Chip Chick
Over the last several weeks, this 28-year-old woman’s boyfriend, 26, has been constantly saying he wants to resign from his job and start a career as a video game influencer. They have a 2-year-old son, and she pays roughly 80% of their expenses. Since she makes more than her boyfriend, she doesn’t mind contributing more to their bills.
Unfortunately, she also does all the housework, except when her boyfriend occasionally takes out the garbage after she asks him to do so for a couple of days. Their combined income is enough to cover their monthly bills. Childcare is incredibly pricey in their home country, and they don’t have any family members in the area to help care for their son while they work.
She has a full-time job to provide for their family, and when she’s not working her full-time job, she works side hustles like translation work while their son sleeps for extra money. When their son is sick and has to stay home from daycare, she has to take the day off work to care for him.
“It’s happened a lot recently and has an impact on my work and my mental health. I’m lucky my boss understands and supports me as much as they can. Recently, some of our bills have increased significantly, to the point we can no longer cover it with our incomes, so I have been trying to sell our house to downsize,” she said.
The housing market isn’t favorable right now, and it’s a difficult time to sell. Her savings are quickly dwindling as the bills continue increasing. She’s expressed her frustrations to her boyfriend on multiple occasions, pointing out that all her money goes to bills while he has extra money at the end of the month because he works overtime.
When she requested that he contribute more money toward bills since she’d spent almost all her savings, he said he didn’t want to. She told him she was nervous about their lives moving forward and didn’t know how they’d provide for their family. But her boyfriend told her he wanted to spend his extra money on fun things, adding that he didn’t want to suffer from depression and economic anxiety like her.
Lately, she’s been visiting the doctor and has been prescribed a few medications for her mental health, which has been suffering and quickly worsening. She struggles to sleep because she’s stressed about what they will do about their financial situation. It makes her even more anxious as she realizes that her boyfriend doesn’t have any of the same worries.
“Whenever I bring up money, he tells me to ask my ‘rich parents’ to pay for things. My parents are by no means rich. However, they live comfortably and have helped me loads in the past. However, I do not see why I should ask them for money if my partner could just help by reducing his fun money,” she explained.
At the end of the month, her boyfriend has $700 left, with which he buys video games, clothing, and technology gear. For several weeks, he’s been whining about his boss, claiming he would resign and become a Twitch streamer.
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