I live in the south everyone has guns.

neither me nor anyone in my family owns a gun. a lot of my friends don't have guns either.

oh i thought you were talking about the south in general not your little area of the south.

http://www.cracked.com/article_17016_p2.html

Gotta love the Ragnar Benson collection.  Fuck any nation that won't let you own any firearm.  Might as well live in China... and have your testicles removed.

To be honest I'm in the lower classes and I think I'm doing fine.

I work the equivalent of a shitty retail job but with the added benefit of being at the very top of the pecking order, the only way I'd lose my job is if I majorly fuck up or the store closes and neither are in danger of happening.

I don't drink or do drugs whatsoever so that's one huge cost cut

I don't own a car and I don't intend on buying one, the city transit takes me everywhere I want to go at an extremely affordable cost so car/insurance/gas bills are gone.

I eat shitty(but delicious) food and exercise to keep myself from getting too fat, I live in a dumpy (yet homey) apartment that I'm content with, and I don't care about clothing whatsoever - whatever fits.

My computer might've been a 2500 dollar bill but it was paid for up front as I never deal in credit, and as for entertainment - video games, movies, television, music, porn, anything like that - I just pirate it. Internet's also dirt cheap.

I don't make much, but I also don't spend much, and I'm perfectly content with my life.  I probably live on less than 10k a year and I'm really lovin' it.  Perhaps the key isn't MAKING MORE MORE MORE but wanting less?  I just don't see the appeal of HUGE STATUS SYMBOLS like big houses/fast cars/flashy clothing.  The only thing I insist on is quality entertainment and being a member of the internet generation everything is incredibly easy to get.

Not really directly about the recession, but does anyone know any decent way of trying to get consolidation or some sort of assistance for paying off private student loans?  I'm at the point where I am selling plasma twice every week to pay for food and still not sure what I am doing for next month's rent until I get a new job but the bank that did my non-federal student loans that I needed is still demanding like $300 a month that I have no way of paying at the moment.

I'm in a somewhat similar situation.  Granted I do have a job (transitional) and I'm not selling plasma every week, my private loan expects me to pay around 270$ that I cannot possibly pay right now. Ask your loan slavers place if they do partial pay forbearance, or even a regular forbearance would help you in your situation. You have to pay a 50$ fee to do either, but it's better than defaulting. Looking back on things, I really wish I didn't attend the college I attended. The only thing that garbage college left me with is a crippling debt.

A regular forbearance will allow you to delay payments 6 months at a time, while a partial pay will allow you to spread out a month of payment to three smaller installments over three months.

or being able to put funds away if you get hurt/sick/somechick pregnant

ahaha you're just basically saying GUYS IM LIVING, OK??? RIGHT, THERE IS NOTHING WRONG!!!

I can't really argue the sick part but I seem to do good with just general sicknesses, though if a cancer or something rolled along I'd be up shit creek yeah.

Injury isn't an issue as I really only leave the house when it's absolutely necessary and am extremely careful to the point of paranoia when I'm outside.  I'm also not the type to slip and break my neck in the shower or anything.  Overall i'm pretty accident-proof.

I'm not concerned with pregnancy as I am the somechick and if by some unlikely circumstance I got pregnant I'd just have a friend punch me in the stomache 50 or so times.  I don't even see this happening anyway, I haven't had sex with a guy in over three and a half years and if it was a rape I'd have no problems not carrying to term.

As for SAVINGS and THE FUTURE I'm still able to sock away a couplea bucks every once in a while.  If I'm under budget for a month I don't think "well I can just spend more next month!!!" I've pretty much gotten into the habit of tightening my belt for the sole sake of tightening my belt.