It's the last week of the month, and there’s barely anything left from your paycheck. Life is about to get a lot harder like it always does at this time of the month for almost a decade now.
It's that time of the month when you ask your best friend if they can "lend" you some food because the only thing left in your house is water and cotton balls.
It's the part of the month when eating cotton balls is something that constantly crosses your mind. Under normal circumstances, this would sound bananas. But you'd do almost anything to stop this gut-wrenching pain.
It's the time of the month when your covers aren't enough to protect you from the cold. You hunker down under your pillows and think back to when you were a kid. When you used your pillows to make castles and the thought of being this hungry and cold never even crossed your mind.
It's the time of the month when you skip your appointment with your therapist, even though your country has free healthcare, to save the money you'd pay for the bus ticket.
And, of course, if you try to talk about it online, there's always going to be someone with ‘Capitalist Stockholm Syndrome’. They will tell you that you aren't starving enough if you choose to pay your internet bill instead of buying food with that money.
But the internet is intertwined with almost everything in our lives. Besides numbing your brain with TV shows and movies until the last few days pass, it's also the only way to learn about what's really happening in the world, especially if you're living in a country where every major news outlet is on the government's payroll.
It doesn't matter how many times you've been down this road before and how meticulously you'll plan your budget. You'll be in the same exact spot in 30 days, give or take.
You may try to portion your food even more, and take fewer trips to the bathroom to save up on toilet paper.
After all, even small amounts of money saved count, right? Wrong! Food and electricity prices will go up, as they constantly do. And no amount of rice and canned beans will make a difference.
This is the hardship that many people are facing around the world and something needs to change.
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