u/ChampionCedar

I am extremely financially stable. I make $3938.58 per month from VA Compensation and I get an increase to my compensation at least 2.5% every December. My rent is only $1095 which includes water, gas, food donation, pantry, air-conditioning and Me having the privilege to live with my dog. I am currently living in a very small city that has less than 50,000 people. I only fill my gas tank 2 to 3 times per month.

The only thing I want do is save up around 10 grand to buy 1 acre of Land and use my VA construction loan to pay for building a home. Every Month there’s always something I have to fix something; which includes my car. Or I have to go fix one of my items I have like for example I had to get my phone fixed because my iPhone power up and down buttons before that I got my PlayStation five fixed, etc.

Food is so expensive nowadays which is more expensive since I’m trying to be on the carnivore diet, but everything that is meat is extremely expensive. I eat at least three steaks per week, have subways around twice a week but when they’re only on sale, for example I got myself a foot-long meatball sub for only $8.76. Still more expensive than it was over 20 years ago but still better than paying over 20 bucks for one sub. I wish it was five dollars for a Subway sandwich like it was back in the day.

I refill on my water bottles every two weeks so I always get at least three cases of 48 water bottles. My car insurance is $220 per month and my car payment is currently $131.06 per month. Again I keep trying to save money. I always put $700 in my savings account but by the end of the month. I have to use it again and put another $700 for the next time the first of the month. It’s a vicious cycle. I have a lot of needs in a lot of wants and I just don’t really care for giving up my wants because the first of the month I pay all my bills everything and I have a little over two grand to play with for the most part they still always squander it on mostly emergencies and food I spent at least $900 on food/drinks. I don’t know what to do. I’m always ready for emergencies though, because it always happens to be in the beginning of month, so I always fix it.

I’m currently not working I should but I am 100% Disabled Marine Veteran; there are a lot of jobs. I cannot do even though there’s some I really wanna do that can physically still hurt me it’s just I am retired and I can do whatever I want. I just don’t really care for the pain. I’m gonna deal with in the future because at this point, I’m at the end of the road in life, I am literally living in the golden years of the boomers. The only jobs that they’re hiring here in Cedar City are in fast food restaurants, grocery stores, clothing store, random stores, etc. and I don’t want to do that. I want work in farming even though I’m disabled I still want to learn more about plants how to plant my own food. I just wish things were different. You have to know someone to get into that field and the only way to get into it is if you know somebody or if you major in agriculture, which I am doing right now, I want to be a farm manager or work in a greenhouse working on plants, making sure they’re good to go and having the sprouts for certain foods they’re making. Like for example I have to make sure the potatoes are creating other potatoes instead of dying from bugs or dehydration.

I know it’s a long post but in short I want help I don’t know what to do. What’s the point of saving up when I’m retired. I’m NOT going to worry about anything. I’m losing a decent amount of weight every week and I just don’t really care about saving because what’s the point the veterans affairs compensation is never gonna go away.
Not until I die no one’s getting inherited my compensation even if my dumbass actually gets married has kids I don’t think my children are going to inherit my veterans affairs compensation.

But the good news is I keep myself distracted with doing whatever I can for my church. I became a Latter Day Saint and I just don’t see any other purpose besides doing that and working on a farm. I hope I can find myself a job after I graduate with my bachelors degree in agriculture, but I don’t care. I really don’t care because I literally have everything I need. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t it the whole point of retirement to work so you can pull out retirement or have a pension and live out your life to the fullest. That’s what I’m doing. Working saving money being in the whole rat race in general; I just don’t really care for it. I don’t really care about work. I don’t care about saving money. The only thing I care about is being a Latter Day Saint; I keep being a good Latter Day Saint
and help other people out and enjoy my life by playing video games, working out, waking at 4 AM in the morning every day just do whatever I want. It’s amazing and I just don’t know if I’m the only one on this, but I know my situation is very unique and special and I’m very grateful for it, but I just can’t relate to other people my age they are working and saving up for retirement. They are trying to get that promotion while I’m the only one who’s retired who is this young being only 24 years old a retired 100% Disabled Marine Veteran who does whatever he wants and helps at the LDS church as much as he wants and that’s just the only thing that gives me joy in life. So go ahead and give your opinion about it. I will give the TLDR; at the end of this post right now besides that live strong I would love to hear you guys’s comments and advice.

