This past week, as I slaved with a friend on the halls in my dorm to make them look spooky for Halloween, I started to think about the money I didn’t have that I was spending. I then began to realize that sort of thing tends to happen a lot.
I came to college fully aware that I was paying my max to just live here and get an education, but I had never imagined I would have needed a bottomless bank account when I already had paid so much to be here. Since getting here, I ran through what little savings I had way too quickly just for food or little things like that because I may have not realized I needed them. Then again, that’s not to say I didn’t also spend some money on frivolous things that I was excited about (because college, being a legal adult), such as a nose piercing and a tattoo.
After the savings were gone, I was left with a bank account that had a balance of negative 22 cents in early September. This left me in kind of a rut as my friends often wanted to go eat at the RC, I ran out of easy mac or maybe I realized I had used all my tissues being a little too emotional thinking about how much I miss my friends.
In addition to that, I had things like a floor program trip to Pumpkinville, or a class trip to go get tacos. In order to not miss out on things that my friends were doing I needed money, and I needed it fast. My mom has begun to get annoyed with me just asking her to transfer $20 into my account every week for random reasons that spring up out of nowhere.
The thing is, I don’t want to just sit here twiddling my thumbs waiting for everyone I hang out with to get back from somewhere they went because they had $10 and I didn’t.
When I went to college, I wanted to just focus on school and not have to worry about much else other than getting acclimated to a large change. But now here I am, two months in, already having to go crazy looking for a job because I had no idea that there would be this many unexpected needs for money. I think that is just insane, because no one ever said to me, “Hey, make sure you have a couple thousand saved up for the first semester just to be able to do normal things.”
Now that Halloween is over, and I have had to tear down the expensive decorations that I worked so diligently on, I am looking back in retrospect thinking how annoying it is that I have to constantly spend money on so much stuff.
Anyway, unless I actually succeed in getting a job, I guess I can now start planning on how to ask my mom for some money for Christmas decorations without her killing me.
Elyse Kuhn is a staff writer for the Bona Venture. Her email is kuhnee16@bonaventure.edu
