Secrets of the MTA

In New York, transfers from local bus-to-subway, local bus-to-local bus, and subway-to local bus are free within two hours.

The most useful transfer, from subway-to-subway, isn't free, except with two exceptions:

1) Between the 4/5/6/N/R/W at 59th+Lexington and the F at 63rd+Lexington in Manhattan

2) Between the 7 at 45th Rd-Court House Sq and the E/V at 23rd St-Ely Ave and the G at LIC/Court Sq in Queens.

This Poor College Student has used both!

Poor College Student Defies Tradition

In my family/culture, if you are offered money by a relative, the correct response is not to say "thank you" but "no thank you" and refuse the gift. If you accept the money, you have failed. If you manage to avoid taking the cash, you have won.

Strange right?

I went home last weekend with $19 left in my bank account.

When my grandmother tried to offer my some cash as an early christmas present, I tried the usual tactics:

"No thanks, I have plenty of money already."

"It's ok, you don't have to give me a christmas present this year."

"I already bought myself something earlier this month."

"Why don't you give this to me on actual christmas day?"

"Let's make a compromise, I'll take half now, and half on christmas day."

I didn't try hard enough. I failed. My brother made fun of me. But my bank account has more than $19 now!

Survivor?

Poor college student has $10 to use between Sunday night til Tuesday night. Normally, this wouldn't be the worst problem in the world. Eat bagels, and use the generous charity of friends. However, birthdays completely destroy this plan.

Will poor college student make it? She already promised her friend a half-priced bottle of wine that will be split between 3 people tonight. She has to make lemon bars and cake for a birthday present, but has no lemons nor powdered sugar. She has to eat. She has to take the subway before Tuesday night.

Cast your vote, and let us know if you think this poor college student will defy the above odds, and be the penultimate PCS, or will fall flat and have to beg mommy and daddy for an advance sooner than Tuesday night....or worse, use her credit card (which she seldom ever uses).

Jackpot

Today, I bought a pack of Combos from the vending machine. As I reached in to claim my purchase, I noticed a pack of two beef sticks laying there, probably left there by accident by a previous customer.



Beef sticks became the appetizers to my Combos.
A poor college student's got to eat, right?

Guess which one Poor College Student bought?

This Marc by Marc Jacobs shirt retails for $188.00

This Uniqlo shirt retails for $19.99

what a nice surprise

I logged on to citibank online because I had to print out a credit card statement in order to receive a reimbursement for a purchase I made a few weeks ago. I knew my account was dwindling because the last time I saw my balance, when I withdrew cash from the ATM I had at least $100... so I expected a hundred-something dollars. Instead, I saw this....





Thoughts running through my head were:
1. Huh?

2. I'm looking at the wrong account

3. Wait, WHAT?

4. Somebody stole my credit card!/I forgot to hit "done" after withdrawing cash and somebody withdrew cash from my account!

Credit card was still in my wallet.
Upon checking account details...

5. Ohhh..... .. . . . . . . . . ok...

Let's split a cab. It'll be cheaper. NOT.

When they raised the subway fare from $2.00 to $2.25 in June, splitting a cab became a slightly better deal.

Starting today, the base cab fare increased from $2.50 to $3.00. NOT OK.

At the rate this is going, Poor College Student soon may not be able to afford the subway nor the cab and will start walking everywhere. At least that will save on gym memberships.

Check it out: http://ny1.com/1-all-boroughs-news-content/top_stories/108143/taxi-fares-to-increase-this-sunday

Tough Choices

Poor college student sometimes has to make some really tough decisions.

Every few months, I get so broke that I have to choose between eating or buying my birth control pills. Just a few days ago, I had to make that decision.

Can you tell me what a poor college student would choose?

Yeah, I did choose that. But let's be real. A baby would make a poor college student even poorer.

Poor College Student has no money or time to buy a between-class snack.

I wanted to get a snack in between classes from the vending machine because I was hungry.

But I only happen to have about twenty cents in my wallet- a dime and a bunch of pennies. I have a debit card, but even if I get cash out from the nearest ATM near me, I will only get twenty dollar bills.

Vending machines do not accept twenty dollar bills.

The cafe where this ATM is located where I could have used cash is probably closed by now, so I have nowhere nearby to use these bills.
I don't have enough time to go somewhere to break my theoretical twenties.


I guess I'm just going to stay hungry until class is over.

Because we haven't posted in ages / semi-useful procrastination

For all those poor college students thinking of putting Google's AdSense onto their blogs - watch out, it could backfire on you one day:

http://techdirt.com/articles/20091008/1927006467.shtml