I've Got My Mind on My Money and Money on My Mind

It's pretty crazy to think that I find it novel that I'm actually saving money.

That's not to say that in the past year and change, I was blowing each paycheck on superfluous things and lived from paycheck from paycheck. In fact, it was a bit of the opposite: even when I started working more hours just over a year ago, I still wound up tapping bit by bit into my savings just to get by. I did have medical insurance, because my work actually arranged it to have all employees to have insurance, but my more hours per week job was so demanding and crazy, it really wasn't quite worth it. That job caused so much irreparable damage to so many things in my life, it's got me rather jaded to the point that even now, I'm very apprehensive on how I react to and talk about work now.

Now, I actually have a job that pays me fairly well. After taking paycut after paycut for the sake of doing things that I feel like was worthwhile, I was finally being paid a livable wage...the wage I actually was making when I left my first job. Those were good times, because that was a point in my life when I had a lot of money saved up enough that I managed to quit my job and remained jobless for six months before picking up some part time work just to get by; two of those months included my stomping around New York City, which actually has a higher cost of living than where I'm used to. Back then, I didn't have a car to pay off (I just bought one off my cousin), or had to pay for rent. Nevertheless, being paid what I made three years ago was a drastic improvement from before.

Now that I'm past my probation period, I'm getting paid an extra 20% from that, and it's just amazing that even with all my bills and whatnot, I'm able to save money. I've even paid off my personal debts. I've lent somewhat substantial amounts of money. I've weathered May, which is usually a high-spending month, and June is almost over with its usual high degree of spending well. Even so, my savings is slowly creeping up, and it makes me happy.

They say that your savings should be enough to cover you for six months should anything happen. After dealing with what I've had to deal with for the past three years, I've now learned that even though there's money in the bank doesn't mean I can just throw it around. And I haven't. I don't really buy new clothes; I get something new every now and then on a sale, or when my mom gets me something (not that I really need more clothes right now...well, I do, possibly, pending certain things). So far I've only bought one game for my Nintendo DS (the other two were presents), and I bought one game for a console I don't even own. When I do need/want something, I first refer to Freecycle or Craigslist to see if someone no longer wants theirs. In all, I've been pretty good.

In all honesty, though, I do miss doing things what people who have money can do. I miss being able to burn money on film and developing. It's a blessing and a curse I've been working in casual wear offices so I don't have to have "nice" clothes, but I do miss the feeling of gussying up for work every now and then. I haven't been to Coachella in two years, in the past 18 months I've only been to Disneyland once. Most missed of all, I haven't really traveled since 2005. I was making good work going to some far-off land every year for a while: One year was Germany. Year after that was broader Europe. After that was NYC for almost two months. The last thing that resembled a trip for me was when I flew to Las Vegas for the first time to go to a weekend festival there.

I've been so entrenched in survival mode, I've lost sight of the things I really enjoy doing, even though a good deal of them costs a bit of money. Now that it's becoming more and more feasible for me to start with those things again, I'm getting itchy. Still, I revel with every paycheck that allows me to save even more, but the more I save, the more I want to just take that and go away for a while.

Whatever I do wind up doing, please help me in making sure that I don't wind up blowing my money on a plane ticket to Berlin and a course to get my certification to teach English abroad.