Entered on 2002-02-08 at 10:48 a.m..

I forgot taxes...

I am an expensive person. I guess I always knew this, but it never really hit home until I came to live in Britian. Of course living here may have nothing to do with it, it may just be a trying-to-live-off-my-own-money thing that most people in their 20s go through. I thought that I was doing alright living within my meager budget until I remembered about taxes. So I'm down about �90 a month...

Back to me being expensive. There are things unique to me that I didn't even think about when originally making up my budget. Things like contact lenses, alergy medication, a campus gym membership, this one is really a tiny amount , and cost of familiar food. And then there were the things that I thought I could live without like watching TV, going out to eat, going out to movies, buying lunch, clothes shopping. Thank goodness for mom's visits. That I'm finding really affect my 'quality of life.' I hate having to turn down offers from my friends to do things because I don't have any discressionary income. And that is mostly it. My income is about �3000 a year less than what most people who work in my office earn. That is about �250 a month, and so I have to watch what I spend where a lot more than my friends.

Pretty sad to say, but I would caution any engineer/scientist to seriously consider not taking a Marshall/Rhodes Scholarship unless they really wanted the out-of-country experience because of how much better they could live for the next few years if they stayed in the states. I was warned about this, but I didn't recognise the seriousness of the warning.

My current plan is to take a Vball refereeing course in April hopefully the school will pay for it. and earn some extra money that way.

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