Before I got back into school I had a pool service route in Dallas. Maintained about 40 pools a week, it payed the bills and payed for my first 3 years of college but wasn't exactly intellectually stimulating work. Last year we sold my route and I got a decent severance to get me through another semester. I also got paid last summer in Montana; it was $500 a week, plus travel expenses, plus lodging and a meal plan, so I came back to Texas with a decent amount of money. To top it off I get $2500 a semester from a Pell grant, another $2000 a semester towards tuition in the form of a STEM scholarship, and I started taking out subsidized loans last semester as well for another $5kish. I'll graduate with probably about $15k in debt, which is not that bad. Grad school I will be TA'ing to pay the bills and hopefully I will get some more grant money since aquatic invasive work is a hot topic these days and gets lots of money thrown at it.