them so clearly. You reached in your pocket just to put your hands in as they were cold when you felt something. You pulled out the object to realize it was the syringe. Though you noticed a detail that you hadn't noticed before. The logo of a shady pharmaceutical company you knew too well….Umbrella.
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time-2-vent ¡ 5 years ago
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So. This is a master post about my grandma. Some of this has already been talked about here but I posted this on my private fb and wanted to keep it here too.
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Okay.. so. This is gonna be a long and detailed one.
Ive never had a space where I could vent about my grandma to more than just people close to me without being blamed or her finding out. The only family I have on here is my mom and im hiding this post from her for various reasons. I understand if many of you can't read all the way through this because its gonna be a lot. I just want the people around me to have a better grasp on exactly why im so depressed.
Before I start im gonna add a trigger list because there is a LOT and im probably going to be very emotional typing this. A lot of it ive never spoken about publicly.
So for a list of TW:
Emotional, physical, sexual, and animal abuse, r*pe, p*dophelia, racism, su*cide, hospitals, ableism, be******ty mention, fatshaming, weight mention, f slur.
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Okay. Im going to start at when I moved in with her. She tricked my mother into signing over custody of me when I was 10. When I was 9 years old I was forced into a mental hospital after being heavily overdosed on medications meant for adults to the point I was "sitting upside down in my chairs unresponsive and talking about tranquilizers" which i have no memory of. The hospital was probably the worst experience in my entire life and I was almost murdered by one of the older kids. After getting out of there I moved in with my grandma.
Throughout my life shes said and done so many horrible things to me. She would always yell and scream about the smallest mistakes. She used to pick me up by my hair. She was just fucking horrible to me.
Around the age of 10-11 when I started going through puberty she would always make fun of the way my genitals looked. She would ask me to stretch my labia out and move it around. Specifically she would ask me to "show me your bat wings". It was fucking disgusting but as a child I thought it was just haha funny joke.
For a while I thought I just imagined that until my mom brought it up to me and how she CAUGHT HER saying that to me multiple times. So I had confirmation that I wasn't just imagining it. I once confronted her about it and she immediately started crying (ive only seen her cry 3 times in my entire life) and told me if I ever said that again she would tell everyone in my family that I was a "prostitute" and would make everyone in my family hate me, and that it was my mother who did that to me.
My mom lived with me and my grandma for a few years but eventually moved out on her own because she couldn't handle my grandmas abuse.
My grandma dated my moms r*pist, which was my moms uncle, and told my mom she never got r*ped, and said my mom only fucked him for "attention and cigarettes". My mom was 12 at the time.
My grandma told me at 15 that the "only reason you think you're trans is because you got diddled as a kid"
My grandma called me a whore when I started becoming sexually active despite her having her first child at 16.
She once told me I was "just like my father" who is a sex offender and abused me as a child. I was also forced to give my at-the-time step brothers head when I was 3-5 and was taught that it was okay.
My grandma has called me every possible name in the book. Anytime she does something wrong its automatically my fault. She told me she would believe that im trans when I showed her my dick (at 16).
Shes incredibly rude and racist, says she hates how she can't understand Asian people. She's said the n word. She's made so many "jokes" about how "aggressive" Black people are. When my cousin found out he had Black in him she said, and I quote, "I always knew he had a n***r ass" which fucking disgusted me. Shes scoffed at my mother for limping. She scoffs at anyone disabled. Always says "you wouldn't catch me looking like that in public." She would tell my mom she was faking her pain. And coincidentally of all 4 of her kids, one was born with physical deformities. she says thats not the reason why, but she gave her up for adoption. She yells at anyone standing in her way who isn't aware. She is incredibly rude when she speaks to people to the point its embarrassing.
When I hung myself earlier this year and a friend came to pick me up she was yelling at me like "Oh so you went and tattled on me didnt you? Did you say oh boo hoo shes so abusiveeee!!" As I had literally just laid passed out in the snow from hanging myself.
When she found out I hung myself she bitched about how I had her snow boots and how she would have had to climb up the hill to find my fucking body as if it were a chore. She asked me if I wanted to be cremated out of nowhere and when I said no she replied "good I didn't want to have to pick your piercings out of your dead body" when I told her she made me want to kill myself she laughed at me and said "well then you'll never survive" my first suicide attempt was at 12 years old. A few weeks ago I started carving at my throat in front of her because im so desperate for her to LISTEN to me for 5 FUCKING SECONDS. I have legitimately cried on my knees and begged her to treat me like a person time and time again. She laughs at me and turns it around to my issues. She guilt trips me and makes me think everything is my fault. She calls me disgusting for having 1 or 2 shirts on the floor. She told me to MY FACE she will never see me as trans. Misgenders me, misgenders my friends. I jokingly told her one of my cis friends was trans, and when she left she asked me "does he really have a penis?" ABOUT A WHOLE ASS CIS WOMAN. She told me she ran over and killed a dog with a broken leg to "put it out of its misery" she would always use glue traps and I told her not to tell me about it so she waits until were in public and says "yknow whenever I catch a live mouse on one of the traps I throw it into a plastic bag and then go do the litter box to suffocate it". Shes threatened to make me pay the hospital bill when I called 911 because she was unconscious. She says horrible things to me EVERY FUCKIJG DAY. She's always making everying my fault all the time and sits and smiles while I'm sobbing and pouring my heart out because im tired of the abuse. Im so fucking tired. It goes on and on and on every day of my life. I literally slit my throat in front of her and she only stopped being mean for about a week. Im so depressed and mentally ill and this is beating on me every moment of my fucking life.
In not done but im shaking and need to stop typing for now
Edit: some other notable things, when my grandpa disowned me and stopped speaking to me for over a year she told me it was probably because of how disgusting I was. And "nobody wants to be around that".
