<p>I have way too many bags. I carry an overpriced wallet (it was a gift) with minimal cash, credit cards, business cards and little notes stuffed in it. Then there are the sunglasses, reading glasses, checkbook, kindle, notebook, IPhone, lipstick, chapstick, tape-measure, mag-light, spare pens, etc…I have a Louis Vuitton Never Full my husband bought that easily holds all that plus fabric samples. (I’m a decorator). I several other bags, smaller and equally large. I use clutches for evening.</p>
<p>I’m a minimalist. Or a strange woman. I get by mostly with a wallet in which I can squeeze my iPhone. Often when going out I take a drivers license, credit card, debit card, iPhone and put them in my pocket. That’s it. For work, when needed, it’s a bag for materials or the pannier on the side of my bike. I have a few cheap purses for special occasions. You would find my shoe collection pathetic too. I am the only woman I know who hates shopping for shoes.</p>
<p>VeryHappy: the combination lock is great. I can add/subtract a combination easily so that I can tell someone a combination and then make it inactive three days later (useful for contractors). It also means I don’t have to worry about locking myself out when I take the dogs out or take the trash out. The combination lock is on a fairly hidden side door.</p>
<p>On the combo lock - another option is to get a combo garage door opener transmitter. this unit can be located anywhere on the outside of the house and one can enter a combo, press the button, and the garage door opens. If you have a door from the garage to the inside of the house this can be useful. you can either leave this door unlocked when you know someone might be coming over or hide a key in the garage in a simple place so the person (or you) can find it.</p>
<p>This makes for an inexpensive, simple, and quick install.</p>
<p>I know that this won’t surprise many of you…but we always carry purses. Daytime: large satchels that have wallets, cell phones, keys and sunglasses. And, in my case…reading glasses. For nighttime: small (in daughters’ case) or smaller purses, often crossbody (for dancing them…not me), or a smaller purse.</p>
<p>Back in the 70s I saved and saved for a Gucci satchel, blue Gs with the stripe. It was large and I LOVED it. Stupidly I gave it to charity…what I wouldn’t do to have that one back. *oh and there was a lot of air space…not a lot of stuff in it.</p>
<p>We all have rain purses (cheap purses that we don’t care if they are wet) and in our good purses…in case of rain…a plastic bag to save the good purse.</p>
<p>My purse carries basics only…wallet,cell phone,reading glasses,keys,Chap Stick.</p>
<p>I am jealous of people who can get by on just a wallet! My epi pen, inhaler, and air chamber for the inhaler take up an entire small to medium sized purse by themselves, and when you add all the OTC pills I have to carry plus the water I need to swallow them, we are already talking a large bag-- and then I also carry a wallet, keys, make up, notepad-- and somehow a mini-bible got in there and it just felt good to have it on me so I left it. I stay away from the giant bags and I make sure to manage the weight, my purses are never heavy, but I will probably never be able to downsize to a clutch or wallet all by itself. But that’s a lot of important stuff to risk having stolen, so when I go out after dark by myself I am bad and don’t carry most of my medical supplies so that I can get by with just my wallet and phone in my pocket.</p>
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<p>A simple portable calculator (not even a scientific one) was $345 in 1970. $345 in 1970 is $1,958.17 in 2011, according to the [CPI</a> calculator](<a href=“http://146.142.4.24/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl]CPI”>http://146.142.4.24/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl).</p>
<p>Seems like you could buy all of the stuff listed above that one might find in a dorm room today for $1,958.17 or less. So a student in 1970 who merely had a portable calculator must have been really well off.</p>
<p>Let’s see, in my dorm room, 1972-1975, I had: my father’s old portable typewriter (which he carried as a war correspondent in WWII), my biochemistry and organic chemistry textbooks ($15 each), along with other less expensive text books, two slide rules, $50 and $90… I couldn’t afford the HP45, then the coolest and greatest scientific calculator, at $495.</p>
<p>ucbalumnus:</p>
<p>I remember buying a basic 4 function calculator for $150 for college. It was a lot of money but a great supplement to my Post slide rule. Once the HP-35 scientific calculators came out for $400 only the ‘rich kids’ in class bought them. That didn’t include me. Finally TI came out with their SR-50 (first) scientific calculator for $250. It hurt but I bought one since it helped greatly with engineering courses.</p>
<p>That $250 calculator was expensive and I treated it very well. I even still have it (I also still have the slide rule)!</p>
<p>I admit I carry my TI-83 with me in my purse, now that I think about it. In part just to spite all the math teachers who insisted I couldn’t use one because “you won’t always have a graphing calculator with you,” but mostly because with my LD the big screen helps me add up my purchases correctly with more reliability when I go shopping. Not sure how much one of those go for anymore, I’ve had the same one for eight years or so now.</p>
<p>It physically hurts me to think how much money would be down the drain if my dorm burnt down. I begged my father to insure my stuff but he refused. I have no doubt I’d be out several thousand dollars. I am a nester, I can’t help it.</p>
<p>Ema–you can insure your own stuff, probably for very little. Call an insurance agent and ask about renter’s insurance.</p>