I Got Cocky

The month of reduction is going really well so far.  I've been much more sensible with spending in general, clothing in particular, and have had many a no-spend day.  Also, my recent student loan payment took a cool $3.50 off the principle! Chipping away!

November is a three-paycheck month, which I'm totally stoked about.  I was planning to refortify my savings accounts and stick a lump sum in my Roth IRA.  Maybe I'll pay ever more toward my student loan, I thought!  I had all these great ideas and was doing tabulations and feeling pretty damn smug.

BUT

I keep running into the unexpected and un-fun expenses.

1. Car tax of $84 was due end of October (I paid it early because I do not trust Rhode Island to not stick me with a late fee).
2. My windshield wipers broke necessitating a $65 repair
3. I still need to get my oil changed (ugh)
4. I just got a bill for my car registration
5. Car insurance is due December 6th and I haven't saved up anything for it
6. I needed to get two pairs of shoes re-soled, which is going to cost $80.  It's worth it because they're great shoes and now I'll be able to wear them that much longer, but it sucks to pay that much!  BUT, I'm supporting a local business and being green by repairing what I already have.  I'm also supporting an industry that needs to exist and is rapidly dying off (I assume, but I've been actually waiting a while, so maybe they're really busy).  Still sucks though.

Aside from the cobbler expense, it's all car stuff, which leads me to believe that karma is paying me back for telling some people that I didn't have jumper cables on Sunday when I totally did. In my defense, we were in a packed parking lot (bound to be someone else with jumper cables), I'd just run a half marathon, and I was feeling sick and bedraggled.  I didn't want to hang around and be a good samaritan, and now I have a bunch of unexpected car expenditures to make--not the fun kind.

Remember last year when I failed to help that woman stuck outside of my apartment and then immediately broke my power steering? Well fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.  Yes, I know that my registration would be due regardless, but this doesn't seem like some simple coincidence.

If you need me anytime soon, I'll likely be changing someone's tire in the pouring rain, or driving around looking for someone with a dead car battery and no cell phone.

Do You Give To Panhandlers?

I grew up in a very small town, and went to college in a medium-sized town, so I never really ran into the phenomenon of panhandling until I did study abroad my junior year of college.  I went to college in Oxford, England, and we were warned from practically the second we stepped off the plane never to give any money to panhandlers.

We were told, at least in this situation, that people who operate in Oxford near the shopping district and universities are 'professional panhandlers.' They sit on the sidewalk all day collecting money, and then get their Lexus (it was always a Lexus) out of the parking garage and drive back to their stately home.  This was an image that was pounded into my head by not only people associated with my school, but by locals I befriended over the course of the semester.

Personally, I'd rather go to a regular job than sit on a sidewalk all day, but I'm sure that the story that I was told can't be the whole story.

Certainly I've encountered panhandlers in other situation as well and I don't think I've ever given them anything.  There are tons of professional beggars all over the major cities in Europe, and if they pick you out as a tourist, they're actually rather rude if you don't give them anything.  I almost gave leftovers from a restaurant to a man in Washington DC, but I was worried that that would seem condescending.

Since the economy has been in this downward spiral, with Rhode Island hit particularly hard on the unemployment front, I've seen more and more people out at intersections holding signs and saying 'anything helps.'  I always feel guilty and avert my eyes, but I also had it drilled into my head by my Republican mother that if you give people who are down and out cash, they just spend it on booze.  So what to do in these situations?

I want to give something, but I almost never carry any cash, and I also don't want to be an enabler/ get taken advantage of.  I feel very bad for people outside in all weather just asking for help.  I can't imagine that it's very easy, psychologically, to stand up and beg for help, but maybe I'm just thinking like a sucker.  I'd rather give food than cash, because I'm sure that even if they're going to a soup kitchen, they're still probably hungry, but is that a rude thing to do?  I'm genuinely curious--do other people give?  Sometimes?  All the time?  What's your personal philosophy when it comes to people with signs and a hard luck story?

Frugal and Carless

Karma has bitten me squarely in the ass. Last week a couple got their car stuck right outside my apartment. I heard their wheels spinning and spinning on the ice, but I did nothing to help them because I hate it when people park where they parked (on the street, almost in the cross street, blocking the sidewalk), and I thought it served them right to get stuck.

Fast-forward to four days later when my car got stuck in the unplowed parking lot at work. Normally, the lot is plowed, but with the recent deluge of snow we've had in the northeast, two of the sweepers that my work uses to clear lots and sidewalks have broken leaving just one for the entire campus. I think they've been struggling to keep the main roads clear and had neglected the rest. Regardless, I got stuck, a kindly student who had been at the grocery store buying his sick girlfriend chicken soup and medicine spent forty-five minutes digging and pushing out my car (seriously, what a great human being), but then my car started acting weird.

The power steering stopped working, possibly as a result of having my undercarriage knocked about by ice and shovels--or maybe it was ready to go anyway-- no idea how that works. So now, I am a girl with two jobs in two different towns, odd hours and a $600 repair bill looming just as soon as they get that part I need (Wednesday). That means I have to figure out how to get around Monday, Tuesday and possibly Wednesday, and do it hopefully without having to rent a car.

Easier said than done.

I live in a city with a public transit system, and thankfully, the bus goes directly to one of my jobs (college campus). Unfortunately, the bus stops running at 8pm and I'm not done with work until 10pm, and for the job I have to go to on Wednesday, I would have to take the bus to the airport, and then walk about two miles on roads with no sidewalk. I honestly do not understand how people with no car get by. I hate driving, I wish I didn't have to have a car. The year I worked in the same town where I live and could walk in every morning was fantastic--but most of the jobs I've had in this state were a 20 minute commute at least. If I didn't have a car, I wouldn't have been able to take either of the jobs I have, I'd probably still be unemployed--ridiculous.

So today, I will take the bus to campus around 1:30 because I have to teach a class at 2pm. Then I have the option of either taking the bus back home at 3 and taking it back for my regular shift at 6pm (my work is not usually this weird), or staying on campus like a hobo and holing up with a book somewhere.

It is so tempting to just rent a car, but an economy vehicle is approximately $44/day plus taxes, gas and surcharges. That works out to about the same as I'll make at work today.

It is amazing how much thinking and strategizing I've done in the past two days. Granted, if I was a regular bus-taker, this would likely be automatic, but right now, I'm completely overwhelmed, restless and frazzled.