The Month of Extreme Thrift

That is the name of this month's main project. Extreme thrift is not nearly as cheap as I thought! Okay, it is more accurate to say that my budget is a leaky sieve and stopping up half the holes makes it easier to see just how much cash I leak all the time.

I've been making my coffee at home and eating oatmeal for breakfast. I've been bringing sandwiches to work for lunch and eating apples and oranges for snacks. I've not bought a single e-book for my kindle, nor even looked at eBay for skirts or shirts for spring.

Still, I've already spent $90 on groceries this month. I paid the cobbler the $35 balance on the boots and shoes I had repaired. I bought (inexpensive) dinner out on the night of the Literacy Center Benefit Gala. I'll buy an Amtrak ticket ($22) for Sunday and a gift ($?) for my mother in honor of her birthday. I'm not sure I'll have time this month, but if I do, I'll go see As You Like It for $20.

Wow! Already I can see that this was a necessary project. I think I'll do a Month of Extreme Thrift every three months in an effort to better control my budget and my spending. Learning to defer gratification will be useful when I go into Exile.

It's a new year, folks!

And the philosophotarian, who seems to have forgotten how to budget, will relearn! Hooray!

January budgetary challenge:

$20/week (or less) on groceries. Not even $20.01.

It is likely that I stay within that most of the time, so this will be a good way to ease my way into a year of budgetary challenges. (snacks and beverages out are far worse for my pocketbook than trips to the grocery store.)

Once the intercampus shuttle is up and running again, I'll hit up Trader Joe's more frequently for frozen fruit, oils and other pantry staples.
Meat will only be organic for now, so there will be less meat.
Eggs will also be only organic/cage free etc. for now, so I'll have to spend my eggs more carefully.
To get the most bang for my vegetable buck, I'll stop being so lazy: instead of buying so much of my produce at the big (expensive, not very good) grocery store two blocks away, I'll head to the smaller (cheaper, better) grocery stores about a half-mile away.

All of this, naturally, is fuel for dissertating and preparation for Exile. Obviously.

note to self

I have this fantasy of being All Set. Fully Prepared. Ready for any and all Contingencies. Although I am only a poor graduate student, I have been using loan money to purchase things like:
* a warm winter coat
* hats that fit my head
* warm woolen tights and well-insulated boots
* a bed and a comforter
* reading glasses (see right)
* wool skirts that suit my shape and fit my body
* a laptop and a netflix subscription (cheap gym!)

The idea being that, if I get these things now, I won't have to worry about them when I no longer have loan money to supplement my income. In a few years, when I've moved on to Exile U, I'll already have a warm winter coat, hats, tights, skirts and glasses to keep me All Set. I'll have a bed and a table and a desk and bookshelves. I won't need to get these things later, I'll already have them.

I am finding that I am nearly All Set. Sure, there are some things I'd like (a few silk slips; classy, versatile earrings that don't turn my ears green; a velvet sash or satin cummerbund. Basics like that). But I have enough shoes, enough skirts (more or less), enough sweaters. I am supplied with tights, with scanties, and with undershirts. I have more glasses now than I need (the old ones are still perfectly good for around the house). My kitchenware is more than adequate. It'd be nice to have a chair that supports my back and allows my feet to rest on the floor, but I think that's pushing it with the universe.

But if I am All Set, that must mean that I am Ready to Go. Which means there is nothing left but to finish my dissertation, find a job and become a Person. This frightens and disappoints me. I don't feel All Set. My feet are warm, I look put together and sufficiently polished, and my things have cozy little homes, but none of that makes me feel any more ready to be the person I have been, ostensibly, preparing to be.

A 10 week reading list

I'm trying to convince my mother to let us plant a lilac bush in her backyard next year. She doesn't need a whole lot of convincing, to be sure. But I may as well be honest and admit that I want the lilac bush just for me (like I want her to keep the rhubarb just for me, too). I'll go up in future springs and, in the privacy of someone else's backyard, stand like a swooning drunk, eyes closed, breathing in lilac perfume. I want white and light- and dark-purple lilacs, planted in a scented cloister to build the seclusion she'd like.

In the perfect world, we'd plant lily of the valley all along the sides of the house, too. Maybe just one side. Then I could fill tiny bud vases with the delicate lily-bells and large matronly vases with branches of lilac.

