Good to the Last Drop

Having had a very good friend who was recently laid off from her job, things in life have definitely been put into perspective. As an aside, after seeing what my friend went through, I have somewhat of a hatred and resentment for the corporate world that can lay off people without any warning or any notice. All it takes is a simple "pack up your things, you're all out of here." I suppose gone are the days when companies would give people two-weeks notice or more to find new jobs. The corporate world is cut-throat and money, certainly not people, is all that matters.

Seeing and hearing what other people are going through right now makes me appreciate what I still have. As often as I complain about having too much work and working too many hours, I'm fortunate just to have work to do and hours to fill. However the news of people around me getting laid off terrifies me. The thought is definitely in my mind that the same thing could very well happen to me at any time. I'm hoping that my company (and my job) is still secure, but then again my friend thought the same thing about hers.

This whole fear about the potential of being out of work at any moment has reignited a determination in me to be a little more careful with my money. I'll admit that I like to splurge on certain things, but now the realization has hit me that I need to be more frugal and save more money. There are a lot of things that I want right now—an external hard drive for my computer, DVDs, CDs, books, etc.—but these are not things that I absolutely need right now. In the past (like, before this week) I probably would have bought all these things, but now I realize that I need to spend my money on the important and necessary things. And I realize that I also need to save for the unexpected expenses—another friend's unexpected $2,000 car repair expense also scared me into saving more money.

So now I think I'm going to retrain myself to live like I lived when I was a student and before I had a job and a disposable income. So it is back to clipping coupons, cooking more and going out less, buying only what I need and not what I want, and using what I have until it can't be used anymore. In fact I just spent the past 20 minutes pounding the last few drops out of a lotion bottle. When your lotion comes in a bottle with a pump, you're never going to get the lotion that is at the bottom of the bottle because the pump never reaches far enough. So you basically have to unscrew the pump and pound out the lotion that's at the bottom of the bottle. I think I was able to squeeze out two more weeks of lotion out of that bottle!

Current mood: scared of the economy, but grateful for what I have
Current music: iTunes on shuffle—Keith Urban "Who Wouldn't Want to Be Me"