In other news... work, heh. Dean tells me today that because of the budget cuts in the state gov't, student assistants can only work 12-15 hours a week they say. That means $310.20 GROSS every two weeks, I think I usually get 80% of that, so that's $250 NET... or $500 a month max. So we subtract out my car payment of $171 and that leaves $329. If we multiple that by 4 months between now and mid-May, that equals a mere $1316. Now, if I register for 12 credits... at $83.33/credit... that's $1000 even BEFORE buying any books for the likely 4 classes that would be, and I would need $333.33 when I register (tomorrow? heh.), $333.33 on February 18th, and $333.33 on March 18th. Now wait, that means for the next 2 months, I need more money than I'll get paid *just* to pay for classes... not counting gas, food, or anything else, let alone books. At a *minimum* just going to work and home, I drive about 1200 miles a month (working 5 days a week, ideally full days, etc)... but since I can only work 15 hours, why would I go in each day for 3 hours when I can do one seven hour day and one 8 hour day and have a five day weekend? Hey, an upside to things! At 30mpg (which I don't think I get) and only two days of work, that's only 120 miles, or 4 gallons, which at current gas prices is $5/month. Assuming one evening class each of 4 nights a week like last semester, that's $37/month for going to class. So at this point... $333 + $5 + $37 = $375 = $-46 + no books + no money for *anything* else. Houston, we have a problem.
So now we backtrack. If only take 1 class, I keep my job, but loans become due, and no one is sure if I get kicked off the insurance or not. But for the sake of argument, we'll say it works. That means a one time class fee of $250... I can do that, right now/tomorrow in fact as I got paid today. Cool, class done and paid for in one fell swoop, I still have income, ideally insurance too, but loans... loans, hmm. Mom tells me even if I do have to pay them, they're only like $50 a month and once I'm fulltime again, I can put them on hold again. So that means $329 - $5 - $37 - $50 = $237/month left... hey look, that's enough for one or two books depending on the class. And even if the loan payment is double or even quadruple $50, I still have free cash each month, which probably means paying mom and dad insurance money and $100 a month for other loans. But on the good side of this... I can go to class on one of my three free weekdays, and still have a 4 day weekend.
The problem... the whole situation sucks no matter if it has upsides by giving me copious amounts of free time. Why? Because I'm getting nowhere educationally, and I'm getting nowhere financially. And [insert deity] knows I don't need to stagnate more. So now I'm being forced from overly busy last semester to overly not busy this semester. Maybe it's time for Rick to look for a new job as well, feh.