Six Dollars

I have six dollars in my wallet, and as I've decided to try to spend less money, I've given a lot of thought to how I want to spend it. "Threepenny Opera" tickets are $5, but I might need to go to the bank before I but my ticket, because there are so many incidentals. I wanted to get dinner on Main Street tonight because it's the paper plate awards, so I won't be able to eat in the dining hall, but that's too impractical. It doesn't matter though, as I only have enough money on my meal plan to use $10 a day, and I indulged in a $3 apple cider at lunch, so I can't afford dinner. I took a bag of bread from the toast station, so I'll have toast with honey for dinner, but that'll be the end of the bread (the bag was mostly empty when I took it). I want to go see "High School Musical 3" tomorrow after "Threepenny", because it's only $4 at midnight, and I'm justifying it by not going to the absurdly expensive ($10!) date party. I wasn't going to go anyway, but it's still money that I'm not spending. I'm skipping tonight's party with Sig Nu also, that's another $3 saved.
I heard somewhere that the average college student spends about $5000 on alcohol every year. That's insane, but I guess it all adds up. A party averages at about $3, if you pregame you chip into a bottle of something or other, that's probably another $2, the IB costs $5 if you're under (and not a girls rugger, cuz Colin lets us in for free), and even more if you're over, cuz then you're buying drinks. So let's say $10 a night, (which is probably conservative), it seems like a lot of people go out twice a week (others go out every night, but that's probably why the number is so huge, they're inflating the data with their alcoholism.), that's $20 a week spent on partying. I could easily see that adding up to big numbers. It's something to think about at the very least.
Back to my $6. It's probably going to go to theater tickets. I sort of half regret my habit of just dumping the change from my wallet pocket into the collection plate at church. It was almost all quarters, so I gave about $5 last week. I'm all for giving to the church, but it's sort of giving beyond my means, especially because I'm pretty sure it doesn't actually go to the care and feeding of the priests. I always feel so pressured though, because you hear stories about itinerant preachers who get stiffed when the collection plate goes around, and their children are barefoot and hungry, and it's sad. Granted these are priests, and so they don't have children, but still. I don't want to be stingy.
I'm still reading Les Miserables (I'm a full time student and it's the size of a cinder block. Don't judge me.), and it's all about poverty and making a tiny amount of money go really far, which is what inspired this post. The truly frugal person would just skip the play, or at least not go see the movie, but Aaron is in the play, and he's a senior, and Oaks and I never get to see each other now that rugby is over, and we both love HSM. So my big sacrifice is going to be skipping the field trip to the adult store, and eating one meal a day, supplemented with stolen bread and fruit. And stolen honey. Eaten off of stolen plates, with stolen silverware. Wow, I'm kind of shameless. Or thrifty. I'm going with thrifty.