I did something really wild this week.

I subscribed to Disney +.

And I have been thinking, and laughing at myself a little, about how much of an absolutely wild splurge it feels like.

If you’ve been around a while, you know cash is a little tight these days. I’ve been cash flowing a doctoral degree for three years, paying rent in an expensive city, only working part-time (with less and less hours getting booked at my main job), and am seriously constrained by my visa work restrictions.

But it’s fine. It’s all going ok. Right? I have been surviving. I also didn’t jump into this crazy grad school plan willy nilly. While my ideal financial outcome for all this never materialized, my backup plan has held up, and I’m not even on the worst possible options I had speculated about before engaging in this mad project – fingers crossed I make it through without reaching that point.

And lately I’ve been under a little extra stress because my landlord is raising my rent to what is close to $1500 a month starting in May. Which is… really not doable. I know it’s only like $150 extra dollars but, just nope. Nope. I’m London-ed out. I’m 95% sure I’m heading out to the suburbs in July.

However, it’s the best income time of the year with everything being a bit full on before the summer lull at the university and then the barren fall, lol, assuming the same patterns happen this year as last year. And I just got my tax return and topped off my school tuition savings account which, even worst case scenario, I believe how has enough money to pay for the rest of my tuition through the end of the program in it.

If the move goes through, my rent should drop to closer to $900 a month and I should be splitting my utilities instead of paying for everything myself.

All of this has led to a really weird feeling of – maybe the whole financial thing will be ok? I mean, it was always going to be ok, but maybe there’s finally a little bit of breathing room in everything again.

And this connects to Disney +. So, my sister-in-law and cousin were visiting a few weeks ago and one of the nights they were here, we logged onto the cousin’s Disney + account and watched Hercules, like all the cool 30-somethings are doing these days and I was blatantly flabbergasted over how much content is available on Disney +. I currently mooch the family Netflix and the boyfriend’s Prime, which isn’t actually that good, and I pay for an Apple TV subscription to contribute to the group TV pool, which also is kind of limited but I do love what they actually have on there.

Well, after they left, the Disney + was still logged on, so I started watching Station 19. Fun fact, Grey’s Anatomy is absolutely one of my guilty pleasures. I’ve been watching it for almost twenty years, I will watch it forever. I didn’t realize that Station 19 was essentially a spin-off, crossover show.

And then, after two weeks of binge watching this show, my cousin’s log in expired on my TV and I was Station 19-less.

So for a day I just sighed and was like, that’s that.

And a day later I thought, WTF. Why not? How much even is this subscription?

It’s £1.99 for three months and then £4.99 a month.

And I thought, why am I not doing this? I love Disney movies. I want to watch Station 19. I can finally watch Grey’s Anatomy on this side of the pond again instead of trying to binge it over Christmas break at my dad’s.

The joy this had brought me this week. It’s been ridiculous. I feel like a baller with my super fancy TV subscription. I’ve fallen asleep to a Disney movie almost every night. I’ve watched probably too many episodes of Station 19.

It’s such a weird line deciding what to spend on and what not to spend on. Through this whole grad school journey, I’ve prioritized experiences. I go on vacations with friends. Friends and family come here and we do things. This is where like all my extra money goes.

But sometimes I forget how nice it can be to make my home comfortable. I mean, I don’t live in abject poverty here but I’m really careful about things that are recurring bills. Or turning on the heat. Little things that make life so much nicer.

So. I don’t think this is going to have a terribly negative financial repercussion, though I will report back at the end of the whole grad school journey.

In the meantime, do you have a Disney movie recommendation?