In 1997, when University of Pennsylvania senior Angela Nissel, a medical anthropology major, began keeping an online diary about living on practically no dough, she was only trying to amuse herself. ''I'd just had an unpaid internship at 'Dateline NBC' and came back to an eviction notice,'' she says. ''The diary was something to do for free.'' Though she got lots of email from folks in similar straits, once she graduated in '98 and started working, she abandoned her ''Broke Diaries'' website.
Two years later, Nissel, then a designer at hip hop site Okayplayer, got another email -- this one from a Villard Books editor. ''She wanted to know if I could turn the diary into a book,'' says Nissel, 25. The result: ''The Broke Diaries: The Completely True and Hilarious Misadventures of a Good Girl Gone Broke'' hits shelves this month, and the author is now in L.A. working with director Reginald Hudlin (''The Ladies Man'') to bring her memoir to the screen. So does she still worry about money? ''No, not really. If you can get paid for being broke, you can get paid for doing anything,'' says Nissel. ''It's capitalism at its finest.''
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