Cash Flow

Men make counterfeit money; in many more cases, money makes counterfeit men. ~Sydney J. Harris

When I was teaching, I didn't think anything of stopping by YoLo Bakes on a bad day and buying cupcakes for myself and my roommates. I made a whole list of restaurants I wanted to try and had no qualms about going to them, sometimes crossing multiple places off in a week. Sure, I also had a couple months where I refrained from going out to eat, but those became harder and harder to maintain as time in Memphis got short and the social aspects of eating out trumped any kind of budgeting I might have attempted.

During the first year of law school, as my bank accounts hemorrhaged more and more money, I found myself justifying restaurant eating only when I am entirely too desperate to cook: think the days before my last big legal writing assignment was due, and I was barely dragging myself to class let alone to the kitchen. The frequency of my GrubHub orders correlated pretty well with stress levels.

Now, I'm making money again, even if it is only for ten weeks, and I am enjoying a healthy balance of frugality and treatin' myself. I still can't bring myself to buy full-price theatre tickets (as my NYU friend said, "just use some of that SA money and buy normal tix!"), for example, but I have seen five shows with rush tickets already. I'm not eating out too much except when friends visit - and also because I get fed a lot at work. Though I am almost always willing to splurge on food, I am also almost always finishing everything on my plate and getting my money's worth. It's like an ingrained habit from growing up in a poor-ish/frugal family, I guess?

Overall, I am enjoying New York City a lot, and I'm sure I'll enjoy it more with a real job, but for now, the big city life is fun while it lasts.