Monday, June 12, 2006

Blech

So I woke this morning at 02:30 swallowing my own puke. Ran to the bathroom and tried to puke some more and couldn't. It was nasty. Don't know what was wrong though, now I am fine. So I just washed out my mouth and throat and went back to bed. Atleast I didn't get any on my bed.

Sunday, June 11, 2006

Living off $55.00

Well, it is almost done. For the last 11 days I have been living off $55.00. Let me tell you, it has changed my views on a lot of things. First, let us start on how I got into this situation...

There were numerous contributing factors. Throughout this year (starting in January actually) I have actually been saving money. Now, saving money has never been my forte, and since going back to college, I have come to accept the fact that during the school year is not a time to save money, and if I do have money to save, that is normally an indicator that I am working too many hours and neglicting my school work. But by the end of the year I had saved up a little over $300.00. That was amazing. I mean, I try to only make enough money to pay for my car and have some fun. So that means that I was having less fun *grin*. By the way, I contribute my saving success to ING Direct: http://www.ingdirect.com. Orange Saving Accounts are awesome.

Well, I had to move out from the dorms this summer, and that meant that to cover first month's rent, and security deposit, I would need to wipe out my savings. I was really sad to do this. But I did.

Also, with it being the end of the semester, I missed out on quite a bit of work and studied instead. That meant that my paycheck for May 15th was not very large. Actually, I had to pretty much combined this paycheck and my savings to make rent and security deposit. But, I had about $200 to live off of for the last half of May. That is easy. Plenty of people live off of less than $200 for 2 weeks. So I lived...

...but, my little brother graduated from High School on May 22nd (Yay Christopher!). I had plans to come down and see his graduation. So I drove to Alabama and back. Now, gas alone costed me about $120.00 both ways (I love my saturn), and I spent a little money on food to get there and get back too. So the trip costed me about $200 total, but my dad gave me $100 for gas when I was there. Actually, it was about $150 I think. So all in all, my trip only costed me about $50. Which was really good, cause without it I would have failed my finance test this month.

So I get back from Alabama on the 23rd, and this is the first night I have spent in my new place. I wake up and goto work. But now I need food. So I go grocery shopping. After grocery shopping I have about $100 left. I go on with my week...

Then June 1st comes along and I get paid. Yay! But wait, I get paid one pay period behind. So that means that I June 1st, I am getting paid for the pay period of May 1st - 15th. That covers finals. Oh! So little money. Infact, I had $550. $500 for rent. Damn.

So that is how I got in this position. Poor planning, finals, and just a lack of money. But it is a good place to be in. I mean, I would rather have more money. But, I did not realize that after you have bought food you could live off of $55 for 15 days. Well, I have not yet, but I have enough food (I had to buy a few things the other day) and I have half a tank of gas (which should last me till thursday) and as of now I have $6.00 in my account. But I do not forsee me needing anything. Maybe some milk, but I do not NEED milk.

But what I do like is my activities for these 11 days. They include hanging out, playing frisbee, not a lot of driving, etc... Pretty much, I understand how to have fun without the need to pay for things. Not that before I thought that money made me happy. It was just nice going downtown for a walk and grabbing an ice-cream or coffee. But yes, it has been an interesting 11 days, and I cannot wait until I get paid on the 15th. Although, I think that this will still be a small paycheck. But if I can just pay off my car and cell phone, grab some more food and save a bit for next month's rent I will be good. Should be a peice of cake after this pay period right?

If you want to do something and it is free, give me a call.

P.s. I apologise to all the English majors reading my blog, but I like starting sentances with conjunctions.