I Take Care Of Myself, Except...

One of my best friends also hates pumping gas, he only goes when he's been riding the 'empty' light for a while, and when he goes he'll only put in like four gallons because he gets bored. Coincidentally he runs out of gas 2-3 times a year. He's the one guy I know that hates spending time on his car the most, yet he has to spend more time on it than anyone else because he's a fucking moron.

Fuck them dude, they mortgaged out our futures to live the high life, it's the least they could do.

 

Hey, I am the first to admit that it is irrational. I can't even pinpoint what I hate about it so much, but seriously if given a choice between scrubbing the toilet or pumping gas, I would probably pick the toilet. I know, makes no damn sense. And it isn't the money, if my tank could fit $500 worth of gas, that is exactly how much I would be getting just so I wouldn't have to do it again for months.

 

I like to think that I'm independent, but it's clearly not the case. I've been living at my dad's for 10 months now. I've got a decent paying job with benefits and everything and could absolutely afford to move out, but I've been waffling over the past six months or so.

My problem is my decent paying job with benefits and everything is brutally boring and I need to move to a new city and job. Roughly every two months my patience with living at home wears out and I start looking for a place, and then I get an interview out of town or something and scrap my move out plans. It's getting to the point though where I'm going to have to bite the bullet and just move, or find some randos to sublet from on craigslist. Or I could get a new job, but that's seemed like a crap shoot lately.

I've saved a pretty big chunk of money by not paying for rent or food, which is nice, but after graduating from a good school with good grades (granted, probably undeserved good grades), I didn't see myself back at home at 23.

 

I worked for pay for the very first time in my life at age 22. My parents were all about education, and pretty much dictated that during summers I would be doing academic programs or unpaid internships that would inform my future career. I always wanted to do Junior Lifeguards or be a ski instructor or wrangle at a dude ranch (yes, I am a good swimmer, skier, and rider), but my dad said no. And if he was paying for said programs and education, he got his way.

All the moves towards independence that i have made have been entirely my own doing. I am particularly proud of the fact that I lived in the second most expensive city in this country on a shitty nonprofit salary and the only thing my parents paid for me was my car insurance. I didn't even have cable or internet at home, and my partying schedule was determined by what free food/drinks were being offered where.

I am even more proud of this because I have a fucking trust fund. I don't have to work. But I wanted to prove to myself that if it ever disappeared, I could survive and thrive on my own. Let me tell you, that experience made me more relaxed than anyone else I know with money during the recent recession.

At this point, my husband and I have decided to let the trust fund do the big stuff that will make our lives better in the long term (housing, education funds for future kids), and otherwise live and save on our salaries. We do not rely on parents for anything.

However, you could not say we entirely "take care" of ourselves. My parents are extremely generous. We get free dinners at great restaurants whenever they come to town, if we go on vacation together they pay, and Christmas is a serious blowout. They figure that it's fun for us all to experience cool things together, and if by forcing us to pay it means we can't go, then that's just silly. My husband and I do try to reclaim our dignity by occasionally treating them to said fancy dinners and bringing my dad exotic single malt scotches every time we visit, but it's mostly token in the face of all they do for us.

 

I'm in a similar situation to other posters, in that by some stroke of luck I was gifted parents with stable and substantial incomes. As such, I'm going to graduate college from an expensive university with no debt.

Because of this gift, I'm trying real hard to avoid what seems to be a common occurrence, in that the children of self made men or women lack the motivation, dedication, or other undetermined factor to push themselves to great things. I've worked a variety of minimum wage jobs through high school and college to ease my dependence on my parents for personal spending. After I graduate next year, I'm going to try real hard to start eliminating my dependence entirely.

I never wanted to act or appear spoiled, and I've never taken my luck for granted. Essentially, I'm trying to avoid becoming AJ Soprano, that whiny little shit.

 

I guess my mom did a great job with this too. She always instilled in me the fact I can't depend on anyone except myself. The result? I pay my own bills, do my own laundry, cook my own food, and have my own place. I haven't asked for shit from anyone for a long long time. The only "assistance" you can say I've received lately was from the Air Check program the government was sponsoring where they gave you 3 grand if you traded in a piece of crap car towards the purchase of a new vehicle. Do school loans count if you're paying them back?

