Original Commentary
Most of Kimberly's job experiences - from being fired unexpectedly to trying to find work in January and competing with all the displaced seasonal workers - are drawn from my experiences at the time. The comic isn't biographical, of course, but you go with what you know. I had just started a new job when this comic aired, but Isabel out-earned me for December 2004. This was before we started NamirDeiter.net, and was because she spent the entire month working on commissions. It was interesting having the comic be our primary source of income, but I'd rather not have to rely on it 100% again - Terrence

Modern Commentary
The whole "waking up at 9:20" that we show in the first panel would have been more effective if Kimberly's work schedule hadn't involved late mornings in all the previous comics.
I'm assuming that Brisbane is working a very, very part-time schedule. Otherwise he's making somewhere under minumum wage. I'm not sure they can afford rent or food. $600 a month was decidedly not a lot of money in 2002.

Yes, Kimberly has a PO Box and gets checks in the mail. Paypal was a pretty new thing and not everybody had it. Nowadays, there are a number of trustworthy digital payment companies and if you want to safely and reliably send money online you have options. Back then? "Trust me, give these internet randos your bank details and everything will be fine" wasn't a great sales pitch.
I'm not sure if eBay wasn't allowing you to send checks directly to the seller back then. They bought PayPal in 2002 and were trying to steer folks towards that when possible. I think the pitch was that if you used PayPal you got protection in case something went wrong but otherwise you were mostly on your own. But Kimberly may be reaching out to some buyers directly or selling things via other websites. Probably knows the big collectors in the Toucan Joe forums.- Terrence