TLDR: A 24 Year Old 100% VA Disabled Marine Veteran; I am extremely financially stable and I joined a great religion that keeps my mind and body busy. I also work out and play video games on my free time at least five days a week. Everything is Great in my life, but I cannot relate to anyone I just don’t really care about working or saving money so this is just me venting, but you guys can give me all your advice you want and comments that you want to give for clarity. I am willing to answer any question. I understand my situation is very unique and special and I’m very grateful for it. Thank you for reading my post.

I just finished hanging out with a couple friends of mine in my LDS Church and it was absolutely amazing. I had an amazing time. Today is Saturday. I woke at 4 AM in the morning to get ready for the day; I walked my dog, stretched out, showered, went straight to the LDS Temple and did my last baptism for the dead this week by the time it was 06:40 AM. I was already done; walking straight to my car and there was a kind older LDS women who told me you’re leaving already what time did you get here? I told her 06:10 AM. I’m just motivated and dedicated to the Church. She told me bless your heart. I’m glad we have latter-day Saints like you saving these souls and giving them a third chance. I told her I’m very humbled by your comment. Thank you. Have a great day then I went straight back to my apartment took a nap and an hour later I went to the Institute to help out with the mini breakfast and they wanted me to help out clean the church. We cleaned the church building then had a little mini breakfast and we talked about how important is to get at least 7 to 9 hours of sleep per day and how it helps us get a stronger connection with our dear Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.

It was a good lesson to chill and relax too, but the LDS Church had another lesson at 10 AM which was about having a good marriage with your wife and husband and how to keep a strong connection with your partner which sounds awesome but at that point I had to go to the Renaissance Festival with my friends. We had an amazing time we were hanging out from 10:30 AM all the way to around 6:30 PM. We ate some good food. I got myself turkey leg, pecan , root beer float , a large box of orange chicken and rice. 🍚 we definitely got our protein for today lol 😂 also we laughed, had an amazing fun time. We talked about all the amazing things happening in our lives and bad things happening in our lives and how we are coping with it/dealing with it. At the end of the day we went to one of my friends houses he’s renting and he invited us and I was very honored from him doing that so it just made me extremely happy most of the time we’re just chilling at the Institute. Anyways, at his house, we were playing Uno for about an hour and then we finally had to go home, I had to drop off one of my friends and now here I am; writing this Reddit post in my apartment with my beautiful dog daughter as I am writing this she’s licking my right hand. I’m so grateful for everything going great in my life right now. I just want to write this for more positive experiences on this cedar city sub Reddit.

Be Positive and Live Strong 💪 Everyone.

I moved Cedar City, Utah a little over four months ago and I just fell in love with it. I’ve been going to LDS church every Sunday and about two months ago I got baptized in the LDS church and given the Aaronic Priesthood. I have been doing baptisms for the dead ever since. I do it five days a week. It’s been a crazy ride. I’ve been told so many bad things about the LDS church and Utah in general but I’m glad I followed my heart and just did a bunch of road trips to find my own personal Zion. I was obsessed with moving to Cedar city for 13 months until I finally found myself an extended stay. My lease is only one month and the rent is only $1095 per month with my dog so it’s perfect. It comes with electricity, gas, water, food, pantry food donations that anyone can get and of course, laundry amenities like the dryer and washer.

This is going to be a surprise to a lot of you, but I am mixed. I have Asian and Hispanic Heritage, my father is Asian and my mother is Hispanic; I’ve been treated with nothing but respect. I know there was a post of a girl talking about her getting stared at for wearing very revealing clothing, which I find hilarious/understandable. As a man, my personal experience is I cover myself up all the time even though it’s extremely hot outside over 90°. I still cover myself. Also I do most of my grocery shopping in the mornings right after my baptism for the dead.

So here’s my routine; 5 Days a week; I wake up at 4 AM in the morning do my workout/walk my dog daughter 1 mile at the veterans park then I come home stretch out, shower, feed my dog daughter and go straight to the temple around 6 AM and do baptisms for the dead. After that, if there’s something else to do, I would do some shopping for groceries/ I would also get myself a haircut the first every month. For grocery shopping, I go to Smith’s and Walmart. I get stared at a couple times. I just say/wave hello and most of them just say hello back and if you’re wondering, yes most of them are FLDS people. a lot of these FLDS people unfortunately never seen Asians and Hispanic people before. So I do not hold it against them for checking me out. Most of them are women, of course so I’m giving you the man perspective.

