The Idiot is getting worried. (I’d change his name, but as the moniker has already stuck, so I’ll keep ‘er).
Remember how I said he wanted to quit his high-paying job at $130,000 a year because he didn’t want to travel any longer?
He did it, and I was waiting to get the details before dishing.
He’s now worried, so we met up for coffee the other day.
He was very, very worried and stressed about the job situation out there, and says he needs at least $80,000 to live.
(I should note, that the job situation for his industry is FINE out there, but he doesn’t want to travel, and there are a whole host of other nervous things he doesn’t want to do. Yet he quit his job. GO figure)
Although, based on what we know of their spending habits ($2000 spas each weekend, toys cluttering the entire home, eating frozen, pre-made dinners, going on shopping trips), I don’t think it’s really enough unless they turned into Frugal Fannies over night which is hard to believe.
Idiot: Yeah. We were paying SO much for electricity that I called the electric company.
FB: *do not pass GO…do not collect $200…*
Idiot: …. and told them “Look! I turned out ALL the lights, we don’t even use any lights at all. I just can’t keep paying this bill at this rate, it’s too much. How can it be so high?”
Electric Company: “Well, sir.. let me take a look here. OH! I see!
Last year, you were using a LOT of energy over the average, so we charged you the same as we did last year since we take it based on history.
Let me adjust it to your current usage for this month and it’ll be locked in for $109/month for the rest of the year.”
BF: That’s weird. You were using so much electricity last year, but then they gave you a locked in $109/month discounted rate? How much electricity were you using?
Idiot: Well they gave me a deal because I spent so much….
Let’s stop the conversation there.
Know how we were paying around $50 for every 2 months or around $25/month? That’s excellent in these parts because we just got lucky, and are naturals at conserving energy.
A normal electric bill for his neighbours who live in something similar is $80/month which sounds reasonable to me.
This guy was spending $320/month on electricity alone, or 4x what a normal family would spend.
Let that sink in. Breathe in, breathe out.
That’s $3840/year, and it’s not even a full-sized house that he lives in.
He lives on the bottom of a double-story weird house condo hybrid that is really oddly laid out, and only has one floor.
I think the place is about 1500 square feet.
And he has an underground parking garage space included in the house that he bought for $320,000 2 years ago, and has since dropped by $100,000 in value, but he is hoping to sell it for half a million in 2 years.
Don’t get me started on that again.
Read The Idiot & His Wife Part 1 here and Part 2 here for more details.
Okay. Moving on.
FB: How could you be spending $320/month!? That’s.. a LOT of money.
Idiot: Well, we like it really warm in the home. Like in Mexico. So we kept it super hot all the time since it’s so cold here in Canada.
FB: Okay… maybe it was leaking out somewhere? Did you try caulking the windows or using heavy curtains to block the cold air from escaping?
Idiot: No. But I think we found the problem.
See, we also wanted to walk into a heated garage instead of a cold one and not sit in a cold car while it warms up, because we’re from Mexico so we like things warm because we find it cold here.
So we cranked up the heat and kept the garage hot all year round except for summer.
FB: ………………..
Idiot: But then we found a little hole in the garage, so we’ve stopped doing that.
ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!!!!!!!
I want to shake him and tell him he has to learn how to shape up and if he has to, to get a damn job at Starbucks or as a cashier because HE IS BROKE!!!!!
He said at the end of our conversation that he couldn’t survive past a month or two, and BF and I understood that to mean that he couldn’t survive past a month or two, using credit cards as the source of income because they are becoming MAXED OUT.
Oh yeah.
Something weird happened before we met, that I should mention.
BF and I think it’s just pride that is keeping him from really telling us what’s going on, and hey.. if only he knew that I’d love to step in like a financial coach or trainer and change his name from Idiot to Reformed (like a Financial Pokemon), but since he works in finance, there seems to be nothing I could tell him that he doesn’t already know.
Uh huh. I’ve already said that many people who are in financial trouble, and feel the stress, don’t know or are in denial that they are in trouble until it really gets to be a dire situation, and by then, it’s almost too late, or extremely hard to dig themselves out.
A stitch in time, saves nine.. and all that.
Anyway, so what happened was that we were at the shop waiting for him.
He walks in and tells us he has to pick up milk and all of this other stuff because the wife and kids are sitting in the car outside. He was going to buy groceries and then drop them off at home and come back.
He lives across the island, which is about a 20 minute drive and not a close walk.
We thought it odd that he chose the time NOW to pick up everything since we were meeting late in the day and he’s unemployed…….but sometimes people just aren’t as organized with their time, so we shrugged and said we’d wait. No big deal.
We settled into our seats and I saw him a couple of times, strolling around with the cart… but it was empty. It was like he was checking to see if we were watching him shop, or something weird.
