I'm fadedsunrise, 23, and a second year law student who has recently become incredibly sick of her own financial stupidity and entitled habits. I've been lurking around the MMM forums without registering, but have decided to bite the bullet today. Let me try to condense my story down into an organized short form:
Family/Living Situation
I live at home with my parents and commute 2.5 hrs daily, round trip, by train/car to law school and part time job. While I've read the costs of commuting article and agree with its sentiments, I couldn't justify taking out more loans to live closer to school when my parents so graciously offered to house me rent/expenses free. I do study incredibly well on the train, since I've always preferred white noise to libraries, and can blow through 40-50 pages of reading on my commute per day.
I'd take a bus to the train station instead of drive, but the buses in my area run so slowly that it might add another hour easily to my commute.
Income...or what little of it there is
Currently I make about 700-800 a month at $15 an hour working as a law clerk for a small firm. When there is a break (such as Presidents Day) I always increase my hours, to try to earn as much as possible to offset what my parents are providing. This is sadly both exhausting and not much money, since the days I work I also go to my one constant hobby (taekwondo). With work, taekwondo, and commuting, my day is 12-14 hrs 3x a week.
I have about 10k between a checking and savings account, from odd periods throughout childhood when I tutored for min. wage and didn't spend any of it.
In law school, one usually works full time during the summers. This summer I will probably stay at this firm but do one of two things during the nights: (1) pick up a research assistant job for 10-12 hrs that I can do remotely, which is $13/hour, (2) take community college course in coding, so that I could contribute to my dad's business as a way of indirectly paying living expenses, or so that I could think about a side photography business down the line.
Major Income Drains...of which there is too many
The first major income drain is the loans for school! If I could go back and facepunch 18 year old faded, I would tell her to have taken that offer to UCSD for mechanical engineering...but that is water under the bridge at this point. I will have 62.5k in federal stafford loans at the end of law school (1 year at 6.8%, this year at 5.41% after that new bill). I have 30k in scholarship from the school, and the rest of the tuition so far is an interest free loan from another relative. (I'm not sure whether I should be incredibly grateful for generous family or bemoan my ability to not let them talk me into taking these things).
For personal spending, I know I need to cut way down on coffee and eating out. However, this is really hard for me as a commuter student. I would love to host dinner parties at my own apartment, but I don't rent near the school, and many of my friends don't have cars to drive down to my city even if my parents would be willing for me to host. I would love to go to THEIR dinner parties, but they are often late nights when the trains run something like every hour. I also go to a private school, where many students don't have loans at all, so I am already a social outcast for mostly bringing my lunch and slinging 2-3 bags of books and taekwondo gear from the train. I would estimate I spend ~$200 a month on coffee/eating out, and this site really makes me feel like it should be less than $50, if that. The last time I drank was a $6 glass of wine at a networking event last month.
A few years ago food was even MORE of a money drain, as I binge ate due to depression and low self esteem (hated being 6' tall, wasn't a top student). Thankfully, this is under control, so I sometimes remind myself of it as a "hey, this could be much worse!"
The last big drain is probably clothes. I haven't bought clothes since I stopped growing, but there was about a year, 3 years ago, where I grew half a foot and basically outgrew my entire wardrobe. I hadn't known of any cheap sources of clothes for women with 35 inch inseams and similarly long arms, so most things I bought then/occasionally buy now are at full retail price, or the men's style. Because of this, I've also slipped up sometimes when I'm at the mall and shouldn't be, and actually find something in my size then immediately buy it.
The last is not a money drain, but more educational. Despite my parents/extended family being generous, they have never taught me the first thing about personal finance. If I say I read x article and ask a question, they'll answer it briefly, but otherwise they say their philosophy from being immigrant parents is to provide for my needs. In response, I simply tried to want as little as possible, but this hasn't actually given me a plan and instead I sporadically wild spend while being in debt.
TL;DR; I can't wait to graduate and have an income, pay off my loans, and actually have the ability to put more of MMM into practice. I have no one but myself to blame for not practicing personal finance wisely during college, so feel free to facepunch/roundhouse kick me as hard as you all like!