I have begun undertaking the calculus required to figure out just how much money I need to be making on a monthly basis to live on my own. I’ve had an idea of the vague numbers for quite some time — I first made these calculations back in 2000, back when I was thinking about doing full-time Web design work — but now I’m figuring out every last penny of how much breakfast costs, how much lunch costs, how much my gum and tissues cost, all of that. I actually quite enjoy this kind of activity; although I make my living off of teaching English and writing, I was always much more into math when I was younger, and even though I’ve forgotten how to do derivatives and all that high-level calculus stuff, I’m still pretty solid on my basic math. It’s interesting to see how even the tiniest changes I make in my normal daily routine translate to more or less money per month, and it makes me think even more about what I really need to be living on my own.

There is one kind of disconcerting bit of knowledge I picked up yesterday, though. For the sake of figuring these numbers out, I topped my tank and then very deliberately avoided going anyplace else but MCCC and home, with the exception of one Kroger that’s pretty much right off of that work-to-home drive. I managed to get six trips done before my gas gauge hit the red spot, so I filled my tank all the way back up before heading to work today. Even with a thirty-cent-per-gallon discount at Kroger’s gas pumps, it still took over sixty bucks to get my tank topped again. Each trip to and from campus costs me over ten bucks, and when I’m making that trip four times a week, that money adds up very quickly.

This brings up a couple of issues. First of all, I definitely need a more fuel-efficient car, and I’ve always felt that I should have better transportation before I start shopping for an apartment or a condo. Most of my students are younger than what I drive to work every day, for crying out loud. Secondly, this also forces me to think about just where it is I decide to live. Moving just halfway closer to MCCC would save me close to $100 a month, and that’s nothing to sneeze at. I can’t live all of my life just between work and home (and let’s not forget that, as much as I enjoy working at MCCC, I might not get an opportunity to work full-time there for quite some time, and may find full-time work elsewhere in the meantime), so I’ll have to think about places to live in close proximity to places like Kroger and Meijer. This is not light work to figure out, and I’ll probably have to keep plugging away at it for the next few weeks.