Felt creepy.
Anyway, it was less than 10 minutes later when he came back carrying a bottle of juice he bought in the store. He didn’t look like he had been running, out of breath or anything.
When we finished chatting, he then asked us to drop him off at home because he drove the wife and kids home, and walked back to the grocery store.
Guy lives across the island! How could he have walked back in less than 10 minutes?
It’s possible if he ran like Donovan Bailey, but we found it strange that he got back so quick, so calm and not out of breath or even cold to show he had been outside, in less than 10 minutes when the drive itself 20 minutes.
Something didn’t add up, and we think it’s because he made up a whole story about having to buy everything for the wife and kids, drop them off, etc… when in fact, he had taken 35 minutes to walk to the store, waited there for us, and then pretended to leave, and come back again.
It was impossible to have done that without a car, speeding knowing as we do, where he lives.
And since he walked there earlier, he didn’t drive the car. Which meant, he needed a ride home.
Our guess is that he can’t afford gas any longer.
I think the car is at almost empty, and they must be walking to the grocery stores now, to save money and gas and he must be taking the bus for $67/month to get to class.
So we dropped his voluntarily unemployed ass off at home and when we peered into the home, it was pitch black, except for one light. It looked like NO ONE was at home.
Then we realized that he really couldn’t afford his electric bill, even at the rate it is at now.
It is an extremely dire, and sad situation that he is facing right now.
Even if he is an Idiot to the extreme and brought it all onto himself, I felt horrible for him.
Now, he is job hunting, but going to school downtown (2 hours away) every day for another degree (which he is paying for out of pocket, even though in the industry he is in, extra education is totally useless), with the wife and kids at home.
His next scheme is to sell everything here, move back to Mexico and take a job in finance again, making what he was making before because he just simply doesn’t have the proper skills to make it here in Canada or even in the U.S. (he was only there because of his company from Mexico).
But the wife started bawling that if they moved back there, they’d kill the babies if they tried to go out at night.
I don’t know where she got that “we move to Mexico, the babies die when we go out” notion (she thinks with the crime rate, they’ll be killed in 2 minutes but she’s over exaggerating), but to us, it seems like it’s the best option for their situation, since he CAN get a job in Mexico with good contacts, their families are not filthy rich (not millionaires) as mentioned by some comments before, but well-off enough to not be poor, they could get nannies for $2/day to help the wife, and maybe a body guard to boot.
They don’t even have to live in Mexico City. Move to a smaller, safer city if that’s the case.
The woman sits on her ass all day watching TV anyway, (not all SAHM’s do this, but this one definitely does), so if she doesn’t even leave the house, the danger decreases slightly, so if she doesn’t even leave the house NOW in a good, safe society … why would anyone think that’d she would bring the kids out of the home when she’s in Mexico?
We think it’s a strategy to stay here because she’s mentioned being ashamed of her Mexican roots (she didn’t like how in the States they seemed to treat her quite badly) and she doesn’t want to go back to Mexico with her tail between her legs after bragging to all of her friends and family that she’s headed for a better life and that they’re stuck there schlepping away.
As for his job situation, NO ONE will hire him for finance, it is impossible considering the situation now. There are tons of people out of work, and he’s been out of that business for a couple of years now. He’s out of touch.
As for the industry that he’s in right now, it’s a tough one because companies think you should ask for LESS money, considering jobs are scarce and they want to pay you what you AREN’T worth, so he keeps asking for too much and getting screwed.
He thought he had a couple of good job leads, and thought he was a TOTAL SHOO-IN because he spoke the languages required and get this… the recruiter was Mexican too (by her last name, although it could have been a married name).
I just.. it’s just all pity now. If he wanted budgeting help, I’m his girl.. but they’re just too proud to ask for help and/or think they know it and can do it all by themselves.
UPDATE:
*snort*
I just had to share this because Dog’s post about what books she’s reading right now made me remember what happened recently.
Her post had this line:
Honey, I was never going to fire off 1,000 resumes without talking to someone. Does anyone actually do that?
This guy, the King of Idiots, sent 4 resumes to the same person for the same job.
2 were from headhunters who each thought they were the only ones representing him for the position (LOL) and 2 were from himself, one through LinkedIn and the other via Email.
*slaps forehead*
The main problem with the 4 resumes, other than the fact that it annoys people and is a STUPID idea, is that the receiving company doesn’t know who to give the finder’s fee to.
Headhunter 1? Headhunter 2? The guy himself? No fee? Half a fee? Split?
They’d rather just not deal with the situation entirely, and risk losing the solid relationships they have between each of the headhunters, because he isn’t a special candidate with 1 in a billion skills, so BF and I are pretty sure they ended up tossing his resume in the bin, or deleting it.
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