She will ask me specific random questions about specific friends and if I dont know the answer or I forgot, she goes on a tangent about how terrible of a friend I am.
When I was cutting her hair she kept telling me I was doing it wrong, so I did it her way and she hated it and told me she's glad I didn't pursue hair because im terrible at it.
When my cat was dying she originally refused to take him to the vet because he was "just gonna die anyways so I might as well let him", then gave up her cat to the vet because she was peeing but didn't wanna take responsibility for that so she lied to them and said she showed up at her door and didn't tell them her age or even her name and that was so fucking cruel.
When she starts laughing at me sometimes she'll talk to me in a whiny "baby voice" and be like awwww, waaa im so abusedddd *mocks me crying*.
And she always talks in a tone that sounds pissed off and seems confused when I feel like I'm being scolded.
She gets in my face and puts her finger in my face and backs me into corners sometimes and then when I smack her hand out of my face she says she'll put me in jail for abuse.
Oh yea and simetimes when she gets mad at me she'll be like "ok GIRL" in the middle of me talking. Like its annoying and uncalled for.
I cant believe I forgot this holy shit. Years ago (was a minor here as well) I was attacked by my neighbors dog and it knocked me down and when I got home my grandma was accusing me of be******ty and said she was "watching it fuck me" and I was so fucking disgusted and hurt.. I try to block that from my memory because it was my third dog attack and I was traumatized.
She also regularly calls her brother a F@ggot. He is the only lgbt family member (he's gay) that i have.
She regularly fatshames people while only a few feet from them. And will whisper to me about how disgusting they look.
She asks for all of my friends deadnames and gets mad when I dont answer.
"I can't be abusive because I give you a home. I could have let social services take you."
"I cant be racist because my ex husband is Black"
"You must be living in a fantasy world where you make up shit that ive done."
"Id be depressed if I stayed in bed all day too."
"I need to learn to have lower expectations for you."
"I'm starting to resent you. So ill be taking 200$ a month for rent." (She has stopped this thankfully)(edit #2, she started taking it again im gonna be here forever lmao)
When I was underweight she would say things like "you look like an aids patient." And "Are you trying to look like your mother?"
"You're a hoarder"
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daddyconfessions ¡ 6 years ago
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sugar tales: Big Madre
I ran across Big Madre’s profile on SD.com. It was 2006 and I had recently joined the site. I sent the first message, she replied and several messages later we moved to email so we could exchange pics. Email would be the primary source of contact. Texting was fairly new to me in 2006. Hell I still had a flip phone as I recall.
After a few days of emails we met up for drinks. Big Madre was plus sized. At least 225 in the size 12 to 14 range. Despite her size, I liked the jelly. Sexy. BM was from the Honduras I think, and had been living in America most of her life. Jet black hair, nice brown skin tone, big ass and a little pudgy in the midsection. Still she was a good looking girl and probably was even more pretty several years prior and before the kids. Our first date we met at a bar of her choosing. Pretty happening place. I remember just being happy to be out a date. I hadn’t been too lucky on SD.com.
We sat outside in the spring evening and got to know each other over drinks. I can’t remember the conversation enough to quote, but the gist of her story was pretty dismal. She was separated from hubby. Yet, they still lived in the same house sleeping in separate bedrooms. They’re weren’t intimate either. Hubby refused to give her a divorce and pretty much didn’t give her any money. If she wanted to leave she would have to do it on her own. He also refused to pay for daycare and because she was married she couldn’t get social assistance to pay for it either. So she couldn’t go to work. No way to lift herself out of her situation because of the toddlers. Family support was out of the question. Culture and Catholicism as she explained, made divorce difficult, if not impossible. In fact, her fam encouraged her to work things out with him. “Do it for the kids mija.” Poor girl. She couldn’t do one for the other. Trapped. That’s where I came in. Cap’n Save’em. Up up and away!!!!
It was a lot to lay on a newbie like me though. I wasn’t that strong financially or mentally yet. Gosh, I was just happy to be going out on a date with the promise of getting some kitty. Didn’t know it would be this dark and grimey.  After drinks we said our goodbyes but I couldn’t tell she wasn’t interested in me. Maybe I let her talk to much? Somehow I slipped from being a potential benefactor and lover to a cool friend? We spoke sparingly over the next few days. Very dry. And then one day I made an offhand sexual comment. Not sure what I said, but it was enough to change the tone. The conversation went from dry and flat to sexy and playful. We met again within a couple of days : )
I picked her up from a friends and I could tell right away this was going to be a different date. She was into me. Even brought it up. Big Madre told me she hadn’t been feeling me at first. No attraction. “But then you started playing with me and I kind of got excited,” she said. “I don’t know. It just turned me on.” She had even told her friend how she’d met me but I wasn’t doing it for her.
Big Madre made me the man I am today. I’ve had a lot of questions on what I look like. Why I’m so successful in the sugarbowl. Why so many girls.  I just figured out early on having money wasn’t enough. I guess its worth mentioning these days it doesn’t’ take much. LOL. You got cash, she’s giving up the ass. But back in 2006, a Daddy needed some game to nab a SB. Money was just a tool as opposed to a necessity. Just IMHO. I needed to know how to talk to women. Understand them. Had to have a good haircut. Nice clothes and shoes. I needed to be confident too. More importantly, I needed the ability to reach inside them and turn on their interest for me. I needed some player tendencies if I really wanted to be successful.
I wanted to go to dinner this time. But Big Madre was amped up. She wanted to go to a strip club. Apparently I had really got her going. We hit up a well known spot, ordered some drinks and had a pretty decent time. She wasn’t very happy though. There were a lot of girls in the club, but they weren’t too interested in us. “Some of these bitches don’t like black guys,” I remember her saying. Still we managed to get a few table dances. Mostly for her. (Turned out she liked girls too).
