I worked the whole time, too-anything I could get paid for that was legal-my uncle’s drywall business as a laborer when I was too young to work in a bar, and as cocktail waitress in a restaurant and club after I came of age. I did live at home for awhile until my baby was old enough to entrust to a private sitter other than my mom-I was determined to be a responsible adult.
In retrospect, I think we made the right choices.
I did not work, but had no loans. My parents never made more than $20,000 per year, could never have afforded to send my brother and I to college. But my grandmother, who worked cleaning houses for a living, bought savings bonds which paid our way through Pitt. I did have loans for law school as did xshub, but we each paid those off promptly. My friend Paula, the doctor, had no loans bc she did the National Health program, worked off her indebtedness for several years in inner-city Philadelphia.