The Art of Being Broke

Being po' can be seen as a great opportunity to explore one's creativity.

Take, for example, my afternoon spent turning six dollars of fabric into new curtains for the dining room and attractively aranging random objects in the window sills. Ok, it's not exactly the cutting edge of art, but if I didn't place that plant on the little chair with the watering can at a jaunty angle next to it, no one would have. That's all I'm saying.

I've also been expressing myself creatively with my finances. When one is leaping that treacherous gorge between running out of money and one's next paycheck, bill-paying can get a little colorful. One begins paying phone bills and buying gas with credit cards, and then opening new credit cards (with the justification of a %0 interductory APR), and then using that new credit card to pay off the existing ones.

Of course, some debts, like student loans and car insurance, can not be easily paid with credit cards. The agencies holding those debts prefer (for some reason) to be paid with a check. With real money. It's okay though. Credit companies are thoughtful enough to send these devilish little things called convenience checks. It's like a cash advance, writing checks that will be credited to your card at a rediculously higher intrest rate. Isn't that convenient?? I seem to think so.

I am also getting pretty good at making creative little bargains with myself. Like, "OK, stupid. You open this new credit card, transfer all the balances from the higher-interest cards, and then close those accounts so you don't run them up again (but not until after we charge a new suit from Victoria's Secret to my old credit card behind our own back, deal? deal.)"

"I will want to go to work a lot if I have new work clothes," I try to explain to myself later. Right. We've heard that one before.