Your Questions About Managing Money Tips College Students

I want to study abroad but… ?

Okay, I want to study abroad and I always have since junior high. I am now 21 years old and finishing my last year in community college. I plan to transfer either fall or winter quarter of next school year. I have my own apartment, two dogs, two jobs – one pays really well, and a fiance – getting married after I get my BA, a car – with a loan, credit cards. So with all these responsibilities, how can I manage to study abroad? I plan to pay off my credit cards within a year, so that is taken care of. But what about my car loan, or my cell phone? Do I just save up money to pay for the months I will be gone? Where would all my furniture and stuff go… should I put it all in storage? I could maybe have my mom take care of my dogs. Now, when I come back, I wouldn’t have a job, a place, or anything… My first job is nanny, so they wouldn’t wait three months for me because I work about 40 hours. I don’t know what to do, but I would probably do it the fall quarter of my senior year. Please give me tips, I feel like study abroad is only for students who still have a room at their parents house, and really don’t have responsibilities.

Republicans: Will you make me your poster boy for the lazy, dope smoking, welfare collecting Liberal?

Allow me to confess my sins.

I went to school on the Basic Educational Opportunity Grant Program. I sold pot on the side for fun money. They paid my tuition and I stayed in school studying Philosophy and Anthropology until the money ran out but I did earn two degrees.

I got drafted into the Army and then shot myself in the foot to get out and not be sent to Vietnam. I told them that it was an accident but they didn’t believe me. So I got a lawyer and sued them. Now I get a partial disability check from the VA.

My dad died and left me his 36 foot sailboat. I used it to smuggle pot onto the Gulf Coast but got caught and went to Federal Prison for 36 months.

The DEA confiscated the boat but I had my girl friend buy the boat back at auction with money was had stashed from the drug running.

While in prison I learned computer graphics on the government nickel.

After they let me out they sent me to Vocational Rehab and I got more training in graphic arts.

Then I started a business making fake ID cards for LSU students so they could get into bars and such. Then later I made fake Green Cards for Mexicans.

I never reported any of this income, always being paid in cash.

I am also a pretty decent guitar player and knocked around South Florida and the Bahamas for years, living on the boat, playing in the bars for tips and hooking up tourists with the local Bahamian boys so they could get some smoke while on vacation. I never sold it myself. Learned my lesson and paid my debt to society. The boys just tipped me for my trouble.

Things continued on like this until last year when I turned 62. I never had a legitimate tax paying job in my life but got a letter in the mail from the Social Security Administration. I thought it was a mistake but it turned out that while I was in the joint, they were cutting taxes on the money they gave me to work in the prison printing shop. I had just enough quarters in to qualify for Social Security so I get a check each month.

I have since redone the old boat, The Chong, and give some sailing lessons for tourists down here in Cape Coral, Florida.

Somewhere in there I managed to go back to school and finish my MA in Philosophy. My girl friend was a dance major in college and she would dance at the topless clubs a few nights a week and paid my tuition to the Univsersity of Miami for my Masters.

Recently I was offered a job at the State Prison teaching Philosophy to the inmates as part of a Federal/State college program. They are looking for someone with my credentials. My Masters Thesis was On Situational Ethics In Modern Society. The salary isn’t bad but I don’t know. It would require me to drive a long way three days a week and it will interfere with my fishing. And maybe I’n not really the right guy for the job.

Do I meet your expectations?

Your thoughts and opinions on this conversation from my book?

I would like your thoughts on this scene, how is the dialogue? can you get a feel for it? where do you think it’s going?…The characters looks and the setting are already established by this point so ive not gone onto too much detail with that, the main focus is on the conversation. its just the first draft.

- The late afternoon sun bore down on Matt as he headed over to the Tavern; He had spent most of the day in bed nursing his hangover from last night’s drinking antics with Shaun. Shaun had dragged himself to basketball training earlier on as his season was to start next week.
Matt lifted his shades from his eyes as he walked into the Tavern only to be met by a look from Hannah that could cut through glass as she walked out the Tavern. He walked straight past without saying a word to her and headed straight to the bar.
There were students scattered around the Tavern but it wasn’t too busy, however the stage to the far left was getting set up for another open mic night later on.
Amy greeted him as he sat at the bar with his head buried in his hands; he heard her voice over the chatter of other students standing at the bar, “Heavy night again?”
Matt slowly lifted his head to greet her caring hazel eyes, “Me and Shaun decided to play drinking games with a full bottle of bourbon.”
She chuckled as she handed him a glass of orange juice, “So who won?”
“Well I’m here feeling like sh*t, and Shaun’s managed to go to basketball training. So I guess he did.”
Her tender hand reached out onto his arm, “Don’t let him hear you say that. You won’t hear the end of it.”
Matt agreed with her as he rubbed his eyes a little before looking out towards the door, “So looks like Hannah’s starting to make friends then. I saw her with that guy as she walked out.”
“Oi leave her alone.”
Matt sat up straight as he gulped down his orange juice, “Me? Mate, she was the one that bit my head off yesterday. I didn’t even say anything to her!”
Amy shook her head as she walked round to this side of the bar to sit next to Matt, “I heard. She told me. But you need to really lay off her; she is really going through a tough time. You need to stop bullying her.”
Matt laughed off Amy’s accusations, “Will stop with this bullying sh*t, I’m just taking the piss, you saw how she was with me before she came here. Now all of a sudden you’re making her out to be a victim.”
Amy shook her head, gripping onto his arm tighter, “I’m being serious, leave her alone!”
“Why? Other than her being a bit*h to me, what has she been through that I need to be sympathetic towards her about?”
Amy pressed her thin lips together, thinking carefully before she looked Matt square in the eyes making sure she had his full attention, “She lost everything. They kicked her out from the other side, she had to come here. She has no money, no friends, no family, she is absolutely broke. As cheap as the college is making it for her, she doesn’t know how she’s going to pay her fees. She hardly has any money for food; I’m feeding her at the moment. This girl had everything she has ever wanted at her finger tips all her life, now she has nothing. She is alone and she’s scared! Imagine how that feels.”
Matt broke eye contact with her and ran his fingers through his hair as Amy’s words sank in, he looked a little distant, “Yeah that is f*ck*d up.”
He did know how that felt. In fact he knew all too well how it felt. He stopped himself from drifting back to a flashback from back in England by grabbing his empty glass and asking Amy for another drink.

My husband and I never see each other?

My husband is a cook for 2 restraunts in town, so this means that he works 6 nights a week (2pm-1am usually). I am in college, have class at 8am, and work until 5pm. I eat all of my dinners alone or with other people (mostly alone since it’s hard to manage dinner parties/eating out on a student schedule/budget). There is a lot of stress between us and we don’t even try to make time for each other any more.

The stress between us is very heavy…I dislike his family (mother bad with money, father alcoholic & on drugs-much different than my family)…we have entirely different groups of friends…he has student loans and I have no debt…and I’m no saint either (I take trips with my friends and don’t invite him – male and female trips, but never outside romance, I have artistic endeavors that take a lot of time in the studio which cuts into our time together, ok I could go on and on in this section).

Any tips on dealing with issues in a 2-year marriage?