My landlady hates me because I'm moving...

... but it's ALL HER FAULT.

As if The Miami Herald, The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, MSNBC, every other news outlet on the planet, and the many nearly empty new towers in the great area of Brickell weren't indicative enough that rental prices were down, I told her that she needed to re-think my rent.

She said no. Mrs. MBA thought that since her mortgage went up and I am apparently personally responsible for the state of the economy, that it was necessary that I paid more- even if I had better choices.

I said no. But I am such a nice person that just in case she thought I was kidding, I sent her some MLS listings of apartments in the area of comparable or better quality, and asked her to reconsider.

She said that under no circumstance would she lower my rent but that she would consider renewing my lease as it was. Then I went to London.

When I came back from London I was so tired that the thought of moving was too much for me to handle so I called her up and told her to send me a new lease AS LONG AS the terms remained the same.

She said okay. One month later I had nothing. Not a lease, not a confirmation e-mail-NOTHING.

Yesterday I found a great apartment. Beautiful. Perfect. New. On a 52nd floor so you can only imagine the view. It was outisde of my budget but somehow I managed to negotiate it down to less than what I am paying right now. I signed an application and got a lease.

Today my landlady is not happy. Quite frankly, she hates me.

But we are in a recession. I need to look after my own interests.
Plus it's not my fault she slacked off. And this place is so great!!!!

I am moving in 3 weeks.

Financially Challenged

For years and years I talked about wanting to go back to school to get my M.S. in Nutrition. A move, a heart-break and a last minute application later, I am on quarter 3 of an MBA program.

What can I say…that's just how I roll…

Anyway, surprisingly enough the whole thing has turned out to be pretty interesting and I, who had never taken an advanced math course before in my life, despite my continuous bitching about how much I hate numbers have actually managed to excel at it (and learn Excel in the process). So I almost had a nervous breakdown after my Accounting midterm and nearly died trying to make sense of the financial statements of GM but it made getting that "A" that much sweeter.

Economics I loved. I was so incredibly head over heels crazy about Economics, that I am giving serious consideration to the possibility of getting my PhD in Economics. I know that it's scary and vast and full of theories and that I was taking the class during a time when the Financial world was collapsing and rendering my book with most of its theories completely useless but still, even if turns out that I learned the wrong thing or nothing at all, I am so crazy about it that I stopped buying The Economist and am now a proud subscriber.

…along with the Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Ad Age, Rolling Stone and some other one I can't remember J

Now I am taking Corporate Finance and I am having a love/hate relationship with that class. My professor is this Chinese gentleman who clearly knows his stuff and I am very responsive to his methods. Oh but the numbers! I am convinced that Financial Statements are going to be the death of me. Even my credit card statement stresses me out since I started taking the class but that's an entirely different issue…Actually, it's not. I think that's where my problems with Finance begin: Ignorance is bliss but life revolves around Finance.

I think that if nothing else, riding out the recession in an MBA program has been a good decision, though I must admit that when I decided to embark in this adventure I had no way of knowing that things in our country would get so bad. I definitely had no idea that I would re-evaluate what "living within my means" actually meant and that the tools I was, and am still, learning would help me become more financially responsible.

…but I am a work in progress and no matter how much I organize my finances, I will probably continue to help the economy one pair of shoes at a time…

Making my lemonade.

I permanently moved out of my home and began supporting myself at the age of 22. At the time I left home (after college, after my first stint at grad school, after years abroad) I found myself in the situation where I didn't know what I wanted to do for the rest of my life and so I was willing to try out just about anything. Which I did.

From my first job to where I am at now, I have deciphered more or less what I am good at and made a career out of it. I am not going to say that in this career I have earned obscene amounts of money because I'd be lying if I did; however, I have earned enough money to make a pretty nice life for myself and situate myself comfortably in what I consider to be the middle class.

At least until recently I felt this way...

In the past year I've watched gas go up from $2.20 a gallon to the $3.79 I paid today. I have watched my weekly groceries go up from what they used to be to roughly 30% more. I have seen my electric bill a certain way, seen it lowered as a result of my replacing regular lightbulbs to energy efficient, only to see the electric bill go up again for God knows what reason.

No area of my life has been unaffected by this drastic change in the economy. And I ask myself, when does it end? what is it going to take? gas prices are up because supposedly there is no gas, so now gas has ethanol and corn farmers get subsidies to use more of their corn for ethanol so wheat farmers want to be corn farmers and there isn't enough wheat (or corn) to feed people so bread goes up and animals don't have as many grains to be fed so meat and dairy go up...

And just like that, the cost of living doubles and our paychecks shrink and you wonder how to fix it or if this is temporary and if all these excuses are even true. Then you think about the fact that there are pharmaceuticals in our water. And you just want it to go back to the way it was.