I am aware this isn't a tech forum, but I know there are a lot of computer savvy people here. As I already frequent this site I felt I could ask you guys first. You may also recommend an alternative site if my issue proves to be too difficult. Immediately I should mention I have a G71GX Asus laptop running Windows 7.

As recently as a week ago I had a minor issue where if I left the computer idle for too long it would freeze. In order to solve this issue I did a quick search and the general consensus indicated I may want to check my HDD for damage. I forgot the exact Windows command but it was either the chkdsk program or something similar. The process basically goes through your hard-drive and tries to fix problematic sectors. So I restarted my computer, left it alone to finish its thing, and came back several hours later.

For a few hours after that it worked fine; however, when I tried to install a program through Steam I experienced a few blue screens. Sometimes they were named differently but generally involved KERNEL (e.g. KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR). This further indicates issues with the HDD I believe? It seems my computer wouldn't bsot whenever it was doing something that didn't really involve the hard-drive such as surfing the web. I backed-up my things to an external HDD to be safe and went to bed.

Which brings us to today. I had issues all morning but they became progressively worse to the point it was difficult to just use my computer reliably. A few hours ago I clean installed Windows 7 hoping to resolve the issue. Everything was fine until just now when my computer bsot'ed once again. This time it didn't have a mention of KERNEL or anything, though. I was in the process of installing MS Office from a disc.

I've decided I would build desktop but I lack a job. While I do have the funds I would prefer to save it for the time being. That means I will wait until Black Friday to build a computer. I'm looking for a solution to my issue that's long-term, but will also consider short-term ones. I understand my HDD is probably just screwed-up and there's not many options. Thanks for reading this book of a post.

I don't know what kind of things you need to do, but I'd suggest just running off of a flash drive, since your hdd is probably shot (replacing it with anything decent is going to be close to $100).
If you don't do much more than web and word processing, I'd suggest getting some form of Puppy Linux to install on a flash drive and forget about your hdd until you can replace it or the entire system.
I recommend using the external hdd as storage only, don't try to use it as a boot device (not saying you would, but might as well say it).

Since the BSOD is from the hdd, I'd say that it's shot. Having a few bad sectors is normal after a while, but if it continues to give you trouble after you force a disk check, then it's degrading at a rapid rate. There might be debris from a broken part on the platter.

A disk check tries to access every sector of the disk; if the read/write head can't reach it, it flags it as unusable. This way, nothing can attempt to write or read from it, which is what causes the exceptions, the blue screen in this case.
Just thought I'd mention that.

I can use my dad's computer if need-be for word processing and other small tasks. As of right now I haven't gotten another BSOD and it seems to be stable as I install my basic programs. I updated the graphics card and am going to check if the BIOS is also up-to-date. I definitely won't attempt to run off of the external HDD that I have as you mentioned.

I feel my laptop will still be of some basic use if I can do a bit of trial-and-error to figure out what triggers the BSOD. Thanks for your input by the way.