Money Issue

S

SwingWaltz

New Member
Well inflation is setting in, rising fuel price (paid $90AU for a tank of petrol today), general living cost, interest rate and what not. Life is getting tough. (I sound like a 20 year old in mid life crisis) Being a poor university student doesn't help either *sniff sniff* 5.5 more years of Uni. It's like unpaid full time job (research biomedicine), plus I tutor kids and what not, the balance is still not quite balanced at the end of the month. What I pay for dancing is really the money I don't have. Well my parents are supportive so they cover the bits and pieces (more like big chunks) of what I need, but I feel bad.

So what are you strategies for fighting the increase in living cost and has this had an impact on your dancing life? I really love dancing and don't want to give up having lessons and competing. How do you get finance for dancing?
 
I would say that is a toughie and you have to make choices. As they say you can only spend a $ once. So you have to pick and choose where you spend it. Do you drink or smoke etc. you have to remove the discretionary spending from your daily life. Being a student is tough and you are lucky to have the support. Can you use the car less or find another car that uses less fuel or perhaps a car that runs on gas?
 
Do you drink or smoke etc. you have to remove the discretionary spending from your daily life.
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I don't drink or smoke etc. The spend goes into petrol and dancing and food only. I don't really have a life outside of uni and dancing really. Lecture, Lab, Library, Studio, Home. All there is to my life and all there was for the past year.
 
I'm working multiple jobs. Carrying a credit card balance. My parents pay for a LOT. (I think the fact I've told them if I can't dance I'll move back to Michigan and live with them because I'm not staying out here for anything else is probably motivational.) Got a smaller car that gets better gas milage. Changing careers to something in the class of jobs I always thought were too mundane, but which has the potential to pay more. Gave up other expensive habits. Selling off some of my lower-priced investments (though if we get both a Democrat president AND Congress, I may have to sell everything but the mutual funds and move it into things like CDs now so I don't get screwed by an increased capital gains tax in another tax year or two, because I can't really afford to try riding out four or eight years hoping it would get reversed. The volatile stocks are there to be liquid assets, not retirement planing, but raising capital gains means small investors like me can't really afford to stay in the market.)
 
danceronice said:
though if we get both a Democrat president AND Congress
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From your lips to God's ears!

(Oh, and I think CDs are a sounder investment vehicle for a short term investor like yourself anyway. You are looking for a sure thing, right?)

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SwingWaltz--Are there ways to pick up extra hours of part-time work without jeopardizing your studies? I know a lot of students at the college where I teach have jobs like library front desk, where you can study ~85-90% of the time, and occasionally check out books (or provide directions to the media center, or whatever). It's a pretty sweet job....

Another option is babysitting at night for littler ones. I pay my babysitter $10/hr for one kid, and my 5 year old is usually asleep by 8:30, so that's study or TV time for my sitter. Funny story: on one of the nights of USA Dance Nationals, I had a sitter (actually a sitter and her roommate/best friend) from 5 PM-1:30 AM, and I gave her $85. The next time she came to sit, she tried to give me a FREEBIE, on the grounds that "You paid me way too much last time!" (given that the last 5 hours, she and her friend just studied and watched movies). I told her NO WAY was I going to let her sit for less than $10/hr. I actually may give my sitters a raise this year, because we've been at $10 for awhile and the cost of living is going up....

Good luck! I know it can be hard even affording textbooks sometimes!
 
SwingWaltz said:
Well my parents are supportive so they cover the bits and pieces (more like big chunks) of what I need, but I feel bad.
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Don't feel bad - though telling them "thank you" now and then wouldn't hurt. They're giving you money so you can spend more of your time studying than you otherwise would be able to.

Then when you graduate, you get a good job and support them in their old age. Or maybe you pay your taxes and the government supports them.
 
I try to save money like sharing hotel expenses with friends while travel...purchasing airline tickets in advance and searching for bargain tickets, etc. cutting down nondancing related shopping expenses, etc.
 
danceronice said:
Democrat president
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That's Democratic. D-e-m-o-c-r-a-t-i-c. Despite what our current president and others on the right say, there is no such thing as the "Democrat" party. It's the "Democratic" party.

Think of it this way: we currently have a "Republic president", and John McCain is now the de facto head of the "Republic party." See how weird it sounds?

Thank you. :)
 
Sure.

And I've got CDs, too. And here's some advice: check your interest rates. They vary widely from bank to bank, and at some banks the interest on their savings accounts is higher than on their CDs (I'm specifically thinking of eTrade Bank, there may be others). It can be worth it to move the money around to get a better return, especially if $10-$100 dollars makes a big difference in your budget.
 
Laura said:
That's Democratic. D-e-m-o-c-r-a-t-i-c. Despite what our current president and others on the right say, there is no such thing as the "Democrat" party. It's the "Democratic" party.

Think of it this way: we currently have a "Republic president", and John McCain is now the de facto head of the "Republic party." See how weird it sounds?

Thank you. :)
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meh...oppo-sames at this point:cool:
 
I'm not talking politics here Samina, just asking for correct word usage.

Back on topic: another tip I have when every penny counts is to see if your savings account (if you have one) has a sort of "matching" program. Bank of America has this thing called "Keep the Change" where all your check card purchases are rounded up to the nearest dollar, and the "change" is automatically put in to your savings account. The Bank then matches this amount, up to a certain annual amount. Plus you earn interest (albiet a pitiful amount) on it all.
 
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