The University recently held a Budget Bailout seminar for faculty, and I thought I would go to it and see what I could learn.
More than anything, it just scared the hell out of me.
I can't stand the thought of being thrust into the real bill-paying world after college.
I am so used to depending on my mom as a financial parachute that the thought of plunging into the atmosphere with a faulty line has created that free-falling knot in the pit of my stomach.
Why isn't more focus put on students to understand the importance of budgeting, especially in the financial climate we are living in?
I feel the University should offer financial advice to students like the Budget Bailout seminar they offered to faculty.
I don't know how to save money. I live paycheck to paycheck, and my mother helps me with my monthly bills.
It seems like every day I am having a conversation about how I am spending my money, and it is usually followed with a lecture on how to spend it more wisely.
My mom seems to be the only person talking to me about how to be smart with money.
With each paycheck I get every two weeks, I methodically think over all my planned expenses.
Groceries, eating out, gas and entertainment are usually all I factor in.
Not often do I include saving money into the equation. It is almost impossible.
I'm barely equipped to budget the little money I have.
Nothing bothers me more than not hitting an even dollar amount at the gas station.
I am almost convinced the machines are programmed to skip double zeros for the sole purpose of getting a few more dollars out of obsessive compulsives like myself.
As I lean on my car and watch the number go up, I am scrutinizing over the digits that slowly climb higher and higher.
And it's not just the gas pump that makes me sweat over money.
When I go to the grocery store, I am always looking for off-brand pasta and hot dogs.
Although I never sink to the level where buying the cheap red hot dogs is my only option, my food choices really go to the wayside sometimes.
I often walk by the gourmet cheese section and just dream fondly of all the different uses of feta I could conjure up in the kitchen.
I constantly have digits crunching in the back of my mind and my mental calculator is always adding and dividing.
You'd think with all the conscious thoughts of money that I would actually be good at handling it. But I'm not.
I am starting to find the cushioned bubble my mother has created for me is slowly deflating with the impending doom that is taking care of all my finances on my own.
Like many college students, these past few years would not have been what they were without financial help from the family.
The budget meeting was one of those necessary slaps in the face with words being thrown around like grenades all around me.
All these terms that I didn't comprehend had me wishing I had switched my major to finance or something business related a few semesters ago.
Do I need to double major to financially succeed in life?
Tell me now, because I don't want to be paying off student loans for the rest of my life.
Thinking about all this had me question where young adults who don't major in finance learn about all the ends and outs of the money game.
For me, it is just my mom I talk to because I don't know who else can give me the information in a way that doesn't make me feel like a five year old being taught calculus.
Maybe if I took a budgeting class I could get some of this figured out.
That sounds like a good idea, if it were free.
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