As we left the club, we decided to go somewhere more to our liking. More “friendly” to the likes of me. But as we drove she told me she’d rather get a room. “I wanna fuck,” she said. Wow. Just like that? I was loving the sugarbowl already! Damn. She was visibly turned on too. Rubbing my hand while I drove. Kept looking at me. Touching my leg.
I made a mental note that night to definitely polish my game going forward if chicks were going to be acting like this. : )
We found a hotel and checked in. She told me we both had to shower first before we started. I took mine first and waited on her. When she came out, she had put her top back on and pulled it down over her waist to cover her stomach. Just covering up all that sweet jelly. I wanted it all off. I wanted to see that big body. In the faint light I could see stretch marks too. But she refused. “No,” she told me as I tried to remove it. “I don’t feel comfortable taking it off.”
I got turned off. I mean I knew she was a Big’un. I had already accepted that. But her lack of confidence almost made me go limp. I’ve blogged before on confidence and this is a perfect example. Because she was ashamed of her body parts, it sort of put the spotlight on it and it became the elephant in the room. I shook it off. I had to salvage the evening. We started making out. Lots of kissing and playing with each other. Then I went down on the kitty. Wasn’t the expert I am now. Definitely no multiple orgasms where she’s pushing my head away in an attempt to escape my love. Those days would come later :) I only managed to get her aroused that night. We switched up and she began worshiping Bartholomew. She had some pretty good knowledge. She was one of the first girls to actually use saliva. She spit on him before going down as far as she could. She gagged and coughed, and I could feel her tonsils. She’d come up off him for air, panting. She’d lick the shaft while she caught her breath, slurping, going all 7-eleven and what not. When she caught her breath she’d take me in her mouth and do it all over again. Big Madre was thoughtful too.  She made her way down to the twins, and gave them some enlightenment. I wasn’t used to that I had to admit. So it tickled and I jerked and twitched as she did it. By the time she stopped I was hard as a rock tho.
I put on the prophylactic and she mounted up. She tried to ride me but it wasn’t very good. So we switched to missionary. I shocked her because I threw them big ‘ol legs up around my shoulder like she weighed 120lbs. Turned her on that I was able to man handle her despite her size. “My husband acts like I’m too big,” she said. “I’m not your husband,” I told her as I proceeded to punish the kitty.  My memory is foggy after that. I went hard on her for a long time. Trying to hit it at different angles. Doing circles. Different positions. All acrobatic and stuff. But I couldn’t get her to cum. She had told me days back she didn’t cum easy if not at all. I was certainly putting that claim to test and  it held true I’m afraid. I couldn’t get that kitty to purr for nothing. I succumbed and let my unborn out.
I was all sweaty and tired. Catching my breath. Tired from my attempt. “Can we go again,” she asked. 
“I’m done,” I told her. “Ok.” She laid on my chest.
We talked a bit more. She still had that shirt half on. I don’t know why it bothered me but it did. She asked, “You ever do threesomes?” I was like yea sometimes. “I mean with another guy?” she asked.
“Uh no,” I frowned. “I have a strict, 1 dick in the room policy. But we can do two girls.” She said ok, but I could tell she wanted two dicks at the same time. Big Madre was a freak. We got up and got dressed. It was comical watching her put on her bra and then pulling up her shirt over it. Couldn’t believe she was that subconscious about her body. Such a let down.
I was kind of over her after that. Still we kept exchanging emails, remaining playful and flirty. She escalated. Started sending me naked pics of all that jelly. Kitty shots and stuff. Then one day she emailed that hubby had hit her a few times. Pushed her. And he had gotten tighter with the money too. She was feeling really trapped and wanted me to help. But I wasn’t the man I am today. Her problems were too big for me. On top of that I had lost interest sexually. I felt she wasn’t completely open with me sexually.  I met her again and gave her some $$$ to help out. No sex. But I started letting emails go and our conversation began to trail off. Last email from her she told me she had gone to a strip club and had managed to get a stripper home. I knew it was a ploy to get me back. Normally that would have turned me on but again I just wasn’t feeling her. I was like, “Oh that’s nice…” but sometime after that we just stopped talking completely.
Every now and then I wonder about her. Wonder if she made it out…Regret not doing more for her and helping. I just didnt’ have it in me. Despite the bad experience Big Madre taught me a lot. Taught me I had to have some game. I learned a lot of the women I’d be meeting would be in desperate need for money and if I wasn’t ready to spend and help these girls out I needed to take a seat. And I did. I stayed out the sugar bowl for another 2 years almost. I saw several escorts during that time. I’ll blog on that one day. :)
But, I wasn’t completely ready yet.
0 notes
coldinthenight ¡ 8 years ago
Note
educate me 🙌 its already sad enough this fool didnt marry erina hurt me some more
Send a 🙌 and I’ll introduce you to an NPC related to my Muse. // Accepting!
THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A SHORT AND SWEET DRABBLE but I was on mobile all day so! Now it’s a 2.9k word fic I’m so sorry @ mobile users….
(Warning for emotional manipulation and Dio being a complicated jerk)
Let’s talk about Erina Pendleton, a young nurse who returned to England after years in India. She immediately started work at the hospital near her hometown, solely out of a desire to aid those in need, because she’d learned soon enough in her teen years that there was never a shortage of suffering in the world. Here, at least, she could help ease that suffering for even a little.
She never expected to be called in one night and told to attend to a patient under the name of “Joestar”.
