International Society of Vertebrate Paleontology Annual Meeting Savings Year

Most of us involved in one way or another in academia are probably not strangers to financial hardship. As a part-time student with a full-time job, I'm probably better off than most students, and I'm still below "livable wage," especially in my corner of the country. While travel grants are often available, funding a weekend trip to a society meeting can still break the bank.

I may be jumping the gun a bit, seeing as I haven't yet become a formal member of SVP, but I am 99.9% sure I want to go to next year's annual SVP meeting in Cleveland, OH. And I'm also sure that if I don't start saving for it now, I won't be able to afford it, come October.

So, for all of you poor paleo people (ppp) who are in the same boat, I propose we do an offshoot of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWrMo) and set up a savings plan. The idea is to make a commitment to yourself and a few other people to save a certain amount of money, per week, to put towards travel costs. You can set a goal and monitor it on your site, much like NaNoWrMo folks, all the while inspiring other ppp to do the same.

There's a word cash counter here, to let others monitor your progress.

My goal is $2200 (for two people), so I'm hoping to save about $275 every month until the end of July.

Let me know if you're interested in the comments section of this post!