A great blog plug from Kynthia aside, this hasn’t been the best of weeks. My hope for a Week Of Nothing got scuttled on Monday with familial nervousness about paying bills. It only got worse when I followed up on the telecommuting lead that was going to finance my next year, discovering that instead of a nice-paying consulting gig with a friend I was being asked to help start up a start-up. While doing some work there is not out of the question, I’m moving on in search of paying projects that will bring in the small nest egg that will allow us to still be crawling by this time next academic year.
That’s a saga for another day. Today it is a rant about money.
My advice to Josh is to think of being without money for a month, including savings, with only grace periods and continued extended family support to get you by. What is it that you would want more than anything? Sock enough money away for that thing, and buy yourself some peace of mind: Whatever happens, you know you can at least still get X. We’ve long spent all of our X money.
That’s the big problem with this Ph.D. trip we’re planning. In order to have the no-brainer, most-fulfilling-experience-of-my-life journey I need money. In order to get a job for my 12 available weeks this summer, I need money for gas and car insurance and that claptrap. In order for Amy to work at the same time I’m working (go figure: social work isn’t financially valued in this country), we need both money and time to work a new sitter into the boys’ lives. Hell, in order to go to CHI — which through generosity of friends and school almost happened — I would have had to spend money for what was practically a free trip. There is an international-caliber complexity conference coming up these next two weeks for just $120 (which might even be comp-ed by the school), and I’m worried about how I’m going to come up with the gas money in a carpool to the workshops a town west of here. Nothing is free when you are dirt poor.
That’s what sucks most about our current financial situation. All of the little piddly nothing costs are no longer nothing. Amy and I don’t get our vegetarian meals at the Informatics grad dinner, and that $15 has a lot of meaning to the point of needing it back. Even time is a more precious commodity. I need my portfolio in a state of acceptable presentation, but the time I spend on that is time spent not working, not parenting, not finishing the remaining paperwork on my capstone.
I want to live in that world Capt. Picard keeps talking about, or the one John Lennon imagines. I want to be able to do things because they are the right thing to do, the best thing to do in that moment. I want to be able to enjoy the process of a project and not the return on investment. I want to fill my summer up with interesting projects that stimulate me and renew dormant skills, and then have that happen to address all of the money requirements we have to get us through the next year. I’d settle for just being able to take comfort in still being able to get X.
So, Josh. Before that iPod or digital camera … buy yourself a nice cozy rainy day.
1 reply on “Hate-hatemore relationship with $$$”
Point well taken. 🙂 Thanks for helping me think about the longer term choices I may still make.
I wish you luck with your money woes. It’ll all be worth it in a few years time, i’m sure. Not the best condolences, but condolences nonetheless… 🙂