It must be Jojo, she thought. The fondest memories of her childhood came to her immediately - a fleeting romance between twelve year olds, marked by a nervous attempt at holding hands and playing together at the carnival and sharing grapes under a setting sun. Could it be, she wondered, and, would he remember her?
When she stepped into the Joestar’s room, it was not Jojo who lay there wrapped in bandages, ribs and collarbone and leg broken from a mysterious ordeal in his home that no one wished to talk about. The single most unpleasant moment of her childhood returned to her at the sight of the golden haired man who had stolen her first kiss. She could feel again the sting of his slap, the feel of mud in her hands, the disgust and shame she’d felt all at once.
But he had been a little boy then. And she a little girl.  They were adults now. Surely he had changed too over the years. Surely Dio was not the same. Surely…
And Jojo? Only one Joestar had been admitted into the hospital that night. Where was Jojo or his father? Surely, despite the pain Dio had wrought upon them, Jojo would not let him be injured this badly.
Erina tended to Dio that night. She hoped he would wake, so she could interrogate him about his brother. She hoped that the door would open and Jojo would walk in, questions and an explanation on his lips. She hoped, until the sun rose and cast the room in golden light, turning Dio’s hair into living flame when he finally stirred and woke with a fearful yell.
His cry startled her. She was at his side immediately, expression stern as she watched him cast his gaze around and take in his surroundings. Then those eyes which were still the same after all this time, like they could pierce through any defense, settled upon her.
“Nurse,” he said, “Where are my clothes? Change my bandages and send me on my way. I have business to attend to.”
“Your leg will not set right if you do not stay in that bed,” she told him. “Besides, what business could there be that Jojo could not do for you?”
He had been trying to pull himself off the bed when she spoke. Now he froze, and slowly, almost comically, turned his head to face her. She saw the anger, then confusion, and finally, recognition cross his face one after another. She saw him smooth his expression over into the same mask of calm interest she had seen many men wear before.
“Why…could it be?” His much kinder tone nearly made her shudder. “Are you not the Erina Pendleton from my childhood?”
His childhood, he said, when it was Jojo whom she’d spent hers with, and he who had driven them apart.
“Yes,” she said and he smiled in a way that was far too pleasant, and then laid back down upon the bed.
He requested her assignment to him for the rest of his stay, and what followed was not what she would call a romance. She wanted only to hear of Jonathan’s fate, while Dio seemed to delight in dangling the information before her in exchange for her continued aid and silence.
Silence, for there were various men who would come to visit him and speak to him at length. Policemen first, then lawyers, and more she suspected who had danger following their steps. Not once did Jonathan Joestar darken his door, and her attempts to find out more about him outside the hospital simply went in vain.
Finally, when his bones were all healed, when he could stand and walk once more, he strode to her as she was putting away the last of his bandages, and caught her by the hand.
“I have one last request for you, woman,” he said. When he said nothing further, she sighed and turned to face him.
“What is it, Dio?”
A smile spread on his face, one that made her shiver. It held none of the smugness or blatant desire to see her suffer that she had become used to. It was a kind, pleasant smile that she almost wanted to like.
“Erina,” he said, “You have endured everything I have thrown at you for the past month, and not once did you become unkind to me. Very soon I will be taking the mantle of lord of the Joestar estate. It will be a lonely affair and I would only want to share my fortune with a woman both strong and beautiful. So, my dear Erina…I would most like for you to marry me.”
She moved without thinking, the palm of her free hand meeting his cheek with a resounding smack. Silence reigned over them a moment later. He did not move as she lowered her arm, his eyes remaining closed. Fear took hold of her gut. Years ago, he’d struck her.
“No?” he said, finally moving, finally fixing his gaze on her again. “When this is my last request, and I have yet to tell you what has become of Jonathan?”
And Erina, who could not believe her ears that Dio would take not only her time in exchange for information that he simply would not give, but her life and future as well, imagined for a moment living her life without ever knowing what had become of Jonathan Joestar, and agreed to his request.
Lets talk about Erina Brando, wife of the new young Lord Joestar, who learned immediately after her wedding that Jonathan Joestar had been killed in the same incident that hospitalized her husband. Erina understood at once that Dio had made use of her lingering feelings for Jojo to keep her at his side and keep her silent about the things she’d heard in his room.
She vowed, even as she wept, that she would not let Dio use his inherited fortune to trample others beneath his heel.
Perhaps it was luck, or fate at work once more, that she met one Mr. Speedwagon, who had known Jonathan in his final moments, who swore to help her whatever way he could, who became her dearest friend in those times when Dio’s growing frustration turned toward her more and more.
Erina worked to reforge herself into steel, but Speedwagon would insist it was what she had always been. Unbending steel was a girl washing her lips with dirty water after a stolen kiss. It was a nurse who placed the lives of others over her own. It was a woman who gave her future to her tormentor for the sake of someone she had not seen in years.
Speedwagon sat himself in her parlor and shared tea with her, and together they turned each of Dio’s schemes back onto him. She handled money behind his back, and Speedwagon carried out plans and actions.
Dio had to know. He had to know about their meetings and whispers while he wasn’t looking. But he never raised a hand against her, not while she was carrying his son and not even after he was born.
And then, one day, almost two years into her marriage, Speedwagon stopped her before she could pick up her baby, and he told her, “I’m going to find Jonathan.”
“Robert, don’t joke about that.” She fixed him with a stern glare, unsure how else to respond.
“No! I’d never…” He looked down at George, cooing at his uncle from his crib, before continuing. “I’m sorry. I’ve lied to you, as has Dio. Mr. Joestar is out there, Erina.”
She felt as if he had just strangled her. “Why?”
“Because,” said Dio from the door, and he shared a knowing look with Speedwagon before continuing, “Jojo is no longer human.”
