Oh, thank god. Ken Wheaton’s book arrived in the mail this afternoon! I’ve been looking forward to it for so long, that it’s like… well, okay, you know how you get it in your head that you want a certain food (say, pappardelle al telefono) and you google your little fingers to the bone only to realize that not one damn restaurant in all of Dallas offers this tasty little number and so now you don’t want ANYTHING, thank you very much, if you can’t have that? Yeah, that’s how I’ve been about this book. Because until I finish it, Half Price Books is dead to me.
The cost of life is really doing a number on my ‘tude. I walked out of the car dealership yesterday after dropping my car off for an oil change, tire mumbo jumbo, and that rattle in the front end, and the estimate they gave me nearly dropped my bottom lip to my shoes. You know, on top of the nearly $500 out-of-pocket price of not having a ten-day gin hangover in my face. I told Sarah that it was like Disappointment and Desperation had a colicky baby and left it on my doorstep.You’ve got no choice but to take care of it and yet… the resentment! I’ve been saving money and being careful and having zero adventures and, pardon if this sounds a little dramatic, I feel like I’m dying a little. Compared to my former, irresponsible life this new practical one is hard on the spirit. Even those big, romantic, swoony Let’s Get Married! talks have all turned into, “one day when we’re out of debt and out of school and blah blah” and I can’t help but feel a little bit disappointed all the time.
We’re going to the symphony on Thursday. The Dork Lord has to go as part of an assignment for his humanities class and I would like to kiss his professor right on the mouth. I wish she’d specified “uber tragic Puccini opera” instead of the generic “live performance” but I’ll take what I can get. Cellos!
On Sunday, the Dork Lord was busy getting sunburned on the golf course when his family called to invite us to lunch. So his mom asked me to come all by myself. And I loved it. It can be pretty dicey, inheriting family (not unlike being invited to a vegetarian Thanksgiving dinner), but I’ve been so lucky – none of that tofurkey crap; this is the real deal.
Oh I hear you on the whole monetary responsibility sucks front. I haven’t just relaxed and enjoyed anything thats costs over a penny in so long and I am getting rather cranky about it.
I don’t know if this will help you, but I was told to stop focusing on what I can’t have and focus on what I already have that I like. yeah… its not working very well for me.
But I do like that the numbers are starting to be on my side, if only just a little bit.
I dug myself out of debt when I was 22 years old (I’m 34 now and still debt free!). It’s hard to feel like you’re digging and digging and as soon as you have a little money saved your car breaks and amazingly, it costs exactly the amount of money you had saved! It can feel like the universe is against you.
But had you not scrimped and done all those boring adult things we’re supposed to do, you’d be even more in the hole. So keep on plugging away! It’s so hard to become one of the debt free people, but you’ll never regret getting yourself into the black!
Good luck & congrats on taking the initiative to get started on saving!
I know how you feel. I totally scored awesome in-laws. The kind you’d keep even if (heaven forbid) you lost the one they’re really related to.
Enjoy your book!
Enjoy the symphony!
Enjoy all that you have been Blessed with…tangible and intagible.
Life is good.
So, speaking of your love of books and hate of debt… I recently joined a website called paperbackswap.com and I’m in LUST with it. It combines my absolute love of books with my love of a good deal! You only have to pay shipping and you get to trade books (for free) with people all over the country. Just a little something that feels like a treat when you’re plugging away at debt. =)
I COMPLETELY mangled my credit and had no finances to speak of in my early 20s and I’m so incredibly grateful for that. I feel like I got to learn my lesson early on and have crawled out of the hole & have getting-better-every-day credit now, in my 30s. I also think that having lived in Prague for 3 years played a huge part in weaning me off of credit and changing my entire financial outlook.
I think it’s a shame that people feel like they have to stop swooning about marriage because of finances. Getting married doesn’t have to mean breaking the bank. I know, I’m abnormal and never cared about all that wedding stuff, but getting married should be something wonderful & romantic that you do when you really feel it, and never stopped because of money. We could have afforded a “proper” wedding, but instead we decided to run off to Santa Barbara, just the two of us, pay an officiant to marry us, stay in a nice hotel & eat a ridiculously expensive (and wonderful!) dinner which cost us a total of around $1000. Could have been even less & we’d have been happy, but we “splurged.” We’ll go back to the East Coast to have a big picnic/party at my parents’ house in a few months, to do the celebratory thing.
The two of us on a beach at sunset with this delightfully kooky, hippy officiant was just as romantic as any big wedding with white dresses & flowers. More so, in my opinion. We have no regrets AND we get to be married.
No way I’d let something like finances stop me from something like that. 
