I lead a parsimonious life. Never liked spending money, and rarely find myself wanting consumer goods. Living too long as a struggling college student, and later without income as a homemaker only served to intensify my miserliness, but it’s been part of me for as long as I can remember.
Now I’m bound for a job as a teacher. As a student teacher, I still have no income, and tuition loans to pay, but presumably that will turn around soon.
In the meantime, I’ve found my expenses jumping dramatically. Gas for the daily commute—Eileene usually fills the tank, but sometimes it falls to me—and small food purchases when I haven’t time or handy groceries for a proper brown-bag lunch, and most oddly of all, candy.
School fund-raisers are nearly perpetual, but pre-spring, when student organizations are looking to fund the trips and tournaments and whatnot that cluster in May and early June, is the peak fund-raising season; often, two or three clubs will be competing for money. The most common way to raise cash is to sell candy at inflated prices, because it works and is relatively painless. Car washes are cold and only draw from the adult market; nobody cares about walk-a-thons; but you can get your fellow students to cough up $2 for a box of M&M’s day after day. Teachers get pestered to buy, too—a lot. And sometimes I do. Not from ever young entrepreneur, nor even every day, but enough to show willing.
That a couple of dollars every couple of days actually shows as a blip in my budget says a lot about my spending habits.
Post a Comment