Life isn't that depressive even with a 9$/hr job.
I've paid as low as $125 per month in rent, but most typically in the neighborhood of $225-300 (this is in one of the 15 biggest cities in the US, a major college town, to boot).
Serving/bartending you can easily make $15-25 per hour and work 25-40 hours per week. I've also worked as a valet part-time for another $10-15 per hour. Package handlers can make $13 per hour (last I saw, several years ago) working the late shift. These are jobs that generally have no degree requirements whatsoever.
My roommate was once a couple grand short on tuition money. He stripped for a couple weeks and was able to pay it all off. My sister's husband brings in close to $40K in the Army, and they give money to pay off student loans, too. I've had several friends work in Teach for America or as an Americorps Vista, receiving relatively meager salaries but getting a living allowance, money toward student loans, and a resume-building experience for aspiring non-profit workers.
Meanwhile, remain tenacious in seeking out opportunities that make use of that degree, and make every use of student loan deferment and forbearance until all high-interest credit cards are paid off. Enter into debt management in order to get credit card interest rates down into the 5-8% range.
The only saving that should be happening is an emergency cash fund. It doesn't make sense to save until your debts are paid off, unless you can reliably invest at a higher return (e.g., your employer matches your contribution up to 3% of salary for an effective 100%+ ROI).
I know how easy it is to get dejected and want to give up, but you absolutely must soldier through it. Cut costs everywhere (don't eat out, sell that car, start biking, take up cheap hobbies instead of paying for entertainment, cancel cable, etc.) and pay down high-interest debts. Things get a whole lot easier once you start having some cash margin each month.
That was the main thing I hated about the quiz. Everything was so binary. Rarely in life are we constrained to a box other than the one we construct for ourselves.
I've had to moonlight as a valet in between jobs and I could make anywhere from $10/hr to $35/hr with tips. They would have hired anyone to work that job.
In the game I took the option of being a waiter working for $2.15 an hour plus tips, thinking that based on all the waiters I know I could easily earn some pretty good money. It told me I wound up earning $8 an hour, and this was average. I remain skeptical.
For one thing, that's minimum wage, and as I understand it, the employer is obliged to subsidise your wages up to minimum wage if you don't make that in tips. Secondly, assuming a standard 15% tip that means I'm only serving about $40 worth of food and drink per hour, in which case I'm in a really bad restaurant. (OK, maybe we need to share some of the tip total with busboys et cetera, but that's still astoundingly low). Thirdly, there's no way that can be the average, because it's the minimum, and some waiters are earning a whole lot more.
Luckily that doesn't describe me, but it's easy to miss what it can be like for those on the edge. I hate it when politicians (in the UK) make out that it's not a big deal that for someone to lose £50 in benefits (per month), and have no concept of what it's like to live a life where every penny does count, and where one big bill can set you back for years.
We all might be lucky with great support networks, skills and health, but not every one is.
I mean come on! Utterly ridiculous. Some people have a bad luck but don't forget from next month I would be having food stamps and not any of those expenses so may be able to save much.