I just wanna die now. Fuck my life. I can’t even handle my 1st job (white collar, 38 hours, customer service) and I’m forced to do a 2nd job (blue collar, 22 hours, shelf stacking) just to survive – because 2021 was a fucked up year and 2022 even more so.
In 2021 I was unemployed for three months (laid off), and in 2022 had $4k wisdom teeth surgery + bought furniture for my apartment. I drained a total of $20k in savings. So I’m poor as fuck now.
I’m from New Zealand. Inflation and interest rates are sky high here, while wages are stagnant. I have a mortgage.
In Australia, groceries are 30% less and wages are 20-50% higher but I can’t just move as I only just started my first proper white collar job at a tech startup company after being in blue collar my entire life (no uni education) – so I shouldn’t throw it away. I never ever do any unpaid overtime there which is great (unpaid overtime is common in salaried white collar jobs).
I pay $200 a month in health insurance because the medical system is absolutely shit for me but, it’s useless for THREE YEARS. I won’t be able to use this health insurance for THREE YEARS because my medical conditions are “pre-existing”. Sciatica/disk problems, SIBO, coeliac, little to no gut absorption (low iron & B12), chronic fatigue syndrome, hypothyroidism, myopia, anxiety, depression, HSV-1, pinworms that won’t go away for 3 years, pelvic inflammatory disease, UTIs, mystery shadow on my chest lung xray, elevated white blood cells and much more likely undiagnosed. I’m immunocompromised.
Rifaximin for SIBO isn’t even funded here – it costs $1k a bottle.
Also given useless shit like mebendazole for pinworms which doesn’t fucking work, and doctor isn’t considering ivermectin even though I know I’ve had these critters for THREE YEARS (I just didn’t know what it was until two years in). Because anti-vaxxers gave it a bad rap. I even live with these critters in my genitourinary tract now.
So because everything is pre existing if I wanted to just deal with CT & MRI and SIBO, iron, B12 alone I’ll be paying likely $15k out of pocket which I can’t afford.
If I only worked the 1st job (paid monthly), when bills go out after the payday I’d only have $96 spare a month ($24 spare a week). While I could work 1 job as at least there’s $ spare, I do have the ever mounting health costs in these 3 years (before insurance actually kicks in) that I need to save up for, plus a general rainy day fund would be nice.
Idk how I’m still functioning. Sorry for the rant.