My First Apartment
Fri., January 13, 12:00 PM
My friend, Denver Doug, ran an interesting post recently about the rising cost of everything. And after I added my three cents’ worth (everything) about the 60 percent increase in the price of a quart of milk, I began remembering the first time I ran my own budget. It’s not really relevant, because the economy then was very different from what it is today. And still…
It’s very surprising to me that I remember my own very first apartment – with affection. It wasn’t much even forty years ago –– a furnished room and a half, second floor rear – and I’m not sure I would risk it now. It wasn’t in the best part of town, but it was near the bus that ran up to campus, and I couldn’t afford a car. Heck, I could barely afford the flat. But it was only going to be for a couple of months.
I was treading on thin ice, as I wanted to finish up my degree, but I didn’t want to live on campus. The university had strict rules: full-time undergraduate females had to live in university dorms unless they were (1) still living with parents or (2) married. I was over twenty-one, which should have emancipated me, but to be on the safe side, I signed up for less than full-time classes. I had plenty of credits, just not in the right fields. (Have I mentioned that I’m a generalist in a world of specialists?)
Each morning I boarded the bus at 7:30, and each afternoon I returned on the 4:30 bus. The bus ran three daily round trips – morning, noontime, and evening. Unless someone gave me a ride, I couldn’t avail myself of any nighttime concerts or plays on campus. Oh, well. Friends from work occasionally asked me to dinner and drove me home afterwards.
Imagine! No siblings. No roommate. No parents (or dorm officers) telling me what to do. No sharing a bathroom. (At home my mother insisted that we store our “women’s stuff” where no males might see it; we kept it in our dresser drawers.)
I am not Cathy 
I pretty well had that tendency removed from my brain quite early in life. I may have mentioned that I’m not the world’s best housekeeper, but I can tell you that in my own flat I was not forever losing stuff. If I put something down, it was still there when I came back. I knew what was in my pantry and in my refrigerator. I didn’t make much money, but I accounted for it and spent it carefully. (I did have a job on campus, but university rules prohibited undergrads from working more than twenty-five hours a week when classes were in session.)
As always, I had worked at the library in my home town over the summer, and I had saved enough to cover the rent, a whopping $65 a month, which was high but did include heat and hot water. Tuition was $15 a credit. Everything else came out of my $25 a week salary. That included groceries, my weekly bus ticket, maybe a movie or a Mad magazine. If I didn’t have the money for anything else, I didn’t buy it; there was no other option. Even if credit cards had been as ubiquitous as they are today, I probably wouldn’t have had one.
When I got off the bus in the evening, I could stop off at the nearby A&P for emergency groceries – usually Coke, which came in glass bottles too heavy to carry from a more distant store. But Saturday mornings, I made an excursion of walking across town to the Stop & Shop. I had discovered that S&S had the best meat and fresh vegetables. I bought most of my groceries for the week – a sack for each hand – and walked back home, stopping for coffee and rest about half way. My son, who lived in the area many years later when he worked for the University, tells me the S&S is modernized, but still in the same place. Ever since then, Stop & Shop remains my supermarket of choice.
I had no television, so I listened to the radio. I probably would have done that anyway, as Mets baseball was not available on TV in that area. I read a lot, borrowing books from the public library. I did study; I wanted that degree. Once or twice I managed to get home; a Trailways bus to the Hartford railroad station and a train to Stamford was the only way to go if you didn’t have a car.
Was it perfect? By no means. But I recommend it highly. At that time, most young women lived with their parents until they got married, without ever experiencing what it’s like to run a household or plan meals or be responsible for general upkeep. There were girls – probably there still are – who never learned to budget money or balance a checkbook. I consider that tragic; what’s supposed to happen to these women if they are divorced or widowed?
I made sure all three of my kids experienced living without parents. They learned how to run their own homes, not necessarily the way I would do it, but that’s okay. They’re self-sufficient, and I don’t have to worry about them. Well, U.D. is back with us these days, but she’s still learning. On the other hand, between her and Husband, I lose things constantly.
Incidentally, I did earn that sheepskin, although I’ve never worked in the field of my major. That’s not to say I never used my education. Nothing you ever learn is wasted unless you truly - willfully – ignore it, and that applies both to formal schooling and practical knowledge. But that’s a story for another time.
