Yesterday I mailed off the credit card payment which included my last big semester at university. That took out nearly all of my savings, so this is as poor as I’ve been since, well, since I don’t remember when. (Probably since I used to travel to England every year or so. Amazing how much money I got into savings when I stopped flying there each summer. Heh.) But there are many good things in this too.

• As I said, it was my last big payment. After this semester are 3 more semester hours which I’ll pay over 2 or 3 semesters. (And this semester I paid for 7 semester hours).
• I have paid for my Masters program WITHOUT taking out a loan. I am very proud of myself for that.
• When I called the folks to whimper (in a not very serious way) they invited me around for wine time and the watching of the Inauguration Parade. It was fun.
• Yesterday amazon.com sent me $50 worth of gift certificates for paying for my college bill with my amazon.com credit card. 🙂 I only spent $5 over that to order lots of fun books. (And I’m only $400 away from another $25 gift cert.)
• In my preliminary work on my taxes (still waiting on forms from lame-os Wooster and Ohio) it looks like I’ll be getting a refund again. Woot!
• Heck, this summer I updated my bathroom big time which was a great use of money in savings.

So, although my savings account looks pretty pathetic right now, I’m very fortunate that I’ll be able to start saving again now that my Masters Program is finishing up. And next year, when I’m done with the program, I’ll move sideways on the pay scale at work and get a bit more money. (I’m envisioning a successful Masters Thesis. It’s the only way to envision it.) Yay!

Well, now that I know what my paychecks will be (more or less) for the next couple of years, I’ve been able to do some number crunching to see if I can afford my Masters program without getting a loan or not.

I was pretty confident that I could pay the first year with what I have in savings. And now that I’ve crunched the numbers, it looks like I can pay for year two as well! Woot!

In order to do this, I need to stay in my self-imposed budget (which is very livable). And well – I’d say more, but would probably jinx myself. Let’s just say that it’s doable and leave it at that.

So, for the next two years, no more paying for City of Heroes, no more DVD impulse buying, cutting back on eating out, etc. (Now I won’t go all crazy or anything – if something Sylvish comes along, I’ll be buying it, no sweat. And I intend to budget in some upcoming DVDs like Pirates 3 and Ocean’s 13. And Saturday? Indian Fud! It’s been ages since I’ve been.)

It feels good to think I can do this without a loan!