That's me--the woman with $3 in her pocket to last her until payday, and, okay, maybe payday is tomorrow, but still. Except during stints of unemployment, I haven't run this close to the edge in twenty years. (*)

I mean, sheesh, you suck up one little sock in one little vacuum cleaner and the next thing you know, all of your disposable income for the next two weeks is being handed over to the only little man you can find who knows the magic way to disassemble Number Five and reassemble him, sockless, afterwards.

It doesn't help that I threw away $10 at the grocery store yesterday--buying ingredients for a recipe I wanted to try that turned out to be so disgusting that the whole thing went down the disposal five minutes after I took it out of the oven. Brooding. Culinary experiments are for the wealthy.

Except for the part where I'm finding the whole, you know, no money thing annoying, I think this is proving to be a valuable experience. I mean--I'm regretting having wasted $40 in the last month, on "gourmet" ingredients for recipes that didn't turn out well. More, I'm regretting the $10 I had yesterday that I don't have today. $10! I can't remember how many years it's been since I thought twice about an amount of money as small as $10. I guess I'd gotten very careless about money.

What I mourn most (aside from the occasional fit of weeping when I'm in a store and won't let me buy something I want) is the lack of extra funds for my normal Good Cause Gifting at this time of the year.

I just have to keep remembering--I'm only "poor" because I was too lazy to pay off my credit card bill each month, back when I was making all the money in the world. I've already had my fun--now I have to pay for it.

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* I gave you a lot of commas there. Just spread them around anywhere you think they're appropriate.