The Fuck Does This Make Money: Never Chill

“The Fuck Does This Make Money?” is an interview series about money and feelings.

We ask people how they feel about money, and what they do to get it.

Money can scare, anger, and challenge us, particularly in organizing and activist spaces.

Because money makes us feel so many things, and this series is about money, every interview is a little different.

This particular interview is with Allis Conley, a chronically ill disability rights activist.

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”I’m not chill. I’m not.” Allis said firmly. Then they collapsed onto the beach and rolled around in the sand. After laying in the sand for a second, they repeated in the same calm measured tone:

“I’m just not chill. That’s not who I am, and it’s okay.”

This is probably my most defining memory of Allis.

They’re right.

Chill is not a word I’ve ever used to describe them. 

Like many people who are not chill, Allis takes love and care very seriously.

This characteristic of theirs is in part, though not exclusively, shaped by the fact that they are chronically ill. Their relationship with money is the same way.

The way they talk about money, offer support to me and others around money, and the way that they think about money, their brain, and time — it’s beautiful, incisive, critical.

But it’s not chill. Of course, money never is.

Allis talks way much more eloquently about their lack of chill around money than I do.

Here’s what they said.

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How should I start this interview about money and feelings?

The thing I think is most important for other people to know when they're trying to understand or know me is that I'm disabled.

That is the most identifying characteristic to me about myself.

I am chronically ill, type one diabetic.

If I were not on Medicaid, my insulin costs would be somewhere between $1000 to $6,000 a month including test strips, lances, syringes, insulin files, doctor visits, laboratory results, all that stuff. It’s one of the most expensive chronic illnesses, from what I understand, and there's a huge variety in the way people treat it.

So if I were richer, I would have a better quality of life, quite frankly.

That is why I feel a lot of ways I do about money.

I can't make more money a year without making way more money a year.

Because as soon as I no longer have Medicaid, I have to have private insurance which is you know, significantly more expensive than I can afford.

But there's an additional way of thinking about it, which is thinking about myself as a worker. I am easily interpreted as a burden or as a liability, in terms what I'm capable of, especially in service work.

What do you spend your money on?

For most of the pandemic I was paying my bills with money from income I made before last March. March 2021 was the first month I had to actually start drawing from my emergency savings — I was ineligible for unemployment.

I moved recently so I had some moving costs associated with that.

But because I'm on Medicaid, my health expenses are extremely low. I'm also on EBT so my expenses are very low for food. Although I guess because I'm disabled I do eat more takeout, which I have to pay for out of pocket to make sure that I get enough calories.

I don't go on vacations. I don't honestly love traveling, but it would be nice to have the option, especially now that I have friends like across the country I would like to see.

Comparison is hard is when I see other people with a lot of discretionary spending.

I feel resentful and I wish I didn't.

I wish I had more discretionary income for spending. But even if I did magically have another $10,000 a year, I don't know that would be enough money for me to make the decisions other people do.

Even having the desire to spend money for fun feels somewhat disturbing to me sometimes.

The Fuck Do You Make Money?

Right now I am working, producing a video game for a small Montreal indie game company. So I mean, that's only about 10 hours a week. A lot of my time, I genuinely just spend resting.

And production work is new for me: for the last six years I’ve worked in a coffee shop, doing office admin, and doing other various types of service work.What do you do all day?

I've had some pretty bad blood sugars, and just moved out of a housing situation that wasn't ideal for me. I’m also trying to figure out some undiagnosed health problems. So I've kind of been in recovery from that.

Boy, what do I do all day?

I mean, genuinely, resting. I guess, you know, Blaseball too — in the on-season, I probably spend 20 to 30 hours a week doing organizational work for that.

It’s nice, because it doesn't take very much physical energy. I can do it if I'm having a really good day, or if I'm having a really shitty day and literally in the bathtub with chronic pain for three hours.

I also like to spend time making stuff, if at all possible: I bought a sewing machine I'm teaching myself to use.

How do your values shape the way you make money?

Hmm, I don't feel like it's something I've had the luxury of thinking about very much. I think the higher up you are in the economic power structure, the more this question matters. For me in choosing where I work, I've never had the luxury of making it about anything other than my safety. With diabetes, I feel very strongly I have to work hard against all of the drawbacks of hiring me. The fear employees have that I will not be reliable or need more flexibility or eating accommodations.

I think something able-bodied people don't think about very much: everyone needs accommodations. I mean, obviously, there's a big spectrum of what qualifies as an accommodation.

Service work doesn't give you any agency over the things everybody needs, let alone if you have more or different needs. I think there are people who do things besides service work or make far more money than me probably making decisions on a day to day basis about whether or not their heart is in the kind of PR work that they're doing or, whether or not their corporation is going to back them up in, like, HR. But am I staring longingly out the window into the rain imagining that luxury? No.

Tell me about a decision you’re proud of related to money.

I'm really proud I haven't had to work very much in the last year: I had m savings and lived frugally enough to not have to work even without unemployment. The pandemic has been soul crushing and brain snapping without having to worry about going out into public and dealing with terrible customers.One of the best decisions I made regarding money was in the first week of March 2020, before COVID really hit the states. My partner who had just started a job, came home and had a sore throat.

I was scheduled to work the next day. But when they came in with a sore throat, and had a little bit of a fever, I was like, Alright, we're not leaving the house for two weeks.

My dad drove me to the grocery store at 6am the next morning and I spent way more money on food than I ever had before. Then my partner and I didn't leave the house for two months.

When I told my boss my partner was sick. she was like, Okay, well, you know, are you coming in tomorrow?

And I was like, No. No, the CDC actually recommends if you're sick, you stay home, because that’s what’s ethical and not insane. But a lot of people in my life at the time did think this choice was insane. Again, this was before anyone had been thinking about it. But I had been having panic attacks about it for a week or two. COVID had been on my radar for much longer than it had been on other people's. I still am still very proud of that.

Tell me about a decision related to money you feel complicatedly about, even though you know it was the right move.

Okay, so I have not yet gotten to the point of emotionally reaping the benefits of this decision. And I still feel weird about it.

I moved out of a house I shared with 4 others into an apartment by myself, which is more expensive. And doing that is taking on a level of risk. Risk is not something I'm normally comfortable with.

How do you define risk? Risk to me is pruning the paths I can take in the future, or increasing the costs of taking those paths.

For example: moving into a studio, because it's slightly more expensive, increases the timeline of when I need to start getting consistent income again, which is nerve-wracking. It is a much higher risk decision than it would be financially if I had stayed living with roommates.

What’s something about what you do to make money that surprised you at first?

I really, really, really, really lucked out with the company I'm working for. The people I'm working with, and my boss are so great.

I'm used to — going to work means putting on a facade, right? Putting on the outfit of doing the work stuff.

Doing service work, especially in a small tourist town, your day to day work is consistently building on a fake self other people aren't responding to.

So the idea that I can be honest about my needs and what I am capable of everyday at work is surreal. Nobody is going to secretly be pissed off if I’m honest — it’s strange.

Tell me about your class background without telling me about your class background. 

2008.

Fuck. That was so good. Thank you.

Do you think you'd be a different person if you had more money?

For sure — the evil version of me has a very different idea of what I need v. what I want.

Do you think you’d have anything unhinged?

Evil Allis does have something expensive and nuts, probably. Outfits.

They’d spend a lot of money on their car. I think that's probably it.

But even Evil Rich Allis — I don't think I would own a house.

I would just have a car. Yeah. A really cool car.