Education is underfunded. Absolutely. And I know life is hard for you right now — trust me, I’ve done it. But stop expecting the world to just work out. If you have time and money for TV/movies, you’re already better off than many. Are you donating to them?

Brian – Maybe, instead of buying something you don’t really need tonight, you should put some money in your kid’s college trust or something. I mean, WTF do I know, right?

By the way, how much does it cost to host this site, and to pay for your domain name? Does this site even break even? If it doesn’t, should someone who has $33 savings and who works as a pizza delivery driver have his own domain name and website?

Since I had no handouts from the parents or the feds due to being white, parent’s income (need to be over 25 for it not to count against you for gov. loans), and my GPA not being high enough, I footed the entire school bill while being full time college for 4 and half years.
-2 years of part time jobs while living at home with community college
- 1 year with a full time job, Towson U. full time, and moving out to live by myself halfway through.
-1 year of unemployment living on a sparse income from the state while still living alone due to my rental contract
- a half year of another full time job….all with full time schooling.

I did graduate debt free, with a full time job, and school fully paid. This was only after lots and lots of discipline, hard work, and tight money management.

Most people don’t know how to live within their means. They see everyone else having all these great things, but underneath, they don’t see the massive amounts of debt these people are trying to keep their selves afloat from bankruptcy to maintain this image. Money management starts NOW to get in your best habits.

Make a list of all your monthly expenses. Figure which ones are required to live, and which are optional. Start eliminating the optionals, comb through the required, minimize them as much as possible, and live on that. Using a money management program with at least 3 months of expense and income data like MS Money or Quicken will put you in a QUICK perspective visually on how much damage you are doing to your income and help you map out a budget plan and where to go next (i.e work more, ask for a raise, etc).

Its balls to the wall times like these that have the most impact for your future and can only be overcome through sheer hard work and discipline.

What most bothers me, is how you first attack me for expecting “the internet” to “give me money”, then brag about how successful you are at getting “the internet” to “give you money.”

As anyone who bothered to read my post knows, the debts I was asking for help with were incurred while I was working full time and going to school full time. Unlike Karyn B., I wasn’t out stocking my closets with Prada shoes. I wonder, if you’d been in my shoes last year, what you would’ve done differently. Skipped class to work a third job? Skipped sleeping? Taken up armed robbery? Maybe I could’ve sold drugs, pimped whores, or sued the woman who fender-bendered me.

Cheese, you readily admit to profiting from asking “the internet” for “stuff”, and got a hissy fit over someone else asking “the internet” for “stuff.” And while you make a big deal over how your post was a “joke”, the fact of the matter is, your post opens “Since it actually netted me something last year, and since this is the holiday season, I am once again allowing the tens and tens of people who read this blog to show their love for me by buying me crap.” That post wasn’t a joke, you knew people would buy you shit because they bought you shit the previous year.

You’re right, I do think you’re a hipocrite, I think the evidence supports that, and I think that first paragraph of your post is about you as much as it might be about me.