Financial Freedom closer than it seems?

Could it be true?

mashup

It's almost too hot to drink my coffee this morning. It's not actually that hot outside, but my apartment is retaining all of yesterday's heat. Normally, I would just pack up my things and go to the nearest air conditioned coffee shop with free wifi, but I'm on a budget, and that budget does not include $4 coffees (which are the only kind I like, anyway). Nor does it include three glasses of wine at the bar around the corner where I go sometimes to work on Sunday afternoons. So I'm going to suffer through the heat as long as I can. And try to drink my coffee anyway.

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Speaking of being on a budget, Kelli had an interesting post (via Tatyana) about money yesterday. She/they ask "what does financial freedom look like?" For me:

1) Being out of debt. My car is mine, my education is mine, and my money is mine.
2) Living in a home I love--this could be an apartment I rent or a place I own, just as long as I love it. And have the cash to properly furnish it. No more hand-me-down couches and dumpster diving coffee tables.
3) Being able to buy gifts, nice ones, for the people I love. No budget.
4) Vacations. To places I've never been before.

The debt is, of course, the big one. The one that looms over the next 20 years like a UFO waiting to suck me up and do bad things to me. Could I have taken fewer student loans over the last four years? Can I take fewer or be more responsible with the loans I take over the next four? I guess some people make their stipends work for them, or work 2nd jobs all through grad school, but I a) can't live on 14K when I have rent and a car payment and b) can barely keep my shit together with just my responsibilities to school--working a second job would probably lead to a complete breakdown.

I thought about selling my car & eating the loss since I don't really need a car right now. But then I started thinking long term. Right around the same time I'm going to be needing a car (presumably I'm not going to find a job in Chicago or NYC after graduation), I'm going to be having to pay back my student loans. My car will be 9 years old by then, but it will probably get me through at least the first few months post phd if I'm good to it now.

Anyway...I just thought Tatyana's question was interesting. I didn't plan on fretting about my loans.

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Rebecca Loudon is the nicest poet in blogland, I think. She did something very sweet and unexpected for me and I can't stop smiling when I think about it.

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I think, think, I have a plan for manuscript #2 (which I'm tentatively calling This is Not a Harvest [doh! I didn't realize: book 1 = weeds, book 2 = harvest. this might not work]) and manuscript #3 (which has no working title yet). I just have to decide which one to work on first (I have 5-10 drafts for each of them already). Joshua Corey is doing a visiting writer gig at UIC this fall, and I have to put together a portfolio and a little artist statement before I can work with him, so, decision time. The portfolio is due on July 15, so I have less than a month to figure it out.

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Still purging in preparation for next month's move. I've already gotten rid of 2 trash bags full of clothes, and I think there's at least one more to go. I went through my shelves but could only part with one small pile of books. And the papers...sheesh, I'm barely making a dent but I've worked on those files for hours and hours. That's probably what I'll spend most of today on.

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Geesh. This has got to be one of my most boring blog posts ever. If you read all the way to the end you should get a prize.

The Tipping Point

I love coming across articles like this--especially now that I've transitioned from small-town gal to urban dweller. We didn't have door men or cab drivers in my home town. Okay, so, we had cab drivers, but I never needed a cab. And I've actually dodged concierges in fancy hotels because I didn't know how much to give them (I did that on my first ever trip to Chicago, now that I think about it). Plus, I think it is so, so important for people to know that service professionals often get paid less than minimum wage because they're expected to make a certain amount in tips. I remember my parents being shocked when I told them (almost 10 years ago) that I made $2.13 an hour at my serving job. I'm pleased to say they quickly became better tippers...

Which reminds me. I have a line in a poem about a waitress counting her 10% tips, which my workshop thought was a little unrealistic. It was pretty normal where I worked when I was a waitress, but maybe things have gotten better? Any servers reading my blog who want to weigh in? I doubt people who tip low would admit it, so I won't even ask about that...

Even though we ain't got money...

After reading this post about non-profit salaries, I'm thinking about money.

I'm thinking about my ever increasing debt (no, that's not accurate. For the moment, my debt is not getting any larger, but not any smaller either).

I'm thinking about being a "part-time" instructor, which means I carry the same load as most profs in my department, but get a fraction of the compensation. I'm not bitter--I knew what I was signing up for. Just thinking.

I'm thinking about when I made $14.88/hour and thought livin' was easy. (If you're trying to do the math, that comes out to just over 30K/year.)

About a year ago, when I got my first acceptance letter (email), my dad asked how much I was going to be paid. When I said nothing, Dad got pissed, said it wasn't fair that someone else was profiting from my hard work and creativity. I had a hard time explaining that the people who published my work weren't making a profit either.

I've talked about this before--practicality vs. passion and all that, plus a working class mentality and growing up with parents who were born during the depression (my mother reuses paper towels, makes "garbage soup" instead of throwing out leftovers that have passed their prime, and my father thinks Velveeta boxes are the best organizational tools ever), so when I think about teaching and writing poetry just because I love words and books, I get a little itchy.

I don't want to be "rich" -- which is a relative term, because I think if I made 50K a year I wouldn't know what to do with it -- but I'd like to be in a position where I don't have to think about money quite so often. I guess the problem is that whatever amout of money I make, I find a way to spend it, so that there's always a need for more.

Upward mobility is expensive.