Here’s something that annoys me: The apparent inability of some of us to recognize that, yes, there might just be stituations in which someone can get to the boards, but can’t afford to pay for them. Comments like “Anyone can afford $0.04/day!” and “If you can’t, get a job!”
Let me describe my situation in fine detail. Not my situation as it is now, for it’s improved somewhat, but my situation, say, a year and a half ago.
I was a first-year university student. I’d elected to go to a civilian university, instead of military college, because I didn’t want to be in the army and had some other concerns about that military school. I could only do this because I got a generous scholarship from the civilian school; my parents had virtually no ability to pay for my education, and I was nonetheless unable to get the standard student loans.
I had to my name only the moeny I’d saved up working during high school for minimum wage, and working at my military reserve job. After deducting tuition, books, and rent (which were non-negotiable, really-- I had to budget for them) and projecting my expenses and incomes forward to the end of second year (when a CO-OP program would begin providing income) I had a certain amount of money to last me the for the time I was away at school in first and second year. An amount that I estimated to be just under twenty dollars a week. Canadian. For all my expenses, groceries included.
You try eating on twenty bucks a week. You eat a lot of cheap bread, bananas, and oatmeal. And you time your meals so you go to bed hungry. Better to be starving when you’re alseep and don’t notice it.
Eat less? I was losing weight already.
Sell the computer? I needed it for homework, and I got it free, anyway, because it was a piece of obsolete trash my dad’s workplace was throwing out.
Get a job? I already had one (military reserve). And I couldn’t fit a second one in around my studies.
Cut the ISP? The Phone? They were included in the residence fees.
Move out of residence? Locked in. Moved out after first year; rent in my town was through the roof.
Sell stuff? All my clothes were used, and I didn’t have a car. Heck, I walked an hour and a half to take the bus home for thanksgiving because I couldn’t justify the $1.70 for transit fare. (And my parents bought me the intercity bus ticket, thank you)
But enough whining about poor old me. That’s what I get for pissing away thousands of dollars a year on tuition when I could have got it free for joining the military.
So the SDMB was my one free source of entertainment besides going for walks in the neighborhood. And it was also a refuge for a lonely, frightened young man. The point of this dietribe is that, YES, there ARE situations in which you have to scrape every damn penny. Where you pick up every coin you find on the ground, and ration your bread by how many slices you can eat per day. Where you have to enact a strict discipline on every expenditure, to ensure you don’t nickle-and-dime yourself to starvation with “Oh, it’s only bus fare!”, “Oh, it’s only a grapefruit!”, “Oh, I can afford five dollars for new, used pants”. Where you do your laundry by hand because paying for the machine means cutting your grocery budget in half.
Yeah, most people can afford $4.95. But there are a very few who really can’t. Really. So please, no more generalizations about how everybody can.
If anybody is in such a situation, or if you’re a high school student with no money and no credit card and you can’t ask your parents to pay for it lest they find out what your’e reading on here… or if you’ve got some reaosn you can’t pay… head on up to ATMB. There’s a thread full of people offering to sponsor you. I still don’t have much money, but I figure I can pay for three of you, at five bucks each.
