then and now

isn't it just wild how in college $50 was equivalent to how $300 makes you feel nowadays? with $50, you felt on top of the world. you could buy breakfast lunch and dinner and still have money left over for a t-shirt at your favorite retail store (or at least that's how it felt).

already ate at the sorority house? too bad. breakfast lunch and dinner.
your friends are cooking dinner at their place for free? don't go. breakfast lunch and dinner.

ok, ok. sorry. i stole that from kenan thompson's "the rent is too damn high" rendition on SNL. i couldn't help myself. but, for serious, $50 in college was a fucking gold mine. you felt on top of the world with that kind of money to your name. i had a bad habit in college of going to the store and buying like $100 worth of groceries, coming home and putting them away, then heading right back out to grab dinner at a restaurant. I DON'T KNOW WHAT THAT WAS ABOUT. here i just spent pretty much my entire monthly allowance on food, yet i felt so rich with whatever money i had left that i had no problem going right back out to spend it all up. that was the life. now, it's like "what are you having for dinner, sweetheart?" asks my adorable, concerned mama. "umm... ahem. pasta..... maybe some blue corn chips.... i don't know. whatever's in my pantry." so sad, but that's how it is, ya know?

$50 use to make you feel like you were one step closer to buying a macbook. now, you know you're in deep, deep shit if that's all the money you have to claim until payday. ya know, fuck rachel ray's "$40 a day." it's not on the air anymore, but when it was, i LOVED that show. oh my. watching her so savvily spend her allotted $40 to dine out all day - mother help me. i thought it was so great and she made the smartest choices. why? because then, i was like "shit! i could do that with my $50 and have $10 left! BEERS!" now, i'm like "anyone who has $40 to savvily spend on 3 separate meals in ONE day is a filthy rich asshole who should be donating to charities."

yikes. i'm gonna go cook me up some stale chips and dry pasta dinner. no, i'm kidding. it's not THAT bad. but you get the point.

-emma