My poor little Macbook (her name’s Martha, for future reference) passed away. The Apple Store said they may be able to revive her for about $300, but if it’s something serious, I may as well replace her because it’d be around $800 to fix her otherwise.

I about crapped my pants – I’ve only had Martha for three years, and Macs are supposed to be invincible. I decided I must go into survival mode in case I have to spend a thousand bucks I don’t have on a new computer when I arrive back in Kent Aug. 8.

I have decided that for the rest of this week (July 14 through July 18) I will not spend a penny.

If I were in Kent, this probably wouldn’t be a problem. But I’m in New York City, where all prices are inflated compared to the rest of the United States. True, there are plenty of free things to do here, but, for example, when I want to get something decent for dinner, it costs a standard $20-ish rather than the Ohio standard of $10-ish. So, in light of these facts, I feel like this may be sort of a challenge through the next four days. I’ll probably complain about it a lot, but whatever. You can read about my challenges/complaints all week via Twitter.

I feel like I’ll probably realize that I spend entirely too much dough on random junk … maybe this will teach me how to save money better. Maybe I’ll have a very very small, incomplete experience of what it’s like to to be poor and hungry. Or at least I’ll learn creative ways to eat the food I already have in my cupboard.

Here’s the list of rules I have established for myself this week:

• I won’t spend money from 12:01 a.m. Tuesday to 12:01 a.m. Sunday.

• I can only eat the food I already have in my cupboard.

• I will use my unlimited MetroCard that I bought last week to go to work every day (I live 60 blocks from my building. Sorry, guys, I just can’t walk that twice every day. My legs will fall off).

• I will allow myself to use friends’ money only twice this week, if needed, in case of an emergency (AHEM roommates and everyone I know in NYC).

Again, if you’d like to know my daily experiences with this challenge (as well as other interesting stories from New York City), follow me on Twitter. Stay tuned next week for a recap of my experience on KentNewsNet.com.

Kristina Deckert is a senior information design major and columnist for the Summer Kent Stater. Follow her and her ridiculous experience in New York City on Twitter, or contact her at [email protected].