Just now I stumbled across a blog in which the author was musing on her new attitude of detachment toward her financial difficulties. As she listed her debts and how she couldn’t pay them, I thought to myself, Well, why doesn’t she just cancel her Internet service, to start? Of course, after taking a few mental steps back, I realized that I was in a situation not dissimilar from this fellow blogger’s. Why shouldn’t I cancel my Internet service? Certainly, I’ve run out of things to sell, and in avoidance of the prospect of returning to live with my parents, why shouldn’t I start cutting down on expenditures that might be frivolous? Why don’t I cancel my Internet, sell my computer? Turn off my cell phone? Give my cats away?

I’m looking for long-term solutions, and none of these are it. In fact, the idea of living in this apartment without some of these things is more depressing than just hanging my head and returning to my parents. (Not that I don’t love my parents — I really do, but I don’t want to live out there. Not anymore.) There is something to be said, I think, for the small joys that having a computer (with Internet) can bring. First off, it is an invaluable job-search tool. Outside of straight pavement-pounding, it is most direct. But that’s not what I’m getting at, after all. It’s like the pleasure of a bubble tea or a pint of soy ice cream, maybe a $2 Pabst on a Friday, or a Corona at a party. These are the little things that keep my spirits up when the idea of where next month’s rent is coming from is pushing me to the point of total freak out. In a way, the Internet has the same function, and can double in a somewhat awkward social sense when I rarely leave the house because I can’t afford to. I haven never been a big spender, always cautious about where and how I spend my money, but this past year has tested my abilities to think creatively about conserving my cash.

So what’s left to siphon out?