 

Since I've graduated high school my parents have been paying for my car insurance and that's it. Come August, they'll be paying for my rent and cellphone while I'm in school. We're selling my SUV because I don't need it anymore and whatever money we get for that will be going towards my tuition. I appreciate that my parents contribute what they can, but honestly I'm glad that I've learned to be self-sufficient. I'm not looking forward to paying back the loans I'll be taking out, but that's what I get for choosing a more expensive school.

 

I became independent-minded in college seeing douchebag kids leach off their parents horrifically. I will fully admit that when I lost my job twice in the 18 months post college, I got help (mostly in the form of groceries and gas), but I covered my own rent and went into a decent amount of debt (that I am just now almost out of) covering other daily expenses and such. Contrast that to a girl I know who was jobless with no income for just over a full year, living in Chicago, in a one-bedroom apartment in a fairly expensive area. She wasn't making much at her previous job, and not only was she living in her place, she routinely would flaunt big shopping trips or online purchases and then have the stones to claim her parents really didn't help her out at all.

Now that I have a steady, well paying job, I'm back to buying my own groceries and reimbursing my parents for the gas I put on their BP Chase Card that they still insist I use cause of the cash back. The only two things I'm still tied to them for is my cell phone and my car insurance. My dad owns his own company, and on the company plan, my phone is literally about $5 a month. It makes no sense to go off it. And car insurance, when my dad signed over the title to my car and it officially became mine, I looked into my own car insurance, but for some reason I was able to stay under their coverage for an absurdly cheap rate that is just in the lump sum payment they pay twice a year. I don't know how this works as the car is under my name and they live in WI while I live in IL, but I don't argue, I just consider myself fortunate. I like to believe one day I will be able to pay it all back with a sweet big ticket purchase for them.

 

It is boring as hell, but the trick is to figure out which if the gas stations in your area have the little clip thing where you can just leave it and it'll fill up for you, then go inside and dick around for a couple minutes or sit in your car listening to the radio. Sometimes it even varies from pump to pump at the same station.

 

Where is this still legal? It seemed that all of New England started outlawing it at the same time, I assumed it was a federal law.

 

And everyone loves hating on New Jersey...

Even though I never have to, I'll usually pump my own gas if I'm not paying cash. If they're busy, I usually tell myself I'm doing the attendant a favor, but in reality I'm just impatient as hell.

Technically it's illegal to pump your own gas, but the attendant usually appreciates it and doesn't care. Though a couple months ago, some kid actually tried to stop me from doing it myself. I worked at that station for a summer back in high school so I told him to go take it up with the owner if he had a problem. Now I like going back there and making him do it himself.

 

Every place where I've thought to check has this. Never occured to me that it wasn't everywhere. I never use it though, I always have my hand on the handle.

 

Illinois, Ohio, and Wisconsin, I think Indiana too now that I think about it, all still have the clips. I never go dick around inside or anything, but I'll sit back in my car for sure, unless I only want a limited amount.

 

Not that this is the most pressing issue ever, I was more asking where is it still legal to go in the building while you're filling up, most of the places still have clips and like Net said you can use a gas cap or even chap stick (so I've heard) it's just not legal to leave the car unattended here anymore.

 

Possibly nowhere. I have no idea. I usually get it running and then go inside to take a piss, buy a drink, etc. and no one has ever said anything to me about it.

 

I don't know if it's illegal here, but it says on the pump not to leave it unattended.

 

I haven't received financial assistance from my parents in 5 years or so, and the closest I come to not being independent is paying to ride public transportation, which is obviously subsidized. I pay all my own bills and, despite the occasional times I drop my laundry off at a pay-per-pound place out of laziness, I do my own laundry, pay my own bills and otherwise support myself completely. I wouldn't even consider it particularly difficult, but there are times when I think about how nice it'd be to have someone else pick up the tab for me on occasion.