This week, school may have focused on physical pain, but the rest of the storyline was anchored by the fiscal sorts of pain that (one-day)graduate(ing) students across the country are reeling from this time of year. F%(#!ng tuition. Please excuse my shiftbar-veiled exasperation, but this $h!t’s truly bananas. Each day of the week brought a unique debt-centered event, and not all bad. It keeps me coming back for more, somehow.
Mortgage Monday: prepared to deposit our first monthly rent check from the lovely tenants who are holding it down in Chicago (etymology humor much?). Cue thoughts of our well-painted 1200-square-foot piggy bank somehow imploding or floating away on Lake Michigan and leaving us chased by Citimortgage-bounty-hunters, coming to repossess my entire higher education as collateral…
Tuition Tuesday: Met with financial aid officer to learn that this year’s SEVENTY-SIX THOUSAND DOLLAR cumulative budget for tuition, fees, living, has come due. Cue yellow-oxygen-mask limply descending from her office ceiling as this world crashes down. The joys of Jon-mooching combined-married-finances make this slightly less painful for me, but a hearty pinch for the mister. He’s a trooper.
Whiny Wednesday: At this time last year, I must have missed the fact that a global recession was shrinking assets around the world, because somehow I convinced myself that starting a ROTH IRA would be a good idea. Bold, Colleen. Truly mavericky. YOU FOOL. The barren monthly statement arrived today and reminded me that my tiny sum put forth last August is now 12% SMALLER than the day it was deposited. Am I glad to have this admittedly long-term-useful account? Yes. Would I have been better off to sew that money into our mattress and reclaim it sometime in 2010? MOS’ DEF. Balls!
Thankful Thursday: Jon and I’s American De(x)press account disbursed its annual cash-back-reward, which could easily cover a MONTH of rent in Chicago. Is this something to celebrate or be disturbed by? It’s a welcome break from the monthly bill, BUT it means that an embarrassingly heavy load of purchases have occurred over the past year, of which 1.3209-ish % has been generously refunded. Awesome?
Freedom Friday: WANNA GET AWAY?! Well, yes I do, Southwest Airlines. Great suggestion! Thank you for pleasantly surprising me with a fresh Rapid Rewards airline credit, which will allow me to fake my own death at the end of the school year, then expunge this calamitous debt, and escape the scene to start over as a roving medentalist somewhere in South America. Risking repetitive redundancy, I will remind you that this flight is entirely due to (surrrrprise) credit card purchases.
What’s an unemployed wifey to do? Stop complaining, and start studying. It’s free!