I’m not going to say it it’s easy sometimes it’s very awkward. I would just say hello; Are you doing ok. I go out of my way to show kindness from my heart like Jesus Christ would and most of them say I’m fine, I’m just tired; Have a good day. I believe if we just showed more kindness to people we would have much more positive results. I love these people and they are just not used to these Californians, Texans, etc. basically anyone who’s outside the State of Utah besides Wyoming and Idaho aka I Do. lol 😂
(so the reason why I call Idaho I Do is because a lot of LDS members in Idaho get married especially in BYU Idaho. So they give BYU Idaho and Idaho in general the nickname I Do).

I just recently made this Reddit account not just to post about my amazing/positive experience here in Cedar City Utah. But to balance negativity we have on the subreddit; we have too much negativity in the world and we must talk about the positives. It must suck for you guys to have so much pain in your heart to be negative this much. I want all of you to make the best of it here in this cruel world. I’m not saying go join the LDS church or anything in that matter, but I would like all of you to be more positive and show more love and kindness like Jesus Christ would. I am telling you can catch more bees with honey than with vinegar, but I will tell you the bad experience I had.

Just to balance things out about three weeks ago I was parked in a disabled parking spot aka handicap parking spot. As I put my groceries in my car; An old man was staring at me in his truck. I got in my car and rolled my window and I said to him, Can I help you? He then told me you don’t look disabled and I told him looks can be deceiving and then walked out my car showed him my 100% disabled veteran Department of defense ID and he told me where is your handicap placard or license plate and I told him the veterans affairs takes forever to get an appointment for refilling my medicine and writing a handicap placard form for me to get. I just recently got an appointment and I go to my appointment tomorrow and then he told me I shouldn’t be parking here until you get that handicap placard and I told him you can get mad at me as much as you want, but I’m doing this because I am disabled. I have a horrible back and knees from the Marines. You can complain all you want about it but I’m going to keep doing this. I don’t want do this, but I have to until I get the handicap placard and I can do this legally. He just got mad and left and said have a good day so I told him to have a good day too. The next day I finally got to the medical clinic. Got all my medicine refilled and got the paperwork signed to have a handicap placard now I can park freely whenever I want in the handicap parking spot legally, and hopefully no one complained about it lol 😂

You’re probably wondering how old I am. I am 24 years old 100% Disabled Marine Veteran. I feel extremely old. I feel like I’m 44. I got out of the Marines when I was 20 years old for my knees I got myself a medical discharge for only 20% VA compensation for 10% for both my knee knees it sucked, I was so negative for three years but during those three years I got 40% for both my knees 20%, for my back, 70% for depression, 50% for migraines and finally 10% for tinnitus which all in Veterans Affairs math add up to 100% VA compensation. I have nothing to worry about anymore. I am financially stable with my dog daughter and just waiting for
Southern Utah University to start in September. I am very excited, but seeing all this negativity about cedar is depressing. It is an absolutely beautiful city and extremely conservative city. I don’t understand why all these California’s are moving in and many others from other states and trying to change the policies here and trying to change the culture. I absolutely love the culture and most of the laws here.

I don’t want to change anything besides a few things. The best thing I can do is just keep things the way most things are here and protect the valuable rights we all have here in Cedar City which includes voting against these data centers; we have to protect our water. Cedar Mountain and Underground Aquifer does not have enough water for everyone here because these data centers not to mention we got pretty lucky with the rain recently. We get a lot of rain. I’ve been praying for us to get more rain and the same thing for my ward; They have been praying for more rain as well. Things will slowly get better. We just have to keep being positive but again for most of these people coming out of state especially these Californians how dare you try to change something that’s so beautiful and amazing to me and many others. If California is so Great then Stay there and fix things in California. Oh wait you want because it’s too screwed up to fix so if you’re going to move somewhere, please understand the people that are here before you. You must respect their culture and respect the policies that they enforced. I used to be a catholic. I changed my religion to the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I’m very proud to be a Latter Day Saints. I am very proud to go to Temple five days a week for baptisms for the dead. I am very proud to be in a city so beautiful and safe that we have literally have police officers sheriffs patrolling everywhere at all times.

