[timerickson]

I'm going to address the monetary issues as others will be better at talking to time management/school work than I.

First off, don't buy books. Pleeeeenty of great reading for absolutely free online. Just dig around a little.

Talk to your parents about setting up a VisaBuxx card in your name. It has all the controls and such they'll love and will give you the oppertunity of purchasing things online. http://usa.visa.com/personal/cards/prepaid/visa_buxx.html

As for a domain name, $7.49 with a coupon for Godaddy.com http://www.retailmenot.com/view/godaddy.com

As for VPS. A one year contract with Linode (10% off if you buy a whole year) will get you 512mb RAM, 200GB of transfer for $216. I'd consider selling your iPod or something to cover that, if a VPS is really important to you... you can always setup LAMP locally to learn server setup and programming at no cost.