Rich Student, Poor Student

Last week, I paid my first-quarter MBA fees and almost choked when I hit 'submit' on the payment website. So MUCH money! I was once again a pay-check to pay-check poor student!

Well, perhaps not that poor, since I'm earning substantially more than my graduate assistant paycheck. That was one of my reasons for not opting for a full-time MBA. I already went through the extremely-poor-student phase at the University of Maryland (Go Terps!), and while I had a good time there, I'd rather not have to repeat that experience. I wanted to be a 'rich' grad student this time round!

Looking back, life was kinda tough then.
- Four girls shared a 2-bed, 1-bath apartment. The 2-bedroom part was manageable, the 1-bath part was a nightmare. Many an argument took place over time spent on showers.
- As if sharing the bathroom wasn't bad enough, one time, after a particularly violent snowstorm, we had to share my BED (to sit and study on) because that was the only spot in the house that was catching a wireless signal. I didn't have a car to drive out to a coffee shop as I would do now.
- Our only other furniture was a ragged couch that was handed down from earlier student generations.
- I survived on Taco Bell's 99c bean burritos for lunch and badly cooked frozen vegetables for dinner.
- We didn't own a TV set. Yep, two years without television. Dinner time was spent discussing our classes and job application status.
- I shopped for clothes only twice a year, mostly at Walmart.

Fortunately a FEMBA programs means that even with the fat fees, I can afford a lot of the things that I couldn't back then.  Good food, better apartment, a car, shopping in non-Walmart locations, cable TV, vacations, etc. However, with full-time work, classes and homework, now I don't find the time to enjoy any of that. No time for TV, no time for impromptu road trips or shopping sprees, no time to cook healthy or eat dinner with friends, no time to stop and breathe...

Suddenly, I'm not sure if I got richer or poorer.