Money’s tight for me.

Stagehand jobs have dried up over the last month so I’ve had to rely on income from the Gap alone. The problem is that I only get paid a quarter more than minimum wage while only clocking 25-30 hours a week. On top of that, I’m paying both federal AND state income taxes (something I never had to do in Florida) in addition to Chicago’s whopping 9.75% sales tax.

After doing some math, I discovered that I am making about $11,000 a year (half of which goes just toward rent). A podcast I was listening to recently, quoting a study done, said that to be happy, a household must make $75,000. That would certainly be nice, wouldn’t it? I could do quite a lot with that much money (roughly 7 times what I make now). I can easily imagine being happy indeed with that much money.

But honestly, I’m still happy with what I’ve got right now. The friendships I’m making at iO are worth far more to me than money and the life I have chosen for myself is already more gratifying than anything else I could possibly imagine.

Sure, money’s tight, but that’s only temporary. In the meantime, I’m looking for a better paying job and remembering that I was much worse off six months ago than I am now, and in another six months I’ll be saying the same thing.

As long as I get to keep singing Weezer songs with all my new improv buds, I’ll be happy.