The house at which my family lived before moving to the house in which my mother now lives had lily of the valley planted along both sides of the house, and there were two lilac bushes. I think they were my favorite part of spring. Here in Chicago, I see lilacs around the neighborhood (and someone had lily of the valley, but I don't recall where any longer), but none of them are mine - I can't go around sniffing strangers' lilacs! Neither can I steal branches under the cover of midnight, nor pluck fragile fragrant bells.

Maybe in Exile I'll console myself with a fortress of spring-scented purple and white. If I must be banished for a hundred years, bearing heavy sleep and solitude, I may as well dream in a cloud of lovely color and perfume.

Neuroses, snobbery and general melodrama

In my head this is what happens every time I think of completing my dissertation:

I go on the job market. There is nothing. Nothing at all. I scrape by for a time. Perhaps I move in with my mother for a year. (*shudder*) Then, eventually, finally, I get a job offer. Full-time teaching position. At Exile University, in Noplace, which is in the middle of the state of Nowhere, USA.

Exile U. is a small liberal arts college located in a town so small its population triples when school is in session. Or maybe it is a community-type college in close proximity to 3 or 4 dead or dying villages.

To do anything in middle-Nowhere, one must have a car. The grocery store (there's really only one. Or maybe there are 2 outposts of the same chain.), one must drive a minimum of 10 miles. Probably more. Unless one wishes to shop at the gas station (of which there are several) for most of her groceries.
One must buy plenty of groceries, as the restaurants are either fast-food, major chains (Applebees anyone?) or family-style restaurants. There may be a pizza parlor. It will be very popular. More popular than the food (canned sauce? frozen dough? cardboard-y pepperoni?), the wine (mmm. Black Opal...), or the service (yes, I would like a clean fork. If it's not too much trouble...) can justify.

The rent is cheap in middle-Nowhere, which means I can afford a garage for the car I have to purchase, and I have space for the furniture I don't have. The extra bedroom-cum-study is nice. The extra space unnerves me. Cat and I rattle around like two dried beans (thank goodness Rancho Gordo delivers!) in a bell, er, Ball jar.

The sidewalks are poorly maintained here in Noplace, Nowhere. Or they are smooth and plentiful in the 'shopping district' - which takes up about 4 blocks. Or perhaps there are more interstate highways than village roads and biking and walking don't feel safe. It is not convenient to walk anywhere in Noplace. There is no gym. Or there is one. Or the college has a small, cramped room that serves as a fitness center. I keep my exercycle and pedal to movie after movie after movie.

There is no local, small/mid-size roaster in Noplace (or anywhere nearby). I stop drinking coffee. Tea is not so difficult to mail-order. Perhaps there is a coffee shop. They will call drip coffee with Hershey's syrup a caffe mocha. I drink my tea at home. I miss the camaraderie of the small cafe.

I will be able to afford to have internet service at home with my new job at Exile. My preservation! I am able to maintain my friendships for a time, exchanging messages about our new, then less new, then old accomplishments and mileposts. The frequency with which these messages are exchanged, however, decreases. Perhaps we only see each other at conferences and the occasional wedding. Perhaps one's teaching load is not conducive to conference attendance. Perhaps we don't really keep in touch very much at all. But we're busy. Very busy. So that's understandable. That's okay.


So I'm already thinking of what kind of car I should consider (2-door Toyota Tercel. I think they're so cute. Red. I usually have red cars); whether I should rent a small house or a large-ish apartment; whether I should get some serious free weights so I can build a home gym when I leave. This is not helpful. My hope - perhaps an ambitious one - is that by exposing my dramatic, excessive anxiety, I can begin to laugh at it. Oh, and remember that none of it, not any of it at all, is real. At least not yet ....

in my out-loud voice

It has not slipped my observation that anxiety about my life post-dissertation is what fills my shoes with lead. I'm happy here. I have friends. I have a cozy living space. This city is a wonderful one and suits my lifestyle. There are more things for me to do than time or energy with which to do them. When I think of finishing up this degree, any anticipation of accomplishment is immediately accompanied by the dread of leaving - I cannot separate the completion of my degree from the inevitability of leaving Chicago. Thinking about Ph.D-me means thinking about my eventual banishment from city, friends, life.

It appears more pleasant - or perhaps simply less painful - to take forever with this dissertation. How can I be excited about the project that will only bring about my future poverty and loneliness?