As I sat paying bills this afternoon, on line of course, figuring out when money will go in, when money should come out, and pushing some keys, I found myself laughing at how bill paying has changed since I first started paying my own way. When I was a freshman in college we were required to take a personal finance course. This was a very smart requirement. I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only very green freshman who had never written a check. They did teach us to balance our check book and how to write a check correctly. I had a job in the campus library so there was some income, but at times, as with many struggling students, finances got skimpy. I opted to go through my bachelors degree in three years, since I had a job on campus. One particularly skimpy summer, I was living on a dollar a day for food (10 cents for milk in the morning, I had brought some cereal from home, 10 cents for peanut butter crackers from the machine at lunch, and 80 cents for meat in the cafeteria at supper). One event from that summer stands out. I got a phone call from the bank telling me that my account was 17 cents overdrawn. I hurried down to the bank and gave the cashier the only money I had, a quarter. What amuses me looking back is that the cashier didn't even blink. It's like she got 25 cent deposits every day. Now in case you are feeling too sorry for poor Luci, you can put away your tiny violins. The next summer one of my best friend's parents moved to Muncie when he took a job with the college and I was able to rent a room from them for two summers, with food. Alice's mom loved me because I had a healthy appetite, oh yes!
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