Messy FI: What you do When you Can't Afford an Onion

This is an excerpt from my new long form narrative project: MessyFI on Substack.

It was never the lattes or the avocado toast. (which wasn’t really a thing yet).

In 1998 I was a senior in high school, with good grades, a streak of idealism, and absolutely no clue about how the world worked. I wanted to LEARN THINGS. I wanted to CHANGE THE WORLD. I had no idea how to make a career despite having been in the workforce for four years already clearing tables at a local restaurant. I had all the hard work, grit, and good intentions in the world and absolutely no money, no knowledge, and no guidance on how to make a living.

So I chose to go to an expensive liberal arts university because I loved learning, and I had earned a 50% academic scholarship on tuition at Oglethorpe. So it made sense to me at the time. Never mind that I could have gone for free to the state university on academic scholarships. I was idealistic. That 50% scholarship covered half of tuition, but not including fees, books, room or board. I made up the rest of the costs with a federal needs based grant, work study, part time jobs and loans. So when I graduated, I had studied philosophy, art history, astronomy, French, Latin and fine art. I was academics smart, but I had no career path ahead of me and a hefty student loan payment weighing me down. I was a poor kid getting a rich kid’s education on borrowed money.

I graduated from Oglethorpe University with a degree in Fine Art (Cum Laude I might add) in 2003. Which, if you know much about the place, was a terrible economic mismatch. A very expensive education with absolutely no earnings potential. Add to that I graduated during a time of high unemployment, stagnating wage growth and inflated housing prices.

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