Recession - how is this graduate student staying afloat?

Mint.com is the obsessive compulsive's best friend. This free website monitors all your bank accounts and credit cards, keeping track of all your finances. It is entirely secure becasue you never plug in personal information (like account number) of the cards, but only login id and password to your bank. Below are my expenses for the past 8 months. During this period I managed to save about $1000, which is not much, but at least I can brag about staying within budget.

Here's a boring analysis of the categories, in decreasing order of their amount:

• 21% - Home - mostly rent, includes some home furnishing and home supplies. Not much to save here.
• 21% - Food - about half of this is groceries, a quarter restaurants, and the rest alcohol and fast food. Deffinitely a place where I could save a little by eating out less and cooking at home more. Overall I don't think I am spending way too much on food, as it adds up to an average of $317 per month.
• 12% - Education - grad school fees. Period.
• 11% - Gifts and donations - mostly Christmas gifts, but includes charity donations and such. Technically not a gift, since I received presents back. Saving here would make me a Scrooge.
• 9% - Health and fitness - last portion of my ACL surgery bills, dentist and optometrist visits.
• 6% - Bills & Utillities - cable, internet, phone, water, electricity - not much to save here.
• 6% - Shopping - clothes, camping gear, computer parts. Some if it's necessary (tennis shoes), some of it can be trimmed.
• 4% - Pets - Chevy & Sedona are hungry beasts.
• 4% - Auto and transport - Mostly insurance, a quarter is gas, and then some oil changes.
• 4% - Entertainment - Netflix movie rental, movies, concerts, shows. I wish I could afford to increase this category.

Bottom line: there's not much room to wiggle. I am a poor grad students and I should at least be thankful that I am not getting in debt.

In Lubbock TX justice gets YOU!

Here's a very common story of a black man wrongly accused of raping a white woman. In this case the real perpetrator came out and confessed, but the Lubbock justice system did not want to own to its mistake.

"Then, in 1995, Johnson wrote a letter to the district court in Lubbock in which he confessed to raping Mallin. He got no reply. So he wrote another letter asking for an attorney so that he could legally confess. Again, he was ignored. Johnson eventually wrote to the former Lubbock district attorney who prosecuted the case, Jim Bob Darnell, and asked for his help. There was only silence in reply."

Who cares if an innocent man died in prison because of this? By the way, his only fault was to be black, which directly implied "brash, slick liar" in the words of the defense. Yet, here comes the best part, scumbag D.A. Jim Bob Darnell is now a judge. I hope no one will ever have to seek justice in Lubbock Texas.

Family Of Man Cleared By DNA Still Seeks Justice : NPR