Guest Post: Who’s really the broke one?

The author of this post is McKenzie Hansen. McKenzie is a student at Boise State University, where she hopes to pursue a career in the medical field. She works two jobs to support herself through school and is figuring out adulthood one day at a time. She is a fitness competitor, avid gym goer, loves coffee, and has a natural eye for wardrobe styling.

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I’m a student at Boise State University. I drive a beat up old jeep and live way under my means. I don’t go shopping a lot and wear clothes I’ve had since I was fifteen. I work extensive hours every week, and work two jobs to support myself. I don’t make any payments on my beat up jeep and have never even considered taking out a student loan to pay for school. However, the general label I hear a lot for myself is I’m a “broke college student”.

About a week ago at work, I overheard a couple coworkers talking about an item they needed to pick up after their shift. This item wasn’t a necessity by any means. Hearing this, I spoke up and said I have that item laying around my house that I would be more than willing to give you! My coworker was extremely excited and said, “that would be awesome! I’ll pay you for it. I know you’re a broke college student.” While I was grateful they offered to pay me for something I had no use for, I didn’t find it necessary to accept money from them.

Working in such a small work environment, we begin to find out a lot about each other. I know this same coworker that offered me money for my useless item is financing a pretty nice car, still paying on student loans, and was forced into some unfortunate medical debt. I began questioning, “Am I the broke one or are they?”

Don’t get me wrong, I would greatly enjoy driving a car that doesn’t scare me to death when I drive it or very fashionable clothes to wear everyday, but I would much rather drive my old jeep than fall into the insane statistic of the amount of people in debt in the US.

It seems so simple to me that if you are making payments on something, with the exception of bills, then you do not own it. You are in debt. And I have learned that debt owns you.

Somehow the general perception of wealth has switched to the person driving the old beat up car is the poor man/woman and the driver of a new porsche is a wealthy individual.

*Side note: I have mad respect for those who own nice items and paid cash for them!

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Big thank you McKenzie for your wise words and sharing your insights. 

We all have a story that could help inspire someone.Please contact me if you would like to share your insights in a guest post. 

Thanks for reading! Happy New Year to you all. 

 

 

 

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