If there's one thing I'll never understand, it's money. In my time here at BU, I've met a whole wide range of people in various financial situations, although most of them are pretty well off. One of my friends stayed in Boston this past summer and had 3 jobs so that she could make enough money to pay for the Fall '13 semester without her parent's help. Another friend, one who I've been planning on getting an apartment with (for next year and with a whole bunch of other people) told my best friend and I that money wouldn't be an issue for him so he's fine living wherever. This actually leads me to what I really want to talk about and that's how fucking stressful it is to discuss sharing an apartment with a group of people and to find an apartment that everyone can afford.
It's really difficult to explain to a person how my mom wouldn't be able to help me very much financially if I were unable to pay rent one month. It's just my mom and I and she didn't really choose a career path that would have her making more than $100,000 a year--in fact she's actually unemployed right now so I'm making more a week with my work study job than she has in the past few months. More than a few months, actually. The time for signing leases is upon us and we've yet to find an apartment or make any big decisions in general. Two of my friends have shared links to apartments that they'd find suitable but both were over $3500/month and I definitely can't afford that, even splitting between 5 people (technically 4 because two of them are studying abroad opposite semesters). I've expressed my concerns and anxiety to them already and all of them have told me to calm down and relax, everything will work out, but it would honestly be easier to stay in on-campus housing than it would to work this all out and figure out how I'm going to pay $800+ every single month with a job that pays me $8/hour.
I don't know, I feel like I'm thinking in circles and all of this is creating so much stress. Of course I'd love to live in an off-campus apartment with all my friends but not if I can't afford it, which I most likely can't and none of them seem to understand that?
