First it wouldn't be 30 dollars - it would be more like 45 - 50 once you added shipping and handeling, probably a little more then that once you add a lanyard. And the over all cost of the trip is kind of the problem.
I budgeted only so much for this trip (Which required a huge sacrafice from both the spouse and I in the order of limiting our entertainment budget to reading books for free at the local bookstore for six months). So we manage to put aside just barely the money we had budgeted - then wow we get the promise of maybe 5 or 6 hundred more from my Pel grant.
So what's the problem with spending that? All of a sudden my mom wants me to start paying a hundered dollars every other week for groceries instead of 80, and oh yeah can I pay so she doesn't lose her nurse's liscense? And oh yeah, the step monster is going to clean the rugs - and it's my job to pay for renting the machine and buying the supplies. Oh and wait! The insurance - she wants us to help her finish paying the house insurance!
Now - to be specific, yes I live with my mom (It started out as us needing a place to stay when we first moved back to Ky, then it turned into her not having a job and needing us to support her, then she had the heart attack and the boyfriend moved in so it became a matter of staying here to protect her from his abusive self on top of the financial issues.) who is functionally unemployed. (She works at Neilson, I doubt anyone is familar with that that means so let me be specific. That means she's really lucky to make minimum wage - and get twelve hours a week. Yeah - tons of help that is. Then the there's the other housemates, her 48 year old boyfriend who only works the summer season - and even then whines and screams and jumps up and down in a remarkable display that is a cross between the Incredible Hulk and Rumplestilskin. (Imagine the Hulk if he really had an anger problem). He brings with him his son, and his son's best friends - neither of whom pay a penny to stay here. Finally we have me and D.
Needless to say, while Scotty and his two boys live here for maybe 3 hundred a month (Which according to the math I do - justice would demand more like 1,000, I'll explain in a second), D and I pay out more like 440 on top of everything else she now wants me to pay for. Now, as to my math from before? Me and D - 300 (Which before he moved in and started keeping a radio and light on for his chickens 24/7, and started watering his small farm of animals (like 78 dogs) and driving the water bill up, were well under 300 dollars) on utilities and 140 on food (Now being moved to more like 200 on food a month). I Get the 1,000 figure from them accordingly. If they were to match the 300 D and I put in in a fair way, then it would be 300 between Scotty and Mom, and another 300 between the two boys (Who are fully grown, and well over 18) plus two hundered for food from each set - that's 1,000 dollars - we could all afford to live not hand to mouth and it wouldn't feel like it was all on our heads.
Now, on top of all that drama - Scotty is extremly verbally abusive to not only my mother (or not even mostly my mother) but to D and I as well. There are lots of unfair orders being bandied about (We ignore him, but that only makes him angrier), he calls us such wonderful gems as fat lazy, b&t**s several times daily, and makes tons of wonderful homophobic commentary about our relationship - including the ever popular threats of hellfire and damendation (because he's a Christan don't ya know). SO, now D - quite understandably - wants to move out in January. Our trip is in December.
She didn't tell me she wanted to move out (remember I'm still hanging in trying to protect the mother that refuses to protect me from her boyfreind... and probably a little because I don't like the idea of being forced out of my mother's home by that man, so this comes as quite a shock to me.) in January until after we had started paying on a 3,000 plus package. She didn't tell me she wanted to move out until the budget was set in stone... So now I have to find the money to do that.
Now to top all of this off, I receive and SSI check as my sole source of income, I have a disability which prevents me from being able to function in the kind of work I can get without a degree. (Before anyone bandies around that awful word "freeloader" please understand that I am working with the state to attend university so that I can get a degree that will allow me to work despite my disability). And D is making around 12 dollars an hour, working full time at Cardnial health. I tell you this so you will understand our financial circumstances and exactly what our resources are.
So, now I'm sure you're asking the same question I've asked myself a hundred times. "Why are you even going to WDW under these circumstances? Why not just cancel the trip and move into a safer enviorment?"
Well, see it's bad enough that Scotty is going to drive me out of my own mother's house just when she and I are really starting to get along for the very first time in my life... but he can't have my dream too. WDW is my dream, it has been since I was a very little girl. The whole trip got decided on after I made a list of the things that I would mourn on my deathbed if I never did - and WDW was at the top of my list. I think it's something about giving something to the wounded, and abused child inside of me (I grew up in an enviorment that was highly abusive on all levels verbal, sexual, emotional, psychological, and physical.) the chance to find the magic that every child deserves. So he may force me out of my own home - but he will not force me out of my dream. And now? They tell me I might have cancer (nothing definitive yet - but there is still that chance, and that my time might be running out. So now he's really not cheating me out of my dream.
So you take all of those factors, and the nightmares I'm already having about not being able to make it... and that I never thought I would get into the whole Pin Trading thing until I held one in my hands that came from a wonderful Fairygodmailer unexpectedly... and yeah... 45 - 60 dollars seems like it might be just a little too much.
Sorry, guess I needed to get all of that off my chest.
EpcotMatt said:
In the overall scope of things, is $30 really that much in comparison to the total cost of a Disney vacation? Especially when the pin trading will be an on-going thing, not just a one-shot deal like a meal or something.
