31–40 of 55 posts
This reminds me of an experiment I did in college to see how small of a food budget I could go on while still maintaining three healthy (and delicious) meals per day. I think I got it down to under $2/meal with a carb, protein, and veggie/fruit component to each meal. Pretty amazing when you factor in that I did ~50% of my shopping at Whole Foods. (they have quite competitive prices when it comes to frozen veggies an…
Most undergrads imagine they'll effortlessly pay off their loans when they start getting paid the big bucks; they're living in a state of denial, disregarding the implications of a tough job market and how many extra years of work their spending sprees have sentenced them to. But "facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored," as Aldous Huxley famously said. No, they don't. The facts are that your prospects a…
Mathematically speaking, the sum of the amount of money he will have left after x years is greater if he has no loans, which have interest attached to them.
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You're being downvoted, but I think you bring up an interesting contrarian position that I'm surprised so many here disagree with. Couldn't he be working on a startup, instead of living off rice in an ant-filled van?
> instead of living off rice in an ant-filled van Uh, I think you mean "instead of going to graduate school."
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> Couldn't he be working on a startup, instead of living off rice in an ant-filled van? Why does "working on a startup" equate with "making the world a better place?"
Since the only way to make money is to provide something people want, if you are doing something that provides you with money, you are making your customers' world a better place, at least they must think so.
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I promise to take care of toxic waste for some large manufacturing corporations. I take their money and 'dispose' of the waste. What if I dispose of the waste into waterways (lakes, rivers,etc)? My customers are happy because the waste is taken off of their hands. If anyone ever finds out about the dumping, they can claim to no know anything (and they may well not know anything) and *I'm* the one that takes the fall,…
So how does one make the world a better place? Most methods I can think of cost a lot of money.
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Plenty of people go to grad school on limited means and still manage to live in a heated, watered apartment. IMHO this whole exercise seems more like an attempt to escape consumerism (in whatever way the author has defined it), more than it is about being able to afford education.
The author is 100% clear that the exercise is an attempt to escape debt. He's got plenty of options if he just wants to afford an education.
Most undergrads imagine they'll effortlessly pay off their loans when they start getting paid the big bucks; they're living in a state of denial, disregarding the implications of a tough job market and how many extra years of work their spending sprees have sentenced them to. But "facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored," as Aldous Huxley famously said. No, they don't. The facts are that your prospects a…
Avoiding debt is just as sensible as saving money; in a way it's the exact same thing. It's a slight pain now for a massive gain later. As for a house, whatever happened to getting the money BEFORE you buy it? It's a perfectly valid choice.
I was talking to a mate while working on his property ~ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/sets/72157621928042355... and the talk moved around to some friends we'd gone to school with. One in particular, "R" went to medical school, expensive anywhere. He mentioned the lecturer asked "R" one day why he wasn't writing anything down and found out he couldn't afford a pen. Now "R" saved for all the required medical books, clothed & fed himself but had nothing left for things like pens & paper. It didn't stop him from becoming a surgeon and rotating as an Army surgeon through the ADF.
"... To me, the van was what Kon-Tiki was to Heyerdahl, what the GMC van was to the A-Team, what Walden was to Thoreau. It was an adventure. ..."
"Kon-Tiki" ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kon-Tiki is a papyrus boat sailed from Morocco to Barbados by Heyerdahl as shown the film, "The Ra Expedition" ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThorHeyerdahl#TheBoatsRaandRaII
If anyone is interested in a CS student counterpart to this guy, follow the link below: