In which I have no cash money and then have some again.

Seeing as how I have already talked about religion and politics, I suppose I can’t do much more harm by addressing the last traditionally taboo topic: money.

Considering the wretched financial state of the country, though, it seems that no one has felt that money is such a taboo topic anymore.  And my own personal finances are really probably not much different from any other young adult first attempting to navigate a financial plan (or lack thereof) for the first time as a Big Girl. It seems, however, that it is finally that time in my life when I need to come to terms with a seemingly inevitable post-graduation situation for my chosen career path:  being broke.

It’s not that I am not working, I’m working plenty.  It’s that the school districts I work for take their sweet time dispersing my check (lump sum? divided over a few weeks?  Your guess is as good as mine!  Yayyy...)  I am part nervous, part aggitated, part genuinely appreciating the frugality I now have no other choice but to embrace.  Things like choosing my favorite brand of conditioner somehow seem far less significant than it did before.

I have, however, learned a few valuable lessons in the last month of being pretty damn poor.  The first, and probably most important for me, personally, is that I spend A LOT of money going out to eat. I think my conscience knew it, but I justified it by telling myself that I deserve it, and that I work hard. Which, I do, but I am beginning to realize that there are ways to treat myself which don’t involve chinese food, a surprise trip to chipotle, or a new pair of shoes.  I actually have not been too upset at having to reel in my spending habits.  I am also realizing that the resulting money in the bank is a security blanket that I absolutely cannot be without, given my profession choice. I know the money will come in, but I need to be prepared for the worst, because if I don’t, I’ll keep getting stuck and never go anywhere on the road of financial security, if I can even get on that road at all. 

Throughout the month of no money, I had really thought that I was handling the stress well.  I was in a decent mood, I didn’t spend anything, and I knew that I needed to be more careful. It finally got to me though, the week rent was due.  I woke up on the wrong side of the bed all week, and couldn’t shake the grump off my shoulders, knowing that I would spend my last pennies on rent. Then, after Mat had done a few rounds of trying to cheer up, and I noticed he started mentioning job opportunities at retail stores, I realized it was time for a talk. It’s always been in the back of my mind that money is the number one cause for divorce, so I really wanted to make sure we could talk through issues like this effectively. We actually had a really amazing talk, and came up with a plan on how to manage what little money we make.  It felt really awesome to be able to work together and figure out our problems together (like real big kids!). 

I’m not gonna lie: reality just handed my super gung-ho post graduation attitude a nice fat slap in the face.  Yeah, we’re making what we want to do work, but I am realizing it’s not easy. Like, for real though.  It’s a constant revising of scheduling, weeding out what doesn’t work and what does’t pay enough.  I still maintain, however, that it’s worth it.  In my more somber moments this week, I’ve wondered why I couldn’t have just found a higher paying career, and then immediately answered myself with a resounding, “because this is AWESOME!”  So, lesson learned.  I’ve also bemoaned the fact that some of my high school jobs seem a little dead ended, i.e. they’ve all got much bigger financial problems, too big to care about anything else, including the new ensembles I’ve started, concerts I’ve put on, and the vast improvement in musicality. Even so, it’s not always about finding one place and staying, or even whether you receive recognition necessarily or not.  I know sometimes I’ll have to move around, and maybe even move on, eventually. That’s life. Kids are great, I love hanging out with them and teaching them about stuff that’s awesome. It’s a sweet deal. A deal that FH and I will have to make some sacrifices for, but I know we both see the immense value in loving our working lives. 

So it’s a couple weeks later, my long awaited checks have finally come in, and I’m ready to stick to a plan.  The best part it, though, that I was able to work with my FH to talk through a plan that will work for us together (insert sappy “awwww!”s).  And I got to realize yet again how super awesome he is and what a great team we make.   Go us. :)

First Post: On Weddings, Inspiration, and The End of the World

I have finally done the thing I said I would never do: blog.

The reasons ranged from, "I don't have anything to say," to "If I'm going to write, I'm gonna get PAID to do it!" Well, several months ago, I got engaged, and have since been perusing wedding websites like it's my job.  In the process, I have run across so many amazingly real, committed blogs dedicated to helping women see through the massive load of bullsh*t that IS the wedding industry.  I still have a great deal of time until my wedding, so I haven't been too stressed yet. I have been calmly adding up the costs and doing my homework, and it had been so relieving to find out that weddings don't need to cost billions.  or even very many thousands.  I'm not one of those girls who has been planning her wedding since she was three.  Beyond white dress and lots of friends and family, I honestly hadn't thought much about it until these past couple of months.  Now that I am though, and I have had the benefit of finding The Offbeat Bride and A Practical Wedding, both of which have made me clap, giggle, and cry (happy and sad tears). But this blog is not about weddings. These blogs, however, have also made me realize a lot about my own life journey, which is really just getting started.

Let's back track a bit, and talk about my life besides wedding. I am a musician in the Twin Cities area, and I have just graduated from the University of Minnesota with a degree in Percussion Performance (I hit things in the most artistic way possible, or at least that's the goal).  I have graduated however, into a world that has no room for me, or any other twenty something millennial.  We are not getting jobs, we're living with our parents, we're getting married later, we're having babies later... WE ARE NOT OKAY.  We are living in a baby-boomer created world and are being blamed, bashed, overeducated, and generally beaten up.  That's why most of us are still at home and applying for jobs ANYWHERE.  A Master's degree is the new Bachelor's degree.  A Bachelor's degree is the new high school diploma, and in terms of the job market, if you don't have a high school diploma, you're basically non-existent.  For more on this, please see this excellent post by fellow blogger sierra. We are the millennials, we are the next generation, and boy are we in trouble.

I am determined, however, to live out my life the way I want.  I wanted to study music and make a living from it, so that's what I have decided to do, incapacitating recession or not. Six college years and $40,000 dollars in debt later (yes, I realize that's not too bad comparatively), here I am, a baby grow-up: ready to burst into the world, skills ablaze. This has been how I imagined my life, though I did not imagine this to be the ideal socio-economic state of things.  So I am making the best of it, and determined to do whatever I have to do (as long as it's fun and I want it) to make a decent living.

So coming back to the wedding blogs... they inspired me.  Here are these women who had a problem, began writing about it, and now have their own special niche in the world, where they can share and help other people and spread all of this LOVE!  It's so totally awesome.  Seriously, if you have not checked out APW yet, please do.  Doesn't matter if you are single, married, divorced, dating, in love, in hate, whatever.  They are such lovely people with such a great thing going. So anyways, after reading all these blogs and hearing all these lovely people with things to say, I though to myself, "Hey... I have things to say!"  And then my blog was born. In the course of blogging, I'll touch on a lot of topics, from feminism to relationships to family to careers (lots about that) to houses to basically anything and everything.  I want to report on my little life slices to prove that I am going to live out my life better than  I ever imagined.  I don't care about the economy or the state of this wretched, wretched world with all it's horrifying statistics that seem to point ever closer to the end of the world. I am determined to have the tenacity, the insistence, and the fight to succeed in a male-dominated patriarchal society in the financial crapper.  So please, if you like what I have to say, support my tiny newborn baby blog, and spread the word.

The very last thing I'll leave you with is this amazing slice of life, a poem by Mary Oliver:

The Summer Day
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?