'Tis The Season to Spend Money...

...and I'm not talking about Christmas.

Greetings, lovely readers of the Damaged, Inc. blogatorium. My name is Freducate, and I haven't posted around here in, like, forever. Happy Memorial Day weekend, and - as with every three-day weekend - I hope that everyone has taken the time to relax, eat a cheeseburger or three, and take a long summer's nap (perhaps on the nearest beach).

I've personally tried to accomplish all of this. However, because:
(a) I just moved back from Massachusetts last weekend;
(b) I'm moving *again* to another apartment, with my girlfriend (the occasional Damaged, Inc. contributor ARoll), next weekend;
(c) I'm starting my new job on Tuesday, which gave me nine days to put all of my affairs in order between moving out of Massachusetts and starting my new job;
(d) In the meanwhile, I had family visiting from Florida this week because of mine and my little sister's graduations;
(e) I still have manuscripts and projects from my grad school days to wrap up and send out; and because
(f) all of items (a)-(e) take a LOT of work, I've spent most of the weekend buying bedroom furniture, packing boxes and thinking about proper paragraph transitions.

If you've never bought a bedroom, if you're going to do it right it is EXPENSIVE. Between the bedroom set, the ultra-soft, 372-coil mattress, the 600-thread count sheets, etc., it's a lot of money. I'm not going to say how expensive per se, because this isn't a blog about financial issues. Let's just say however much it was, it was completely justified. This is why. If you're going to work hard, you might as well have a bitchin' bedroom to come home to. If there's one important thing to splurge on in a new home, it's the bedroom.

And, of course, a huge HDTV for the living room, and a knife set, and all the other little things that start to add up over time.

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I was once in credit-card debt, and I think it's worth telling the story because I'm probably about to be in credit-card debt again. At the time, I was a senior in college and I just started dating my girlfriend. She had a real job, with a real salary, and I was making $2,200 a semester as a Biology TA. Now, I wanted to impress her because she was (and is) beautiful, smart, and awesome in just about every way imaginable.

To do this, even though we'd only been dating for three months, I decided to go all-out on a Christmas present for her. I had already bought two tickets to see "The Producers" on Broadway, and in retrospect this was probably enough of a present to make everyone happy. I should have stopped here, but I didn't. You see, I also - and here's where I shat the bed - decided to make this venture a "night out in New York City."


Specifically, I purchased a hotel room at a 3 1/2 star hotel in Manhattan, and also took her out to a relatively expensive dinner. If my memory serves me right, I insisted to pay for everything. It cost so much money. I was such a tool. This, combined with an overall pattern of reckless financial behavior which culminated in an awesome but account-draining trip to Las Vegas, put me into credit card debt. Which sucked.

Just to sum up, the morals of the story are as follows:
(1) In a relationship it is perfectly acceptable to share expenses for things, proportional to the salaries of the people therein.
(2) I used to be really stupid with money.
(3) In all probability, I remain really stupid with money (and in general).

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One quick note, and then I'm done with this post. Now that I'm back in New Jersey, there's going to be lots of good times and drinking libations this summer in New Jersey. I will be a part of this, and you should, too (even if you're just visiting New Jersey). The official Damaged, Inc. housewarming party awaits!

Stay classy out there.