Money

AmberDawn · Feb 15, 2009

Can anyone tell me the average cost of books per semester?

tfleuter, BSN, RN · Feb 15, 2009

Things are tight for my family too. My husband works between 60-70hrs each week to support us. Mon thru friday he comes home at around 7:30am (I'm already gone w/ the kids for school) is usually in bed by 8:30am, wakes up at 4:00pm, has dinner with us and then leaves for work again by 5:30pm. I buy generic whenever possible and have been working on building up a food storage for those "lean weeks" where my grocery budget is less than $50 for a family of 4. I always buy used books on amazon or from other students. I've even resorted to using the school library's copy of a textbook and made photocopies of the chapters I needed to avoid buying the book. I'm always reluctant to take out student loans, but have done so when needed. This year's tax returns will go to daycare for the fall semester where, if I have to put both boys in daycare full time, will cost me close to $1000 a month :uhoh21:. I REALLY hope we can avoid that, but between classes, labs and clinicals, I'm not sure if that will be possible. At least, that is what my advisor is telling me. For this reason alone I've considered putting off NS for another year until my oldest is in kindergarten, but that's one year I could be working and bringing in money, so we are going to make it work whatever way we can :hngon:

travis73 · Feb 17, 2009

Losing my job is the reason I'm switching to nursing. I definitely understand about being on a TIGHT budget. I buy generic whenever I can. Except for toilet paper, I don't scimp in that department. Haha!

I've started shopping at Sam's Club (or Sam's Wholesale) to save money also. But I'm not sure if this is actually saving or not. Whatever I get there last alot longer so it's difficult to observe if it's cheaper

tfleuter, BSN, RN · Feb 17, 2009

Big fan of Sam's club here! There are only certain things there that I buy though. Somethings just seem like a bargain, until you scope it out and find out that you can get for the same price w/out buying in bulk. But other items I only buy there because it works out in the end.

kcochrane · Feb 17, 2009

I work full time as a LPN at night. There is no way my husband could afford the bills himself. I go to school part time and have two semesters left - including this one. I get some tuition assistance from work and supplement the rest with student loans.

flightnurse2b, LPN · Feb 17, 2009

i worked full time as a paramedic while in nursing school. i didn't really have a choice, so i did what i had to do. i got no scholarship, no grant, no tuition assistance.... i just worked my butt off and took out student loans. i graduated with a 4.0.

be frugal. shop at super walmart and buy things you can use all week. i would buy chicken and cook it up on sunday and make differnet meal i could freeze for myself for the week. i also cut coupons alot.

no nails, no hair, no new clothes, no starbucks, no frills... i just scrimped and saved and made it work.

good luck :)