High price of living

It looks like I'm going to be totally broke by the end of January 2005, despite the large salary increase from my new job. I made a list, and so far I have to shell out close to $8000 to cover all the debts that will come due by then.

1. Mortage payment for my house in Texas due mid-December
2. Property taxes for 2004, which have to be paid in full by 1/31/05 because my son couldn't find the statement from the tax assessor/controller in time for me to pay half by 11/30/04 ... major bummer!
3. House insurance renewals for property and liability
4. Round-trip airfare home to Texas for Christmas
5. Cost of driving to Florida to leave my car with the shipping company
6. Airfare back from Florida after I drive my car to West Palm Beach
7. Car repairs (new struts, new battery, etc.) before shipping it to St. Croix
8. Cost of transferring title, etc., from Texas to USVI
9. New car insurance policy for driving in USVI
10. New driver's license for USVI
11. Security deposit and first month's rent for my new apartment
12. Cost of transferring the telephone at my new place to my name
13. Cylinder of cooking gas at my new place
14. Cost of shipping books, personal papers, household goods, etc., to St. Croix
15. Other holiday expenses

. . . and on and on and on! When does it ever end? When will I get to where I have enough money so I not only can feel comfortable and not worry about living from month to month, but will also have a little left over for fun stuff? By the time I get there, I'll be too old and feeble to enjoy it at this rate. I'm sure that many other people in the increasingly impoverished middle class feel the same way that I do. We are being sucked dry by taxes and insurance costs and cost-of-living increases.

At least I'm working where the views are gorgeous and the climate is wonderful! I see new things every day and meet new people all the time. Plus, my work week is only 35 hours long. Can you believe it?! Of course, I'm usually at the library much longer than that. Today, for example, the library closed at 4 pm because finals for the fall semester ended yesterday, so most of the students are gone. I'm still here, though, and it's past 6:30 pm. I've been catching up on paperwork all day, finishing book orders and doing some research for a grant that I have to write.

I also had a prof call me because she was concerned that a student had plagiarized her answers on a take-home quiz. I ran some searches for her, but I couldn't come up with any results that could prove her suspicions one way or another. The problem with plagiarism is rampant here as well as at schools across the United States for a number of reasons. In my opinion, students are not being prepared better in junior and senior high school, and the World Wide Web (WWW) has made it very easy for everyone, not just young people, to cut and paste information into their documents.