Home Alone

I am tonight, waiting for the Texan to get home from work. Not until close to midnight tonight. To occupy my time, I'm doing some freelance stuff for work, and watching Fellowship of the Ring for the one hundredth time. It's a movie I find comforting. I often switch it on to fall asleep.

I calculated my finances today, and realized that I actually make $30 LESS a month than I have to pay out in rent, student loans, credit card bill, and metro card, all of which I listed as priority expenses. Unfortunately, I also have to eat and do laundry, so the biggest chunk of that (student loans) doesn't get paid off in full each month. I'm going to have to do a combination of the following:
1. Go to the old boss and grovel for my part-time job back
2. Pick up at least 60 hours of freelance work a month (impossible)
3. Find a bank to refinance my loans, so I'm not trying to pay Sallie Mae $700 a month

The best part about being late on my Sallie Mae loan is that they call. all. the. time. In the past two days, I've had 16 phone calls (only 2 with messages) and an email. I've given up answering the calls. Here's the thing I wonder...why don't they just make a note when I tell them that I'm completely broke? I've even given them the day of my next paycheck, so they'll know when to expect more money. I'm sure they don't get paid 8 times a day...if I have no money to give you at 9 am, what on earth makes you think I'll have money at noon? or 2? or 4? Nothing logical points to that.

Student loans basically equate to highway robbery. In this day, it's very rare that I could get a good job without going to college. And because I'm a middle class white girl, there aren't a whole lot of scholarships targeted at me. And believe me, my senior year in high school, I did everything I could to get money for school. There was just no way I was going to come up with enough to pay for four years at a university, even though I did go in-state. And I had a part-time job all through school, lived in reasonably priced housing. My only real splurge was my semester abroad (which, granted, probably accounts for close to half of what I'm paying) but I don't regret that semester for a second. But man...how many kids right out of school make enough cash to pay this kind of loan back? And it's rough especially, since my folks told me they'd help me out, but aren't actually in the position to.

I'm going to do my best to stick it out here in the city, but man. I can't be behind in my student loans forever. At least my tax return should help with that somewhat.

In the past two days, however, I've only spent 4 dollars on food, which is astounding. I bought a sun-dried tomato sandwich at the deli next to work and ate half of it yesterday, half today. I had a bag of chips in my desk, and I drink water. For supper, I've been lucky. The Texan made delicious sloppy joes last night, and there was an extra left for me tonight. He's also bringing home hummus and pita bread on his way here from work, so I'll go to bed full and happy.

Tomorrow though, looks like I'll have to spend again.

/stressed