Bust yer ass and earn the extra scratch for the ticket if its that important to ya. 2 jobs isn't as hard as it sounds when you know its only briefly. short order cook pays decent and you get to keep bizzare hours. and they usually don't expect you to work there for very long anyway.
save the cash, get the ticket, correspond lots between now and then ( Its impossible to put a value on handwritten letters, shipped good ol' snailmail, to france make sure you pay the extra so it doesn't take 6 weeks to get there) AIM doesn't count as correspondence, BTW. Who knows, you might get laid.