Gah.
This morning I attempted to do some financial planning for the upcoming year, and the prognosis is grim. For the last month (or two months, if one counts the Tiki party, and I suppose one must), I have been doing a good job of pretending that my income this past year has not been reduced by about one-third compared to the year before. While this is not in itself a huge crisis, my calculations show that I have got to cut that shit out. My necessary expenses have risen of late, and my current pay is barely going to make it as is, counting the extra hours I am working right now, a gravy train that will only last for the next five or six weeks at most.
So it's time to revive my interest in coupon clipping. Avoid stores and other temptations. Replace the word "and" with the word "or." Seriously consider a second job instead of bouncing from one dubiously productive creative endeavor to the next. Generally act like a grownup. In other words, although everything will be okay eventually, it's not going to be a lot of fun getting there.
It's been nice seeing you, my real-life friends. Please don't take it personally when I can't go anywhere, and remember that you're welcome at my place for saltines and water any time.
Posted by hilatron at September 23, 2003 09:45 AM | TrackBackGeez, do I hear ya. The Freshette is going back to school next year, which will cut our income a bit, and I'm looking at jobs that pay less than my current gig. Freelancing helps, but we'll be cutting a lot of luxuries. Unless I win the lottery.
Posted by: Freshmaker at September 23, 2003 10:19 AM*Sigh.* If I took all the time I've spent in the last two years planning what to do with theoretical lottery winnings, and applied it to any one of a number of entreprenurial or creative freelancing ideas, I would probably be retiring to my own island by now.
Posted by: Hilatron at September 23, 2003 10:31 AMDoombot would like to point out that, thanks to the past several US federal administrations (beginning with Ronald Reagan, who, in concert with Shrub Senior, managed to keep the minimum wage at or below poverty level for twelve straight years in the 80s & early 90s), much of what has been inaccurately termed the "middle" class (it is "middle" only in the sense of being "between" the hogs at the top and the bottom-feeders at the, er, bottom. In position, most of the middle class has always actually been much closer to the bottom-feeders)has moved, economically speaking, to the Third World. In large part this is because many of the jobs the middle class used to hold have literally been moved to the Third World in order to improve the profit margins of hog-owned, hog-run corporations.
Upward mobility is now possible only by joining hogs in the exploiter class. Form investor clubs and pool resources to buy stocks. Sell them only when it's possible to realize large profits. Use the profits to finance the needed political changes. It may be necessary for all of us to become economic terrorists simply in order to survive. Also, consider merging households and living semi-communally. Groups really can achieve higher living standards for smaller individual cash outlays than singletons and couples can.
Posted by: Doombot at September 23, 2003 11:26 AM