Let’s talk about Erina Brando, mother of George Joestar II, for whom she had to fight her husband so she might name him after a man she had never met but dearly respected. This was Erina as the Lady Joestar, who never let her son want for anything as long as he lived, who loved him despite the hate she nurtured for his father.
With the truth in her hands, she simply stopped talking to Dio and never let him touch her again. But for George’s sake, she reached for her husband’s hand and smiled for photographs, danced with him at parties and left him a peck on the cheek every morning. For George’s sake, she pretended to love his father the way she loved him.
Speedwagon returned eventually. George was just starting to be able to reach her waist when the former thug walked back into her life, hair cut short, back straight, and eyes dark. He had gone and traveled the world and he’d found oil in America, vampires in Europe, and mystics in Asia.
And a little girl. He carried with him a little orphan girl named Elizabeth, and behind her stood proud men from Tibet who wielded powers beyond hers and Dio’s imaginations. Erina set down George and told him to go play with Elizabeth, then invited Speedwagon and his friends into the parlor.
“The monsters are spreading their reach,” explained Speedwagon, “You must have heard of the incidents in Europe - we’ve been trying to stop them, but it’s difficult with so little resources, and they’ve begun to expand north. It’ll only be a matter of time before they move against us…”
“What is there we can do?” demanded Dio. “You’ve become wealthy yourself, Mr. Speedwagon. What can house Joestar do to help in fighting monsters we have nothing to do with?”
“Where do you think these monsters come from?” snapped the long haired man behind Speedwagon. Straizo, he would later introduce himself as. “Mr. Speedwagon told me about your youth, Dio Brando. Who do you think was the vampire who created more of his kind? Who do you think is leading them in this crusade against humanity?”
For the first time ever, it seemed that Erina and Dio shared the same thought and sentiment. As one, husband and wife said, “Jojo.”
And she thought immediately of the monsters coming, and George, who was presently playing with Elizabeth in the moonlit garden outside, becoming fearful of the night. George, a bubbly child who smiled like the sun, growing up knowing monsters who could not be killed existed around every corner. George, in constant danger, unable to rest for even a moment, until an inevitable death.
She looked to Dio, fear and desperation on her face, and was startled to find him mirroring her expression. He turned away from her immediately, moving to the fireplace, hand gripping the mantel. His knuckles immediately turned white, his entire body shook. Erina stepped toward him, considered her options, and placed a gentle hand on his arm.
“Erina,” he said, voice heavy. She could tell that he could not look her in the eyes, not with the knowledge weighing on them all that he was, ultimately, the one who had unleashed the monsters and doomed their son to a darkened future. “Get George, we have matters to discuss with our…our son. And prepare our things for travel - the Joestar estate will join this war.”
The weeks after this would become a blur, in time. Erina joined Dio and a handful of volunteers from their estate on the frontline, bringing with them a good amount of money to aid the cause. He shed the title of Lord and became a soldier, she threw herself back into medical work. Everyday there were less and less injured, and more dead, and even more who never returned but appeared as monsters on the battlefield. Dio, she would only see in the evenings, when they retired to their private room or tent or whatever small measure of luxury Speedwagon was able to grant them.
She spent most of her nights thinking about George and Elizabeth, living in the Joestar mansion with only Straizo for company. The mystic had insisted on staying behind to teach the children his art. For future use, he had insisted, just in case. She had not been able to argue with him, but surely, George would not need this Ripple one day. Not when they were fighting here, on the Swiss front. Surely they could win, surely this war would end soon…
Let’s talk about Erina, a woman whose fate was always so closely entwined with those of the men in her life.
Erina Joestar was the woman Jonathan Joestar gave his life to save. She buried her husband and son and drew steel from within herself to raise a grandson who would come to see her as his entire world.
Erina Brando did not have such a husband. She had one who lied and cheated to get his way, who fought vampires not with the Ripple but with technology and the lives of other men. Erina grew older and older tending to the hurt, and watched as Dio, too, grayed and stooped lower and lower. He could fight less. He was not as angry with her. He never said sorry for everything he did to her.
This was an Erina who drew steel out of herself to survive, one who watched as the world grew darker and darker. There were too few capable of the Ripple, much less even knew about it, and not even ten men could kill a single vampire.
Erina had hoped the war would end, but soon the little boy George and the little girl Elizabeth quickly became a man and a woman, and then they, too, joined the fight.
Let’s talk about Erina, hands shaking from years of handling medicine, sitting on the porch of what had once been the Joestar mansion. Around her, young men and women like her son and his wife hurried about. These were people who had spent their youths hiding in the shadows, who avoided open spaces at night, who dared not love anyone for fear of seeing them turned. These were people who fought for a life they no longer knew, who readied themselves for the coming battle that night, knowing that many of them would die protecting one of the few remaining strongholds humanity held.
None of them were ready enough, when it was not vampires who broke through the wall, but a feathered man who offered eternal life and youth to everyone present. He identified himself as the creator of the stone mask.
Silence fell upon the yard, and no one dared to move. With a sigh, Erina stood, and turned to Speedwagon, scarred face just visible through the barely open door of the mansion, and told him, “Robert, I entrust my husband and grandson to you. Flee with them, now.”
“Erina?” he said, blinking at her. “What are you doing?”
“Giving that fool a piece of my mind,” she said, following her words with a stern look. Speedwagon swallowed, wished her good luck, and disappeared, the door shutting behind him.
She bundled up her skirts and strode across the yard quite casually, as if it were a sunny spring day and she was about to see George off to school. She saw the feathered man following her with his gaze, saw him smirk upon assessing her. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the frozen warriors starting to move, starting to panic at the sight of her approaching him.
