Tight Budget

I just got paid today and after allocating money for all my bills I am only reminded that my budget is very tight. I won’t even get started about my dislike for being paid once a month. As a post doc I feel like my budget is tighter than when I was a grad student. It absolutely baffles me that I took one international spring break trip, went to Vegas, California, and had other fun romps during grad school. Right now, I can’t even think about traveling to the next town over. This is insane. It also doesn’t help that my university expects me to front the money for all the conferences I attend and for all research expenses and then they will reimburse me. That only makes my tight budget even tighter. But I have to spend this research money in order to make myself competitive for a better job where I can make more money. Academic poverty is a vicious cycle and I am dying to break the chain.