As someone who grew up and was raised in Phoenix, Arizona, most of my life, it was absolutely horrible. There was too many rights of people that can get away with prostitution, stealing and taking advantage of homeless women for prostitution a.k.a. pimps. It was disgusting. I was so happy to move here because law-enforcement here can actually do their job. There are not a bunch of loopholes protecting these criminals. I only see a few homeless people up here. Back in Phoenix homeless people were everywhere. It was so bad that we actually have a road called 27th Ave. that has a lot of homeless people, homeless women being used as prostitutes and of course, prostitutes being taken advantage by these pimps. What I am saying is the people of Cedar city including the ones that moved here. You don’t know how good you got it. It’s amazing here and I’m doing my best to give back to Cedar city by doing baptisms for the dead five days a week, by showing kindness like Jesus Christ with the people here, by getting a actual decent degree, that I can actually use: that will help me and help Cedar City with the economy. For example, I’m going to major in agriculture for my bachelors degree. I plan to be a farm manager or something in that field to help out the agriculture here. But worst case scenario I can go to Parawan or a little more up north to find a job, but I’m pretty sure there’s a bunch of jobs here in Cedar city for agriculture.

I’m going to give back to Cedar City for giving me a peaceful home I am extremely grateful for what they have done for me. I’m not just talking about Cedar City itself but also the people. The only thing that really does suck. Is that the FLDS people make me very depressed two years ago I was dating FLDS girl and I was asking about the Mormon religion and talking about the differences from FLDS to LDS and unfortunately she’s had a horrible experience that she didn’t want to go to LDS religion after she left the FLDS church/her entire family. I respected her decision, but she did not respect me for giving LDS religion a shot. She told me it’s too much of a cult to be an actual religion and I told her that’s your opinion. I want to give it a shot unfortunately it didn’t work out with m and her. She used me for sex and that was it. She’s been trying to contact me ever since I had to block her unfortunately. If you’re wondering she was from Denver, Colorado. Besides that it took two years to finally have the balls/courage to go to an LDS church and to be willing to give it a shot. I did not want to fully commit to religion without it being so close by. Luckily it is only five minutes away by car with traffic mind you to get to my church. I absolutely love it. It’s great. The only thing that sucked was it took two months for me hunting down the missionaries to finally start my LDS lessons and took about one month of LDS lessons to finally get baptized after I got baptized it was not over for me. I still talk to missionaries just different missionaries now since I switched wards. I had these new missionaries which are awesome and we do 10 chapters per week and of course, since they are willing to teach me the gospel I cook them homemade bread. I gave them some honey and homemade chicken wings and some diet soda and water. To show my love for them for teaching me the gospel it is the least I can do for my missionaries. If you’re wondering they are Sister missionaries very amazing missionaries. I’m very grateful for them.

Besides that I do wear my LDS clothing six days a week which includes the time I go to church of course. Since I’m always doing temple work five days a week; Every time I go to Walmart and Smith’s, I am always wearing my LDS clothing, a.k.a. the white shirt with a black tie and with my pants it’s random sometimes I wear long green pants or black pants. I always do shopping after my baptism dead at the temple because there’s always a lot of deals at Smith’s and Walmart so sometimes I buy something, but most of the time is just window shopping since I have so much time before university starts. Every time I walk in there, I’m treated with more respect, especially by the FLDS people which I’m really shocked. Sometimes it’s other LDS girls or any random girl but most of the time it is the FLDS girls. They love ti smile at me and giggle for some reason which I do like, but I do know that they are not good for me to even try to date FLDS girl ever again. I just had a horrible experience with the last FLDS Girl and I just cannot deal with that heartbreak again but maybe in the future I’ll give it a shot. But right now I’m just going to continue to date these LDS girls and by the way, we have a weekly dating event. It’s always on Mondays and everyone takes turns to host the dating event it’s pretty cool. It’s usually the bigger wealthier families that offer their home for us to date and meet new people, including meeting other men LDS members to be friends with them, which is awesome.

I am just extremely happy here in Cedar City and in my beautiful new LDS religion. I cannot give more credit than I have right now but I’m just glad to get this all out here because I am just the happiest person in the world and I know I’ll eventually find myself a girlfriend who will want to be my wife in the future. I have dated quite a lot of girls here. They’re very impressed by me by taking the leap of faith getting out of my comfort zone from Phoenix, Arizona to Cedar City, Utah, and to actually convert from Catholicism to the Latter Day Saints. They have a lot of respect for me because they know how hard it was to even get up here and even have the courage to give it a shot, but they do you love my hard work I do for the church from Baptism for the dead from showing kindness to a missionaries and showing kindness to anyone at my ward.

This is my story. Everyone has their own story. I hope this motivates people to be more positive and remember live strong.