“Old woman,” he said, smirk growing. Mockingly, he flourished a wing and bowed, red eyes reminding her of Dio’s when he’d asked for her hand. “Do you wish to be young again, like these children around you? I can give you that. You need only don this mask.”
“I know of the mask,” said Erina, standing as tall as she could. “It was used on a man I loved. I thought him dead, but years later your vampires came. We received news that he caused this war, but I held hope that it was not him at their head.”
“Why, I believe I know this vampire you speak of.” He laughed, and leaned forward so they were eye level. “He is the one who made this possible. He is the one who gave me and my brethren what makes us gods.”
She smiled at him, looking up at his sculpted features, at the purple curls and black robes, and then she raised her hand and slapped him across the cheek.
“That,” said Erina, “is for creating the stone mask.”
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themoneybuff-blog ¡ 6 years ago
Text
A Loan Won't Solve Your Money Woes If You Don't Fix These 10 Issues First
Sometimes even the best-prepared households get knocked sideways, financially speaking. Illness, unemployment, divorce, a car accident that triggers a lawsuit these and other situations can quickly put a hurt on the budget. In such times a personal loan or one of several types of home equity loans can provide a little breathing room until you rebuild your finances. As noted, money woes are sometimes the result of plain old bad luck (illness, job loss). However, sometimes were our own worst enemies: We buy too much, we save too little, we plan not at all. You cant get ahead that way. And you cant keep borrowing your way out of trouble. A loan wont help you unless you fix the following issues. 1. Not having a budget The simplest way to wind up in debt is to spend without thinking. Stop, then, and think for a moment about what you would like to have happen five years from now: buying a home, starting a business, getting married, traveling? When you create a budget, youre not just allocating your dollars youre enabling your dreams. An easy way to do it is the 50/30/20 budget: Spend no more than 50% of your take-home pay on essentials, 30% on wants, and 20% on saving (including retirement planning and an emergency fund). Plenty of budgeting apps exist as well (some are even free). 2. Not tracking spending You cant plug budget leaks unless you know where they are. Track your spending for a month, using pen and paper or a budgeting app. The cumulative effect could be eye-opening. For example, a relatives ex-husband was shocked shocked! to realize that spending $8 a day on fast food added up to $240 a month. His wife had made more money than he did, and their commingled finances made it easy for him to swipe a card and think no more of it. Heres hoping that your own habits arent quite that clueless. But even those of us who think were doing pretty well could be surprised by the cumulative impact of certain habits: beef jerky and a soda every time we pay for gasoline, daily iTunes downloads, $20 a week on scratch tickets. Add up the opportunity cost of those non-essentials, and ask yourself if you could do better. (Spoiler alert: You probably can.) 3. Keeping up with the Joneses Just because next-door neighbor bought the priciest riding mower on the market doesnt mean you have to ditch your trusty Snapper. When your coworker talks about all the activities her kid participates in, you dont have to sign your own tots up for horseback riding and soccer camp. You should not let other people determine your clothing, dcor, automobile, or anything else. Its no ones business that you bought a fixer-upper, that you drive your car until the wheels fall off, that your idea of nightlife is to read a new library book once the kids are in bed. Remember: The Joneses may be up to their hairlines in debt. They might be focused on keeping up, too with the minimum payments, that is. 4. Wanting your kids to have things you didnt Theres nothing wrong with this! Except when there is. Obviously you want your children to be well-fed, reasonably well-dressed, and housed comfortably. You might also want to give them treats and opportunities you never had, such as vacation trips, a big allowance, loads of extracurricular activities, and fully funded education plans. But dont let this noble impulse bust your budget. Just because your kid wants snowboarding lessons, a new smartphone every year, and a car of their own at age 16 doesnt mean you have to give these things. Staying out of debt and funding your retirement should take precedence over granting every whim. At the very least they should have some skin in the game: doing additional chores to help save up for a big-ticket item, say, or mowing lawns or babysitting for extra pocket money. Besides, we arent doing our kids any favors when we give them everything they want. Setting the bar too high now could mean setting them up for problems later on. Specifically, when they move out on their own theyll want to keep living in the style to which we have accustomed them and if their salaries dont allow for that, theyll wind up in debt. 5. Automatic upgrades Whats wrong with your old smartphone or car or whatever? If you bought it relatively recently and it still works, whats with the rush to replace? If you get the newest phone as soon as it comes out, or trade in your vehicle every few years, or replace anything else before it really needs replacing, ask yourself why. Because your co-workers do? Because some commercial made you want a new car? Because you dont know why, but you really, really want to anyway? Think about the opportunity cost of that cash. Then think about the way you want to live, and whether or not you want other people making decisions about your money. 6. Shopping mindlessly If you dont need anything, stay out of the mall. Going shopping with friends puts you in a position to find something you suddenly cant live without, or something that looks so cute on you or would be so cool in your house or so useful in the garage. Except that you were doing just fine without that item until you saw it. Ditto online shopping: Dont cruise your favorite retailers websites unless you have a specific reason to do so. Better yet, undo the one-click function and remove stored credit card info from all sites where youve shopped in the past. Bonus frugal points if you change your online passwords to something that has personal significance, such as WeDDingDAy8192020, or 19YEarsLEftonMORTgage, or EARLYretire2028 these little reminders of where your dollars could be going instead might help you from overbuying. 