End of week round-up

Yes, I missed last week's round-up. It's alright though, nothing happened the week of Jan 15-21. The fun started on the 25th. There I am, driving down a county highway in my wonderful old car, when a suicidal giant deer hops out in front of me. The car was totaled, the deer is dead, and I have some wonderful bruises adorning my chest and face.

Luckily the insurance companies consider things like this to be "acts of God/nature" so it won't affect my rates in the future. I have no more need of car insurance at the moment, since I don't have a car. To be honest, this won't affect my life that much. The car could not even drive far enough to get me to class. But I liked not having to borrow my parents' car just to get to the post office.

Moral of the story: You never know when life will jump out at you!

Also, the buck had more points than anything my uncle/father/cousins have ever brought down. They are already calling me "the mighty huntress"!

End-of-week round-up

This week has been a really good one for me. The American south was hit with the worst snow, sleet, and ice storms in almost twenty years, and my family mercifully made it through quite safely. Our home never even lost power! We also got two days off school  ^ _^ 

So, I was excited to spend my  SwagBucks on an amazon gift card, but then I thought, isn't this exactly what I'm trying to avoid? I am selling my things not only to make money, but to be less tied to material items. It is so easy for your possessions to possess you! The $5 amazon gift card would have required 450  SwagBucks, but instead I saved the 700  SwagBucks necessary for a $5 paypal deposit. It went straight from digital points from searches and surveys to cold, hard, cash in my bank account. Money for next semester's tuition. That's worth more than mere things. 

Income

$17 (Tutoring, SwagBucks)

Expenses

$0  (We were snowed in!)

Small successes

Today I feel like a money hero. I sold a textbook on my half.com shop for $15.00. And, after only 6 days of using SwagBucks, I earned enough points for a $5 Amazon gift card! Today was really a wonderful, lazy, snowy Sunday. I don't want anyone to think this is a fake site to shill SwagBucks, I'm just in this honeymoon phase, in love with free money. All I had to do was sell an old book I hate, and use a different search toolbar, and I made $20 this week. It's a lot of money for someone with no job! If you are searching for some extra scratch, I recommand looking around your house to see if there's anything you don't need. As a student, I have a stack of textbooks for classes outside my field. I didn't enjoy reading them for the class, I am certainly not going to read them ever again. 

Tip: If it is on a back shelf or in storage, you haven't needed it in a while!

And if you really want something for nothing, give try SwagBucks. You get 30 free points for using the referral link, then earn small amounts of points (5-10) by searching the web with their search engine. Easy-peasy. You can get big points (50-150) by doing occasional surveys too. 

Drastic Measures #1, 2, & 3

Some of these measures are a little more drastic than others, but they are all being tough for me to get started. However, the more I entrench myself in them, the easier it gets.

 1.  Withdrawing from Big University, starting at the smaller uni -
As mentioned in my first post, tuition and fees alone were 7 times higher at Big U in NYC than smaller uni back home. Disappointingly, the education was in no way 7 times more valuable.

2.  Moving in with my family -
You see, smaller uni is 45 miles from home. I consider that a commutable distance since graduate classes are evening, three times a week. The poor 1995 Saturn my sister and I share just isn't capable of highway speeds, so I'm working out ride-sharing with colleagues and convincing my father to drive once a week. You can read plenty of stories these days of young adults who are "failing to launch," but with college expenses outpacing inflation for years, we have no other option. So far (cross fingers) we haven't had any conflicts over who finished the milk, or power struggles to redefine our relationships. It's actually kind of nice. I am so grateful to my parents for gifting me room and board for free. I perform household chores and chauffeur my 14-year-old sister around, but they haven't asked for any monetary contributions, for which I am thankful.

3.  Selling everything! -
 If I can make $1,400 by June 3rd then I will be able to go another semester without taking out student loans. I'm not only selling things to make money, but also to create space in my life. If there is no free space in my room, then my mind feels claustrophobic as well!
If you'd like to look at my sales I'm on ebay as GraduateDebt

Starting over

Today was the first day of classes at my new university. It's a one hour drive, and my father drives the car (trust issues!) so I worked out an interesting tidbit. At the university in NY one hour in the classroom cost $167. At the new university one hour in the classroom costs $24.

In addition I get personalized advisement, professional development, practical instruction, and comps. Alright.