Growing up through the rescission : How to come out of high school and live on your own despite hard times

Hey there! I go by the name J , I graduated from high school in 2008 and have been living on my own since the day before graduation. I am 19 and this rescission is killing me! I’m sure I’m not alone. From my understanding what we are suppose to do after high school is go to college get a great paying job and then met some great guy (you young gentlemen may want to meet a great girl) to start a family with, but there is a little dilemma because school COSTS A LOT OF MONEY, and then you have groceries, and bills and everything else. What is a single kid to do?

So let me start from the beginning so you know just how much credibility I have:
Like I said in may of 2008 I moved out from the nice cushy life of living under my parents roof to embark upon a life of no money and brokenness. When I graduated I was under the impression that I was going to marry my high school sweetheart and that we were going to have a great life because he was going into the military and we were going to have so much money coming in from that and the government was going to pay for school and then my fantasy was flushed down the toilet when he met someone else. At this time I was working at a restaurant making pretty good money but because I was getting paid in tips everyday I was spending it like it was going to rot, and luckily for me rent was not an issue at the time because when my grandmother passed away she left me about 20 thousand dollars but my all wise and knowing father put it all in the stock market so I came out with just enough money to pay my first years rent. Life was going ok at this time but I was remaining pretty stagnant so I first tried taking some classes to become a realtor, and them the recession hit. And suddenly my bank account started dipping in and out of the red (I have one of those wonderful banks that allows you to over draw up to $500, it really works well to teach you about money management *sarcasm*) so I decided to stop working at the restaurant and start working with my ex’s older sister at an automotive shop which wasn’t really the best move to make because I’m not making quite as much as I was with tips and I am not being paid according to how hard I work, rather just for how long I work . And because I am a single girl I decided that I needed renters insurance of some sort to protect the few things that I have saved and worked to get, this said renters insurance is really a great dane puppy named Rocky, he’s a little over a year old now but he’s about 120 lbs (which is a good 20lbs more then me). So with this Beast of a dog, and a perpetually empty bank account I started evaluating why I am so broke and this is what I came up with:

So basically my expenses are:
Rent
Groceries
Cell phone bill
Water bill
Electric bill
Dog health care
Gas for car
Savings

I had to start cutting back. One thing i did was to stop going out to eat, its hard because FAST FOOD IS EVERYWHERE, but it is possible. Well give me your comments and next week we will start talking topics and things, different ways I have found to sav money and to make money.