Cabin fever!

Monkey61

Hi,

Not sure if this is a personal issue, but here goes anyway...feel free to move it to a more appropriate forum.

Myself and my girlfriend have been living in a new city (which we hate) for the past six months. We are both doing MA courses. I am working part time and she has just given up her job due to college commitments. We live in a very expensive city and on a relative scale, the rent costs twice as much and my job pays half the amount that it would in Dublin. Thus, we are absolutely broke and struggling as it is just to pay for rent, food and transport.

At first, living with absolutely no disposable income was an amusing challenge, but by now the novelty has worn off and we are thoroughly bored of our situation. The main problem being that we can't afford to do anything in our free time. We are sharing a very small house with a few other people, so we don't have much space to ourselves and end up spending a lot of time in our room.

We have both met lots of new people through college and work, but as they are all into drinking etc, we literally can't afford to hang out with them. The price of one drink equals one quarter of our weekly food budget.

It's getting depressing and we just don't know what to do to entertain ourselves. We are both huge readers and film watchers so spend a lot of time doing this. Also we live in a rough, not to mention unattractive area, so there's not much opportunity for nice walks.

Sorry for all the complaining, but we are just feeling so fed up. Made worse by the fact that due to long term career plans we are stuck here for the next three years!

What do we do?

SarahSassy

Do you have no opportunity to transfer? 4 years seems an awful long time to be so unhappy. Can you work somewhere else during the holidays and build up some funds so you are not so broke next year?

JuliusCaesar

SarahSassy wrote: »

4 years seems an awful long time

Aren't most Masters TWO years?

Anyway. You are not alone. There must be others in the same boat. Can't the Students Union give advise? Can you get a loan? Can yyou work your asses off in summer or give tutorials? I'm of the had-to-pay-fees generation and was a student till 30 so I feel for you!

Placebo

LOAN
GRANT

divx player = movies
cinema, coffee, walks.
Video games.

masters are one year.
phd is 3
degree is more likley 4

jdivision

Placebo wrote: »

LOAN

+1

jdivision

JuliusCaesar wrote: »

Aren't most Masters TWO years?

He said career wise not education wise

paulksnn

Placebo wrote: »

LOAN
GRANT

+1

There really is no point to life if you can't enjoy it at least some of the time. What about a loan from family/friends that can be paid back when ye finish the courses.

syklops

Why did your gf quit her job if both of you are doing a masters? Surely there is a relatively similar amount of work to be down in each, so why should you work and study, and she just study? If she got another job your income could even double.

If she quit for other reasons, then a loan or a grant is the way to go.

tbh

devils advocate: don't go down the road of getting credit. You'll have more money initially but you'll obviously have to pay it back, and unless you can defer payments for three years you'll be on less per week than you are now. What you are doing is great and will be brilliant in the long run, but this is where you pay your dues, so to speak. I know it's trite, but three years will go by quickly and if you learn good financial discipline now, you'll be even better off.

On a practical side tho, you do need to increase your income and I'd look at ways to do that. Even something part time would be good- maybe grinds or something, where you could do a couple of hours here and there. If the price of a pint is a quarter of your food budget, you could double that budget very easily if you even did one hour a week.

I'm not saying your life will be crap if you do borrow money, and i certainly wouldn't think any less of you if you did, I think if you can stick it out it'll do so much for you - teach you discipline, really strengthen your bond with your g/f and increasing your long term prospects. Respect to you both either way tho.

sunnyjim

I feel for ya OP, I'm only an undergrad and being broke is killing me.

As for this

masters are one year.
phd is 3

If you're doing science you can double those two figures, so OP might be in for along ould time scimping and saving.

If you're doing a MA, I'd defo get credit/loan. You'll be earning more in the future to be able to pay back.