Hey guys,
So I am a early 30's paranoid schizophrenic who dropped out of UC Berkeley and has been collecting SSI for the past 7 years. I get about 800 per month. I have led a very piecemeal life these past 7 years, because that is all $800 can get you. A lot of sleeping on couches, SRO's, sublets, part time restaurant/bar work, uber driving, etc. A constantly shifting and unstable life.
Yet I long for stability, so a year and a half ago I left the bar industry and checked into rehab. I am now 1.5 years sober from alcohol, weed, and meth. I used meth very infrequently, only about once per year - I have a strange relationship with it, I sort of use it as a chaos button when I want to make changes in life, but do not have the courage to do it myself, taking meth always ensures my life drastically changes.
Anyway, while in a government rehab I was still allowed to collect ssi, so I was saving money little by little. Then, right before covid, I obtained a job as a photographer, and worked part time until being laid off once covid shut the studio's doors.
This qualified me for PUA, as the studio was kind enough to tell me. I checked, and it was legal to collect unemployment while on SSI.
The $600 extra from PUA (Pandemic unemployment assistance) allowed me to save money extremely fast. However, some issues have arisen.
I went to the brick and mortar ssi building to report my photography job, but they were closed due to covid. I was also never able to report the fact I have been receiving EDD.
So here is the thing. The government eventually (once they open up again and I get my account straight), will want some money back. Probably the full amount of my SSI (so about $800 per month) for 5-6 months. That means I do not actually have as much money as I appear to have. I probably need to pay them about $5k, I would think?
Then there is the other fact that SSI recipients are not allowed to have more than $2,000 in money like, ever. Which brings me to my next problem.
Once I had saved 11k in EDD and SSI, I invested in the stock market and managed to make another $4,000 in about 2 months. I did this by investing in stocks that had been hit hard by coronavirus, and then selling once any positive or hopeful news came out.
So at the end of the year they will average out my earnings over 12 months and want more money back depending on what that comes out to.
Now, the point of my life eventually is actually to get off SSI completely, and go back to living a better life. I am more stable mentally now than I have ever been. I see a therapist once a week and go to outpatient drug counseling groups once a week. So I eventually want to get off of SSI anyway, I want to transition away from it and begin to make my own money, I am so tired of the SSI life. It literally feels like they give you just enough money to be a well off homeless person. Like if you are homeless you can eat ok and do some drugs each month off the government and be fine. But the second you do any better you get into trouble. I am so tired of being afraid to make money, it is such a welfare trap. But my self doubt and my mental illness cause me to be terrified to lose my SSI Safety blanket and be homeless again (I have only been briefly homeless, but it was horrible).
Here is where I need advice. I currently have 15k. 10k of it is in my Schwab account, and another 5k in my business account, which does not have my name on it. I made it when I worked for uber to keep the independent contractor thing separate from my personal finances. I never let the money touch the account attached to my SSI.
I am terrified to spend this 15k the wrong way. I feel like the most important thing I can do with it is invest in myself. I am terrified that I will use up the whole amount on just rent or something and fail to give myself a new, better way to make money.
One option is paying the money back to UC Berkeley. When I dropped out of UC Berkeley with a medical withdrawal, I left before the halfway point, so the government has been demanding I pay back half of the grants they had given me for that semester *before* I will be allowed to return or accept further financial aid. This comes to $6,000. I have dreamed of going back to UC Berkeley for years, but the money held me back. I have one semester to finish my Psychology degree.
The other option is to put the money toward a coding bootcamp and supporting myself while I learn. I have decided that I really want to learn to code, I am great with computers and though I long to be around people more, my sobriety has reminded me that my internal 'genius' can only really shine when I work alone. I do not know whether or not I would be good at a social worker type job that the Psychology degree would get me.
There is also a chance that the government can be convinced out of making me pay back the "overpayment," but I feel like I'd need a lawyer for that. I have to prove it wasn't my fault and that I can't afford to pay it back.
But eventually everything will come to light when I file taxes and they will know I had more money than I should have, even though I was legally allowed to accept PUA while receiving SSI, it was just so damn much ($3k per month). However, they may be willing to forgive all that as it was a once in a lifetime crisis type of thing and I honestly did legally qualify for it so it wasn't my fault. But who knows.
The main goal in the mean time is figuring out a way to spend this money to invest myself so that by the time it runs out, *whether I continue to receive SSI or NOT*, I have provided a new career for myself that will make me much more money than SSI or my bar work ever could have.
So what do I do? I am so frightened. I have so much self doubt. I fear that I am not ready to be in a career yet, I have failed so many times in the future, I fear that my mind is not yet ready. But this is the chance I have. I feel so pressured. I am currently living in a place where I am paying $700 per month, month to month. I have only been here for 10 days, and have already paid the $700. It stresses me out so much that I am paying this much money to rent a place and I am not even decided about how to spend the money to further myself.
I am so stressed out, my mind is flooded with options. Move to a cheaper state, pay for a $300 room and figure it out from there. Buy a laptop and a camera and start making money with photography again like I used to when I lived in LA. (I now live in San Francisco).
I feel a great responsibility to use this correctly, but that very fact has me absolutely frozen. I am taking options that I am forced to instead of making my own decisions just because my fear has frozen me so. For example, my funding ran out at the rehab, and I knew 45 days in advance that I had to move. But instead of getting everything arranged to move to Denver Colorado like I had planned, I became frozen in indecision and ended up in an SLE paying $700 to share a room with 3 other dudes. I need privacy, I can't take this much longer.
I really need to know what to do.
Oh, I am also considering Make School, I could go there for two years, learn coding in my own room, and pay them afterward. But I'd be taking on $75k in debt, and I already owe the government $25k in loans.
I didn't know how to get this all out, I'm sorry I am rambling like this. If you would be willing to try to advise me I will gladly answer more questions. I thank you so much for your time, and for being willing to help me.
Submitted November 11, 2020 at 08:29PM by memesplaining https://ift.tt/38BfJAn
