This month was one of those mentally draining, down-in-the-dumps months. It was full of impulse purchases and lack of any motivation whatsoever to try to cut back or be frugal.

I went to a private Montessori school in Atlanta from preschool through the third grade that my middle-class parents were able to pay for with a scholarship that I got for doing extremely well on little-kid-level standardized tests. The majority of the families that sent their children there were very well-off.

Last month, Adam and I embarked on a journey to save up $10,000 by the time our lease ends next May so we can finally fulfill our longstanding dream of moving away from Atlanta.

When Adam and I began dating two years ago, we were each already planning to leave Atlanta. I wanted to teach English abroad after I graduated, and he wanted to move back to New York City, where he’d lived for a handful of years in his early twenties. After a summer of dating, late in August, he asked me to change my plans.