The blog The New Service has some sage advice for any corps member or prospective corps member suffering from anxiety in this unstable economic climate. The website also lays out some useful links. My favorite suggestion they provide:

5. Live simply. Here are some of the biggies: live with roommates; borrow books and movies from the library; ride a bike whenever possible — going car free saves a lot of money; cook at home and have friends over for pot-luck dinners; forgo internet access and cable television at home; shop at thrift stores and swap clothes with friends; cut down on expensive drinks like beer; reuse, reduce, recycle.

The New Service doesn’t sugarcoat when talking to future corps members, but interested parties should pay attention to the advice:

If you haven’t yet joined a corps, have confidence that hundreds of thousands of people have participated in service corps and made it financially.

That said, do take a hard look at the numbers and make sure you can afford to live on a stipend. Take into consideration student loans (qualified loans can be deferred or put into forbearance during the term), child care expenses, rent/mortgage payments, car payments, etc. Service Corps programs, local nonprofits and government agencies may be able to offer help with certain expenses, so be sure to ask. It’s not impossible to thrive on the stipend, but a term of service isn’t worth ruining your credit history or incurring deep debt.

Visit The New Service for the entire post.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 7th, 2008 at 1:46 pm and is filed under Opinion and Analysis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.