Buddy story · Cost
Two students and no money
Both are students, both are paying out of pocket, and neither will let the other be ashamed about the arithmetic.
- Paired
- October 2025
- Cadence
- Weekly
- Status
- ongoing
Petra paired them and gave them one instruction, which was to talk about money in plain terms and not to apologise for it. They have taken this seriously to the point of comedy.
The substance is mostly the unromantic mechanics: which prescriptions are cheaper where they live, what a university health service can and cannot do, what happens when the term changes and the address changes, and how to plan a gap you can see coming rather than one that arrives.
Both have paused at some point for cost. Neither treats that as a failure. It is written up, without figures, in paying out of pocket without panic.
We say the actual amount out loud to each other. It sounds smaller when somebody else is not shocked by it.
I paused for two months because I could not afford it. That is a fact about a bank account.