$400 later, and the old motorcycle is ready to sell for about $3k. Maybe not the best financial decision, but the right thing to do for my beloved bike that needs to find a new home. Motorcyclists and musicians do not always make fiscally-responsible decisions. In other news, a cheapass bass guitar which sells for about $150 new, made its way into my hands. I did some basic service on it to get it working well again, in preparation for finding it a good new home. But it has this great black metalflake sparkly paint job... and some real punk rock dings and scratches... and then I plugged it in, and it has this great thumpy P-bass kind of sound... but the neck is all warped. So I bought a new neck ($180) and tuners ($75), and am assembling the beast to make it my Punk Rock Bass. Yes, I spent $255 to make a $150 bass to play punk rock on. What? You got something to say about that, buddy? huh? HUH?!?
Nope. The CASUAL spending of $250 on musical instruments. The CASUAL several thousand dollar loss on the bike. I've been more stressed than usual. I've explained in the past that quippy is the lesser evil to long bitter diatribes.What, spending $250 on musical instruments?
I don't think you even hear yourself anymore. I mean, you're reefing back on the bile but all you know is that you stepped in it, but you don't think you've transgressed enough to back off the caps lock. You started out by insisting goobster feel bad for an entire generation of human beings because they will never experience the financial freedom of spending $75 on guitar parts or some shit, which is bullshit enough. But when called on it, you've morphed it into him somehow not feeling properly contrite about his choices which is straight bullshit, dude, and you know it. Look. I'm sorry you're in a shitty mood. I'm sorry things aren't going your way. I'm sorry it's rough. But fucking hell it's one thing to say "I feel bad" and quite another to say "and you should too." Drag it out to "feel bad for my entire generation" and fuck off, Jack. Every single person on this website - to a man - comes out indignant and swinging whenever anyone posts a "millennials are bad because X" article. There is probably no greater support network of old fogeys pulling for millennials on the Internet. And here you are, pissed off that your clinic won't call, shitting all over someone else's quixotic victory but too cowardly to do it for yourself so you hide behind demographics of all things. This isn't a "quippy" vs. "long and bitter" issue this is 100% misplaced rage. Yesterday I casually bought $130 worth of horological tools. Then I casually bought a $8 chess set for my daughter to earn with her coins (we instituted a token economy to keep her tantrums down and it's been a mixed success). Then I casually bought a $12 watch for the exact same reason. Then I casually bought pizza for me and a friend. And then I casually didn't fucking tell anyone about it because I casually feel casually about it which means I don't think anyone else would fucking care. Goob? He's got seven paragraphs on the way he's choosing to spend his money and apparently the act of telling you about it is reason enough to cut loose. 'cuz I'll point out: Zebra's going to fuckin' Japan. Elizabeth's going to fuckin' South Africa but you ain't got shit to say about that 'cuz they're your age. So ask yourself next time you feel like lashing out at the next casual bystander. "Am I actually mad at this person? Do I want them to feel like they're the cause of all that's wrong in the world?" 'cuz I spent my entire goddamn childhood with a woman who telegraphed her need for us to cheer her up by shitting all over everything we liked and you know what? I stopped talking to that bitch for four fuckin' years. And I'm not even related to you.
(Minor detail: That sentence means I spent $400 to get the bike serviced, so I could sell it for $3k. Without servicing it, I probably could have sold it for $2800, but the new owner would have to get it serviced. I wanted to do the right thing for the bike, and sell it in the best condition possible, so the new owner falls in love with it, rather than having to wrench on it. As it is, due to looming winter, and bikes don't sell in winter, I'm probably going to have to sell it for $2500. So it's not a "several thousand dollar loss", and I never represented it as such.)
Well, when you are a 50-year old DINK with no house payments due to a family fluke two generations ago, the salary goes to things other than diapers and after school sports and minivans and providing calories to voracious growing humans and saving for college and/or retirement and all that. The people your age that are doing alright financially are not story-worthy and don't fit the model the media is selling. So you don't hear about them much, except when someone complains about "gentrification", and then realizes it's caused largely by millenials making Amazon/Google/etc money, and paying exorbitant amounts for things, because they can. It ain't 35-year old parents of 2 that are paying $2500/mo for a 500-square foot one-bedroom apartment/condo in that new LEED-certified building that replaced that classic old Seattle craftsman bungalow...
I'm around the same age as you and plenty of my friends are doing alright. Well enough to have kids, get married in lakeside hotels, and own their owns houses and shit It's no coincidence that they all work in the IT/Tech industry. That's where all the money is (as goobster mentioned). I mean, have you seen how much a digital agency will pay to poach a half-talented employee from a competitor? I'm talking an easy 10k pay rise, if not more. It's ridiculous. The freelance offers are even crazier if you're prepared to work for some soulless corporation and do your own admin. I also have friends getting by on bar work and other lower paid jobs; I know it's not great for everyone. But there's definitely a significant amount of our generation who are doing just fine financially.