7. Always buying retail Why automatically pay full price? Instead of heading straight to the shopping center when you need (or want) something, consider these options instead: Thrift shops: Some are junky, but others are great. Its like a treasure hunt. (Pro tip: Find out if there are senior discounts or other special deals. For example, a secondhand store my daughter likes offers 50 percent off every Monday.)Consignment stores: Like thrift shops, except theyre more discriminating about whats accepted.Flash sales: While online shopping should be approached with caution, sometimes a sale really is too good to pass up. Hold yourself to limits, though: Just because those slacks are a great deal doesnt mean you need to buy a pair in every color.OfferUp, LetGo, Craigslist: Sometimes people want (or need) to get rid of furniture, tools, bikes or automobiles without the hassle of a yard sale. Caution is required, but you can get some darned good deals this way.Newspaper classified ads: Yes, really. A guy I know recently bought a pickup truck (necessary for his job) from a newspaper ad, spending many thousands less than he would have paid at a dealership.Freecyle: You might be surprised at whats being given away, no strings attached. Ive seen beautiful furniture, clothing, bicycles, toys, books, and other useful stuff offered up.Yard sales: Another treasure hunt. Ive seen items still in the shrink-wrap at these sales. Its a great place to buy baby stuff, including newborn-sized clothing that seems never to have been worn.Buy Nothing Facebook groups: Last month my partner and I just picked up an almost-new Weber grill. Some of the other things Ive seen lately: baby stuff, solid wood table, sewing machine, board games, computer desk, cookware, and tons of childrens clothes. All of it is free.8. Overdoing it on special occasions Are holidays and birthdays completely over the top? Maybe its time to tone it down. When they become extravaganzas of gift-giving, we cheapen the meaning and also set the bar higher and higher. A kid who gets tons of presents is unlikely to appreciate each one fully and more to the point, he develops a sense of entitlement. As for birthday parties, when did they start resembling mini-coronations? Even one-year-olds are having party rooms reserved, decorations put up, and gift registries established. Really? Think of all the money thats spent and quickly forgotten. Now think what those dollars could have done for a childs education fund or your own retirement. Celebrate joyously, but celebrate sensibly. 9. Overbuying for grandchildren While waiting in line at a crafts store, I met a woman who developed the bad habit of having small gifts waiting for her granddaughters whenever they visited and they visited a lot. The woman was fretting visibly as she looked over the items in the stores dollar section. What do you buy for someone who already has everything? she asked me. After hearing her story, I felt very sad not just for her but also for the kids. A visit to grandmas house had become an exercise in acquisition. The first thing they do upon crossing the threshold is to ask what theyre getting. (Does anyone else find that quite sad?) Expectations are made, not born. If youve gotten into the habit of treats and more treats, scale back. Replace them with activities and gifts of time. The kids who are used to getting stuff will gradually become used to not getting stuff and when occasionally you do treat them, it will mean a lot more. Again, the money you save could go toward their education funds or toward shoring up your own budget. You cant finance retirement. 10. Giving more than you can afford Charity is a noble impulse. But giving to the American Red Cross or the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals should be done after youve taken care of business. Specifically, after youve built an emergency fund, started saving for retirement, and taken care of any consumer debt. Put on your own oxygen mask first, financially speaking. Award-winning journalist and veteran personal finance writerDonna Freedmanis the author of Your Playbook for Tough Times: Living Large on Small Change, for the Short Term or the Long Haul and Your Playbook for Tough Times, Vol. 2: Needs AND Wants Edition. Read more: https://www.thesimpledollar.com/loans/blog/a-loan-wont-solve-your-money-woes-if-you-dont-fix-these-10-financial-issues-first/
0 notes
themoneybuff-blog ¡ 6 years ago
Text
A Loan Won't Solve Your Money Woes If You Don't Fix These 10 Issues First
Sometimes even the best-prepared households get knocked sideways, financially speaking. Illness, unemployment, divorce, a car accident that triggers a lawsuit these and other situations can quickly put a hurt on the budget. In such times a personal loan or one of several types of home equity loans can provide a little breathing room until you rebuild your finances. As noted, money woes are sometimes the result of plain old bad luck (illness, job loss). However, sometimes were our own worst enemies: We buy too much, we save too little, we plan not at all. You cant get ahead that way. And you cant keep borrowing your way out of trouble. A loan wont help you unless you fix the following issues. 1. Not having a budget The simplest way to wind up in debt is to spend without thinking. Stop, then, and think for a moment about what you would like to have happen five years from now: buying a home, starting a business, getting married, traveling? When you create a budget, youre not just allocating your dollars youre enabling your dreams. An easy way to do it is the 50/30/20 budget: Spend no more than 50% of your take-home pay on essentials, 30% on wants, and 20% on saving (including retirement planning and an emergency fund). Plenty of budgeting apps exist as well (some are even free). 2. Not tracking spending You cant plug budget leaks unless you know where they are. Track your spending for a month, using pen and paper or a budgeting app. The cumulative effect could be eye-opening. For example, a relatives ex-husband was shocked shocked! to realize that spending $8 a day on fast food added up to $240 a month. His wife had made more money than he did, and their commingled finances made it easy for him to swipe a card and think no more of it. Heres hoping that your own habits arent quite that clueless. But even those of us who think were doing pretty well could be surprised by the cumulative impact of certain habits: beef jerky and a soda every time we pay for gasoline, daily iTunes downloads, $20 a week on scratch tickets. Add up the opportunity cost of those non-essentials, and ask yourself if you could do better. (Spoiler alert: You probably can.) 3. Keeping up with the Joneses Just because next-door neighbor bought the priciest riding mower on the market doesnt mean you have to ditch your trusty Snapper. When your coworker talks about all the activities her kid participates in, you dont have to sign your own tots up for horseback riding and soccer camp. You should not let other people determine your clothing, dcor, automobile, or anything else. Its no ones business that you bought a fixer-upper, that you drive your car until the wheels fall off, that your idea of nightlife is to read a new library book once the kids are in bed. Remember: The Joneses may be up to their hairlines in debt. They might be focused on keeping up, too with the minimum payments, that is. 4. Wanting your kids to have things you didnt Theres nothing wrong with