Not sure if you have some sort of deal going on with your particular dealership, but….dealerships are always crazy expensive. Like waaaaay more expensive than other auto mechanic places. In my experience, that is.
Can you get a second opinion somewhere else?
Yeah, this whole being responsible and trying to afford to do grown up things like buy a house and maybe one day in the future buy a new car really blows. Fortunately I don’t have to pay tuition this semester so I am very happy about that. One of my friends was telling me that she now leaves the house with no money so that she can’t shop (she’s saving for a trip to Egypt next year). For example, we went to brunch on Sunday. So she checked out the menu online and decided what she was going to have before she left the house. She only brought enough cash to cover her food and that was it. So then, when she dragged me around shopping afterwards, I ended up spending $40 and she went home empty-handed and wallet-happy! Gah.
Oh man does it suck.. We are trying to get out of debt and buy a house. We just keep plugging along and we make a dent, and then our M-F-ing car had to go and kill it’s water pump! Oh and while we’re in there, turns out the tensioner bearing is gone too. While things could be worse, it’s hard to see from this side of it. Good luck to all of us trying so hard to get out of debt!
The fact that you mentioned cellos and what I’m going to assume is La Boheme makes me fall in love with you! I heart cellos, and Puccini operas are the best.
Being a responsible adult sucks. Not that I’m sure it doesn’t have its long-term perks, but I have yet to convince myself that saving money is something worth doing (but I’m in a totally different place in my life). Its sort of like staying friends with your serious exes: awesome in theory, a lot more difficult in practice.
Oh, Puccini! It may not be that, but hey, that is one great professor. Enjoy your book, and your wonderful in-laws!
I second Nikki’s comments regarding not waiting to get married. I have always been the type to plan, and wait, and make sure my ducks are in a row before taking the next “step.” But life doesn’t always wait for you to get all your ducks in a row (you know what they say – “Life is what happens while you’re busy making plans”) and things can change in a blink of an eye. I’m not pushing you to get married if you’re not ready…. but if you ARE ready, I would urge you to not let “plans” stand in the way of happiness. Take it from someone who learned this lesson (not re: marriage, but re: life) the hard way.
I totally feel your pain. I’m smack in the middle of a PhD and my husband finished graduate school two years ago with about $100K in loans. We live in a tiny apartment in a crappy neighborhood and never go out to restaurants and take our “vacations” at my parents’ house in south Jersey. I want kids but I also know that once I finally get a job and have some money I won’t want to immediately tether myself down with a family when I’ll have to much living to catch up on…
I will throw my two cents in and tell you that, though my parents did throw me the beautiful, perfect wedding of my dreams (small, elegant and in no way resembling an overdone sweet sixteen party), if they hadn’t, I would gladly have marched myself down to city hall in a $200 dress from J.Crew and would be just as happily married today. I know some people, once they’re living together, see no reason to get married until they’re ready to have kids, but I’m glad we did.
I third the just get married comment. Weddings are seriously overpriced and overrated. And who says grad students can’t get married? Have each member of your family sponsor one part of the wedding (bake the cake, write the invitations etc.)instead of some other gift. Keep it very small and low key. There you go.
And if you want a baby and you know you want it with him…just do it. You’ll find ways to make it work and your sibs, friends and strangers on the street will give you gently used baby stuff (I’m happy to send girls clothes your way!) Like everything else in life it doesn’t have to cost a fortune. Babies don’t care if they live in a house or apartment (and you’ll be so exhausted you won’t care either). It’s way cheaper than fertility treatments later on.
I understand about having swoony conversations turn in to total buzzkill– especially the ones about getting married. I’ve told my Boy on several occasions to stop talking about money. We’re trying to get out of debt (mostly my school– “investment”), and he’s trying to build his business and it seems one thing after another comes up…sigh. I don’t want a fancy wedding, I really just want to be married and not have those conversations turn to budgeting meetings every time!
Have fun at the symphony!
I just got completely out of debt last year — right around Christmas no less. I popped a bottle of champagne on that one. But since I’ve gotten out of debt, I get panicky when the credit card starts building up again. Logically speaking the 2,000 bucks I have on that one card is NOTHING compared to the student loans, multiple cards and drinking bills built up all over town that I used to carry, but it’s still like. AGGGHHHH. Get it off! Get it off!
I hear that book is totally awesome, by the way.
Elope. My fiance and I are doing a destination wedding, which is a compromise between true elopement and a “real” wedding, and I wish I hadn’t compromised. My future MIL (who I always got along with great) and I are a bit strained now because she secretly resents that I took away her opportunity to invite her whole hometown and play hostess to the world. Of course, no rush to get married. It took us 5 years to get around to it.
Cellos? Yo-Yo Ma plays Ennio Morricone!