Hi everyone, I’m trying my shot here.
I’m a foreign student in France in my second year of college, living on my own in a small one room studio.
My rent is 460 euros, the government helps me with 100 (used to be 240 until i lost my job), my electric bill usually gets to around 20-30 euros a month and I have a 14 euro phone plan that provides me with 80 gigs of data a month. I also pay for health insurance and home insurance.
This is my third year abroad and every job I could find was under a short term contract (CDD), I worked in a burger king, a hotel, a supermarket and I tutor kids in my country during the summer. When I’m not working my parents who are lower middleclass in my home country they can send me around 600-700 euros a month at a time, which is a bit more than half of both their salary incomes, of which 60-70 percent goes to rent and bills.
Last year I failed my first semester because I was out of food every two weeks and had to figure out ways to make any quick money I can, I sold some stuff, I rented my place on airbnb and sometimes had to spend the nights outside for a 20 euros a night from airbnb. The second semester I decided to work full time to save for the next school year, but at around march with the lockdown, the hotel I was working in closed its doors and I was stuck. I screwed up that whole year and couldn’t go back to the cursus I was studying which was math-physics prep for an engineering school, because it was very selective in the first place and they dont allow you to retake the classes so now I am doing a major in math (licence) which I am able to get ahold of as I got a 14/20 grade average this year’s first semester so this semester I only need a 06/20, I’ve always been a good student, I have two baccalaureates from two different countries one in math-physics and one in social economics. School is not hard for me but..
Around two months ago, my phone which I used as a mobile hotspot for my laptop broke, I couldnt afford the 189 euros to fix it for a while so I had to use a public wifi that i could access from a certain corner of the room, a week later, my laptop stopped working after a week and a half with no internet or electronics and so no access to school or even the ability to contact my family, i was able to get my phone fixed and tried to study for upcoming tests only with my phone, to fix my laptop I need around 85 euros.
Since december the only food I’ve been eating comes from weekly volunteer food distributions, I only contact my parents for money when rent is due otherwise I try to figure out how to pay other bills.
I have exams coming up in april and in may and I know that if I don’t have to worry about my bills and my inflated rent, all the time I can make it this year.
I hate living like this, I have a lot of ambitions and a legit thirst for studying and learning, I even enjoy doing math and I appreciate what I study on a deeply philosophical and personal level. I hate that my social life is in shambles because figuring out how to pay my next bill cannot leave my thoughts and no one is able to relate to my problems, I feel like I got to a state where the less money I have the more expensive it is just to be allowed to live.
I really just wanna fix my laptop but anything can help.
If you wanna help, there is a link to my paypal. Thank you all for reading.
Paypal.me/rtluper