this! Except when there is. Obviously you want your children to be well-fed, reasonably well-dressed, and housed comfortably. You might also want to give them treats and opportunities you never had, such as vacation trips, a big allowance, loads of extracurricular activities, and fully funded education plans. But dont let this noble impulse bust your budget. Just because your kid wants snowboarding lessons, a new smartphone every year, and a car of their own at age 16 doesnt mean you have to give these things. Staying out of debt and funding your retirement should take precedence over granting every whim. At the very least they should have some skin in the game: doing additional chores to help save up for a big-ticket item, say, or mowing lawns or babysitting for extra pocket money. Besides, we arent doing our kids any favors when we give them everything they want. Setting the bar too high now could mean setting them up for problems later on. Specifically, when they move out on their own theyll want to keep living in the style to which we have accustomed them and if their salaries dont allow for that, theyll wind up in debt. 5. Automatic upgrades Whats wrong with your old smartphone or car or whatever? If you bought it relatively recently and it still works, whats with the rush to replace? If you get the newest phone as soon as it comes out, or trade in your vehicle every few years, or replace anything else before it really needs replacing, ask yourself why. Because your co-workers do? Because some commercial made you want a new car? Because you dont know why, but you really, really want to anyway? Think about the opportunity cost of that cash. Then think about the way you want to live, and whether or not you want other people making decisions about your money. 6. Shopping mindlessly If you dont need anything, stay out of the mall. Going shopping with friends puts you in a position to find something you suddenly cant live without, or something that looks so cute on you or would be so cool in your house or so useful in the garage. Except that you were doing just fine without that item until you saw it. Ditto online shopping: Dont cruise your favorite retailers websites unless you have a specific reason to do so. Better yet, undo the one-click function and remove stored credit card info from all sites where youve shopped in the past. Bonus frugal points if you change your online passwords to something that has personal significance, such as WeDDingDAy8192020, or 19YEarsLEftonMORTgage, or EARLYretire2028 these little reminders of where your dollars could be going instead might help you from overbuying. 7. Always buying retail Why automatically pay full price? Instead of heading straight to the shopping center when you need (or want) something, consider these options instead: Thrift shops: Some are junky, but others are great. Its like a treasure hunt. (Pro tip: Find out if there are senior discounts or other special deals. For example, a secondhand store my daughter likes offers 50 percent off every Monday.)Consignment stores: Like thrift shops, except theyre more discriminating about whats accepted.Flash sales: While online shopping should be approached with caution, sometimes a sale really is too good to pass up. Hold yourself to limits, though: Just because those slacks are a great deal doesnt mean you need to buy a pair in every color.OfferUp, LetGo, Craigslist: Sometimes people want (or need) to get rid of furniture, tools, bikes or automobiles without the hassle of a yard sale. Caution is required, but you can get some darned good deals this way.Newspaper classified ads: Yes, really. A guy I know recently bought a pickup truck (necessary for his job) from a newspaper ad, spending many thousands less than he would have paid at a dealership.Freecyle: You might be surprised at whats being given away, no strings attached. Ive seen beautiful furniture, clothing, bicycles, toys, books, and other useful stuff offered up.Yard sales: Another treasure hunt. Ive seen items still in the shrink-wrap at these sales. Its a great place to buy baby stuff, including newborn-sized clothing that seems never to have been worn.Buy Nothing Facebook groups: Last month my partner and I just picked up an almost-new Weber grill. Some of the other things Ive seen lately: baby stuff, solid wood table, sewing machine, board games, computer desk, cookware, and tons of childrens clothes. All of it is free.8. Overdoing it on special occasions Are holidays and birthdays completely over the top? Maybe its time to tone it down. When they become extravaganzas of gift-giving, we cheapen the meaning and also set the bar higher and higher. A kid who gets tons of presents is unlikely to appreciate each one fully and more to the point, he develops a sense of entitlement. As for birthday parties, when did they start resembling mini-coronations? Even one-year-olds are having party rooms reserved, decorations put up, and gift registries established. Really? Think of all the money thats spent and quickly forgotten. Now think what those dollars could have done for a childs education fund or your own retirement. Celebrate joyously, but celebrate sensibly. 9. Overbuying for grandchildren While waiting in line at a crafts store, I met a woman who developed the bad habit of having small gifts waiting for her granddaughters whenever they visited and they visited a lot. The woman was fretting visibly as she looked over the items in the stores dollar section. What do you buy for someone who already has everything? she asked me. After hearing her story, I felt very sad not just for her but also for the kids. A visit to grandmas house had become an exercise in acquisition. The first thing they do upon crossing the threshold is to ask what theyre getting. (Does anyone else find that quite sad?) Expectations are made, not born. If youve gotten into the habit of treats and more treats, scale back. Replace them with activities and gifts of time. The kids who are used to getting stuff will gradually become used to not getting stuff and when occasionally you do treat them, it will mean a lot more. Again, the money you save could go toward their education funds or toward shoring up your own budget. You cant finance retirement. 10. Giving more than you can afford Charity is a noble impulse. But giving to the American Red Cross or the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals should be done after youve taken care of business. Specifically, after youve built an emergency fund, started saving for retirement, and taken care of any consumer debt. Put on your own oxygen mask first, financially speaking. Award-winning journalist and veteran personal finance writerDonna Freedmanis the author of Your Playbook for Tough Times: Living Large on Small Change, for the Short Term or the Long Haul and Your Playbook for Tough Times, Vol. 2: Needs AND Wants Edition. Read more: https://www.thesimpledollar.com/loans/blog/a-loan-wont-solve-your-money-woes-if-you-dont-fix-these-10-financial-issues-first/
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