How I save money—Student Phase II–Essay 3

With full scholarship, I no longer need to take on more campus jobs other than being TA for professors, and the time period to complete PhD is much longer, 4-5 years instead of 1.5-2 years.  Finally, I had some breathing rooms to relax a bit. Yet, I was well aware of the fact that I had already spent two years in taking classes in my Masters and felt that I should complete the program with 3 or 4 years. This self-imposed urgency later brought myself many misery and unhappiness. Financially, from having to pay partial tuition to receiving full scholarship I felt I had collected a fortune falling from heaven though the monthly stipends I received was meager.   

In short, I went back to old my student lifestyle, or to be more precise, I had never been out of it even in my eight-month full-time working period at FedEx.  Another improvement was that I then owned a car—able to offer free rides to other fellow students who did not have one for weekly grocery shopping.

Accommodation

I shared a two-bedroom apartment with a fellow student for one semester. The apartment is much bigger than my 1st apartment in the Little Italy, and somewhat more expensive about $250 a month for my part.  The person who used to stay in the room left used basic furniture for me.

Then, my roommate couldn’t return to the US to continue her study due to visa issue. That is around 2002. Fortunately, I got a roommate who stayed for a few months and insisted moving out of the apartment to join a house whose owner rented rooms to mostly visiting doctors from Cleveland Clinic or Case students. In the middle of a semester, I failed to find another person to take over her room. Paying for the whole apartment would cost me half of my monthly income. This forced me to follow suite and moved to the shared house too ($300 a month including utilities), and I stayed there for three and half years till I graduated, worked a year as  a visiting professor in a local university, then moved to Indiana for a tenure-track position.

The house was built in 1918, then near 100 years old. The people who stayed in the house came and went. Most of them are doctors who flew in to Cleveland Clinic for a short training (one to several months), a conference, or to take a job and eventually stayed in the US. They were from all over the continents: Asia, Latin American, Europe, and Africa. The land lady, me, and two others were long-term tenants.  The house was a bit like a moving united nation.   

While living in the house, I found myself learning a lot about different cultures and  became less shy meeting strangers. Till today, the house still came into my dreams and the images and stories inside it evolved over time. It has become part of my psyche.

Grocery

Living in a city has advantages. There is a little Chinatown in Cleveland where there are several Chinese grocery stores, and not from Chinatown (on the west side of downtown) there is a famous westside market where you can fresh produces at good prices. For sundry items, there is Marcs chain store–prices are comparable to Aldi store.  In holidays (a few times a year), I would invite friends to dine together at a Chinese restaurant (average cost per person is about $10).

Extra expenses: auto

My life style was not much different from Student Phase I. However, as car owner, there were extra expenses for car maintenance, auto insurance.  I royally got oil changes every three months for my car (later i learned from someone I trust that it was not necessarily to do so). I insisted on it despite a few times, honest car mechanic technicians told me that the engine oil was Ok, needing no replacement.   Unless our belief changes,  our behaviors will stick to the usual way. How true it is. I hope I am making few of this type of mistakes.

The biggest expense I had was with car.  A firestone store recommended to replace some parts of the brake system that cost me more than $800.That’s 2001. I was shocked. Inexperienced, I bit the bullet and paid them to get the job done. Later I learned, I should have not bitten the bullet but took my car to another place to have a second opinion.   It is so true that when you own stuff, the stuff also own you.  As a first-time car owner, learning when to trust car mechanics’s suggested fixing list and when to ignore them requires street wisdom. 

Parking was expensive on campus; so I walked to school everyday for about 15-20 minutes. The neighborhood the united house located was not very safe.  Thus, if I wanted to go back to school of study, I often drove. In the evening, there were free parking spots.

In the summer of 2003 when I  taught a class at John Carroll University, I had to drive ( the class met twice for 2.5 hours).  This meant I walked much less. After the summer, my waist became 2 inch bigger.  Evening 30-minute walking made a difference on our body over just one month.

Entertainment and recreation:Yoga, Music, Piano, Art and Books

For the first few months I were back to school again, I had a hard time to get over the negative residues, a mix of shame and “poor me”,  from being laid off and somewhat uncertain outlook for future. On top of it, I felt a bit uneasy on the prospect of finding an academic post. “I am in one of the great schools but still not of the first-tier schools; how am I going to successfully compete against so many strong competitors out there?” this kind of self-talk lurked somewhere to raise my cortisol level and caused uneasiness. The first few years of PhD study were more relaxing, but the tension and stress built up near graduation. It was tough to get a tenure-track position. In the fifth year, I completed all my thesis and took a low-pay teaching position for a whole year at a local university to get teaching experiences.

Books

In this period, I had time to read lots of so-called self-help/spiritual books and had a glimpse of all kinds of books published in this free country. I also started to take on-campus kundalini yoga class–twice a week. Trying new things and reading new types of books helped relieve those uneasiness and brings aliveness to live.

While I was teaching four courses a semester and at the same time looking for a tenure-track position, stress level was high. For the 1st time in my life, I joined a fitness club where there was a great Flow Yoga teachers.  Twice a week 1 hour and 15 minute yoga flow helped me go through the tough year, and got my body toned up a notch or two.

Yoga

Kundalini yoga has a big spiritual component than the more popular flow yoga. During this period, I also started to spend money on buying CDs (yoga or European classical music). They are quite expensive–$15 a piece. However, they brought joys to my life.

Music

I started to attend free concerts. Students can participate in ticket lottery  through international student’ office to get tickets to Cleveland Symphony, Cleveland Playhouse. There were tons of free recitals at the Cleveland Institute of Music for me to attend to blow off stress from worries.

The landlady (Brenda) had a baby grand piano in the living room that no one played. With Brenda’s agreement, I started to learn to play piano and I found a piano teacher who was a Master student at Cleveland Institute of Music.  I picked up piece rather quickly. After a semester of taking piano lessons, I just played following piano books. 
That was the first time in my whole life that I got to see a piano in person!

I remembered when I was little, I enjoyed making little pleasant sound by pulling elastics. One time I bugged my parents to buy a guitar-like music instrument, but met with refusal.  I

Music brought joy to my life and made me forget all the worries.

In summary, I spend money on my wellbeing—yoga and music.

Skin care

I didn’t wear makeups. For skin care, I bought Yves Rocher. They were not too expensive compared with their counterparts in department stores. I remembered that $40 a jar would last me at least half an year. Now I will not spend that money on skin care (buying from Marshall stores), but I was younger then, thinking appearance was much more important. Compared with peers, that expense was still modest.

Clothing

In this period, I was able to enjoy life a bit more, and shopped a bit more for clothing. I added a few summer pieces–skirts, T-shirt, and dress shirts to be prepared for a career that required more formal attire. Still my wardrobe was small and can be packed with the two suite cases that accompanied me to this adopted country.

Summary

Looking back, during that period,

• I spent money in the right places—yoga and music that brought joy and happiness to my life.
• Transportation–car brought me freedom. With it I also was able to help other fellow students.
• I did not spend much on clothing.
• There was no need buying furniture—other than books and clothing, I had a small bookcase, a TV set with a small wheeled stand, a wire rack, an iron and an ironing board. 

Overall, I was content with my life materially. Like all other young people, worries came from study, career, and relationships.