Am I right in asking for this
 

Brief synops - my family put together a good college fund for me to go the school. I am now going to college working my way to Computer degree. My family pays for my schooling, plus I do qualify for financial aide.

Few years back I asked my Mom for a new computer because I made a failed attempt to return to school. I failed to ever pay her back.

Now, I am VERY serious about returning to school and have been in school for a short while.

I have a very nice computer setup at home, but now I am stuck.

Because of where I work, the computer at work is too limited for me to accomplish any work from school, during slow times. I have an hour and a half travel time on public trans every morning and evening, LOTS of time toi get work done, but my computer is at home.

Now I want to ask for money to purchase a lap-top. I don't need anyting fancy, just about $500.

Does that sound like an adequate reason to ask for a laptop? Should I ask considering I messed up paying her back last time?

What should I do!!!? I have a wedding coming, a baby coming, and we can't afford a lap-top right now.

any ideas????

Sell your computer and buy a laptop.

I agree with gibber. If your setup on the other computer is as nice as I'm imagining it is, you should get a pretty good price on it. Definately more than 500 bucks. And with that extra money, you could either save it for the up coming expenses or beef up your laptop.

Finance your laptop. If you are actually going to pay your mom back, then it getting money from her shouldn't be any different than making payments to the computer company.

I have to agree, sell your home system, and whoever elses uses it will have to suffer till you finish your degree. At least your family is paying for college eh :)

Btw, attempt to start paying your mother back, even if small amounts.

4 votes for selling your computer at home to pay for the laptop.
Try giving your mother $20 bucks a month if you can to pay her back. My kids owe me money, too. I don't want the money back, but seeing them own up to the responsibility of the debt means a lot to me, and them! Times will be tough enough for you with all the things you've got going on. You don't need another debt. Tough it out though and the rewards later will make all the work now worthwhile.

My rents bought me my desktop right before freshman year. I had chipped in a thousand bucks when my dad bought his last machine, so it was understood that he would give me a thousand, and i would pay him back the difference.

But then I had a total financial fall out. I pay for school entirely by myself and my dad knows I can't just throw money at him. I just do what I can to kinda make up for it until i can actually give him money back, which I definately plan on doing. However, if i asked him to buy me another computer, he would probably throw hammers at me.

So my point is, parents can only carry us so far. Tough times come, that's part of the gig.

Unfortunately I cannot sell my home system. I run a network for a few friends, and I do apache.mysql,php test server hosting for clients. I have a server setup to house all of the media we use, etc etc. A laptop cannot handle all of that.

If it was that easy, I would have done it.

Does ALL your school work require a computer? If not you could do the study portion of your work(ie reading textbooks/manuals) in transit.

Go ahead and ask for the money but handle it like a man. You're 21 years old now. You could sign a contract stipulating a regular monthly payment to your mother until the debt is paid. It wouldn't have to be some huge payment either, but something that showed you were really making an effort.

Also, you could give up something you value to your mother for collateral until you paid back the debt.

Just some thoughts.

one liil thing' almost all the kids exept me owe my father money. none of them ave the money to pay him back...but they do try one sister send just $10 a month. dad dosent need the money BUT he respects the attempt

Viveleroi seriously at your age if you are worrying about being able to buy a laptop for $500 you should reanalyze getting married so young.

Not that it's bad, marraige is great....but $500 is easy to make in a month's time if you put it on the side. Hell skip out on lunch every other day can help, and also side work for people.

I'm sure your mother can help you, but I myself am not that comfortable getting a free ride from my parents, mostly after turning 21 and so forth.

The other thing you can do is get financing, from Dell or so forth.


Good luck, and please don't see what I wrote as negative. I just would like you handle this on your own, mostly if you are going to be a family man soon.

Just a couple of stabs here -

You have a wedding coming? Can you ask that some gifts are cash to put toward the computer?

Or, are you going for a computer science degree from a four year college? Like Battlefield said, there's probably a lot of other coursework that you could get done without a computer. Even if you only have computer classes, I saw my friend write a lot of his programs on paper first. It seemed like the hardest part of his programs were theoretical, and he loved flow charts... Maybe you can become a better programmer if you don't use a debugger as a crutch!

Or, maybe you could take some time off from school. I don't have any kids, but I couldn't imagine work, school, and a newborn at the same time, especially if your fiancée is working too!

Again, just some stabs...

Ah, so you want to have your cake and eat it too! :)

What's more important? I mean that seriously. Your education or hobby?

Go to www.hostforweb.com. You can great Linux hosting for $10 or $20/month. Since you have clients, they'll be footing the bill for it.

As for "media" you're referring to I can only imagine. ;)

$500 can't be that hard to raise, can it? Do some computer consulting. Sell a bunch of stuff on eBay (I sold a bunch of crap that I never thought people would have bought and now I have $500 toward my own goal of a $2000 laptop; I'm selling one of my PC computers and a Mac G4 to get the rest of the money).

From my experience there are two ways to succeed in life:

1) Get formally educated and work hard and get paid
2) Get life experience educated and start a business

But in either case, sacrifices must be made and perseverence is critical.

(stepping down from soapbox - thanks for letting me speak)

Umm....lease a laptop from gateway?
I believe it's 12-15 bucks a month.
Just a thought.

I'm with rubicon.... it's not simple, it's hard work to do. Make small sacrifices and get big rewards. Granted, I'm in midcareer, but the point is still the same. You cannot have it all, something has to give. Be a man and try, if it doesn't work out, accept it and do what you need to do.

I took my lunch to work and made dinner every night for close to 2 years, in that two years, I saved enough money to get married, buy a place in Manhattan, buy a timeshare in Key West (instead of paying for hotels for honeymoon) buy some artwork, was able to get laid off 3 times and still pay all debts and bills.

Get a part time job for a month, you will have the laptop paid for. Work another month and pay back mom. I would not try to borrow more money from mom. Thanksgiving dinner tastes different when you owe your family money.

click me now, that's one of the better ways I've seen that put. Nice man.

So what did you decide to do ?? Don't keep us wondering.

sell your home computer if you really need it that much

Do you have a big CD collection? Sell some of it. Mow lawns. Deliver pizzas. EARN the money.

When I was younger I had some pretty crappy jobs, but it was better than asking my parents for spending money.

Your parents shouldn't be expected to loan you money for a laptop when they probably already bought the great home system you already have.

I think you're past the point of reasonably asking for the money from a parental unit. If you're working, it should be reasonably easy to save some money over a semester or be able to swing a 20-30 / finance payment.