I’ll expand on @anewreturner’s answer which I feel like is close.
I’d maybe translate というか as like “Or that’s to say… I don’t have money, so I can’t go.”
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Honestly I just think of というか as its own thing. It has its own dictionary entry too
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It’s such closely related grammar though, I almost feel like it’s a disservice to consider というか its own thing and not link all these grammar points together.
It’s all と＋言う＋something and all kind of means the same thing.
In this case と is just “quoting” some previously stated thing and adding か to indicate an alternative to it.
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Eh I think it’s fine.
Most important thing is comprehension. Comprehend enough and you’ll notice the patterns.
Yes, I think so. In fact, you answered your own question. Look here:
You see that ‘aha!’? That’s exactly how という works: it’s like a pair of quotation marks that you use to frame something so you can use it to describe something else. ‘This is just another of those “walk into the room and forget what you were looking for” moments, isn’t it?’ In Japanese, the double quotes in my last sentence would be replaced by という. I taught myself to see it that way pretty early on, and it’s almost always worked.
EDIT: I’ll extend my answer a little in case it’s not clear how to apply this in cases where the ‘という→quotation marks’ transformation isn’t as natural. I’m still going to use translations that sound similar though:
The main thing you need to know here is that の is a nominaliser, so it turns what comes before it into ‘the fact’ or ‘the matter’ or ‘the act’ or ‘the thing’.
日本人はお酒に弱い という のは本当？→ The ‘Japanese people are weak against alcohol’ thing, is it true?
独身だ という のは、嘘だったの？→ The thing about his being single, that was false/a lie?
This last one is a little less clear, but not because of という: I’ve just never seen 考え＋の being used like that. My guess:
‘The black man with the “the friends of my friends are all friends” idea.’
PS: I know not all of the translations I offered are the most natural ones in English, but I’m hoping to show you that this interpretation is natural and easy to understand.
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Well, I was going to try to answer the op’s question myself, but, I mean… it’s all there! 
I can’t really surpass your explanation, Jona. 
I also see that we’re both up at the same ungodly hour. 
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It’s definitely becoming more clear to me. 
I think where the root of my confusion is now more to do with というの
I get that we are nominalizing it, the IDEA makes sense. But I’m still confused as to how we get the phrases (maybe not necessarily the word for word translation) ‘the fact’ or ‘the matter’ or ‘the act’ or ‘the thing’.
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Why, hello! Uh… Well, if you’re wondering, I spent my entire day programming and finishing up a presentation related to all that coding for tomorrow. Luckily, that’s the only thing on my schedule tomorrow.
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I would definitely agree that, while it may not make for the most natural English translation, it can be a great aid for understanding if you treat a という phrase as being a direct quote. I remember when I first learned this grammar pattern I was quite surprised by how often Japanese uses direct quotes compared to English. We tend to prefer indirect quotes in English. For example, in English we might say “He told me not to run” whereas in Japanese it might be phrased “走るな！っと（彼に）言われた”.
Also jumping in here but, those are all just phrases that we use in English in order to mark a relative clause. Japanese doesn’t require any word to mark a relative clause (compare 街を歩いた人 versus “The person who walked through the town”), but it can mark them with って to make a quote phrase, or という.
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See, I knew you’re excuse would be better than mine. (No, that would imply I had an excuse).
Hope the presentation goes well! 
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Depends where you live. It’s 2 in the afternoon over here. 
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Thanks! I hope so too
@tomie98 Yes, exactly this. の in Japanese is even more vague than こと, if you ask me. The issue is that English requires a specific word with a particular meaning in order to nominalise a phrase. At the very least, it needs the word ‘thing’. For Japanese, の is enough. As for what の really is… it depends on whom you ask, but I’d say it’s just a placeholder. It represents whatever else could or should take its place in context.
The reason I used these words specifically is because they’re the most general things I can think of when it comes to nominalising a verb phrase. They’re the sort of words you’d find in a dictionary. For example, here’s a random one…
finitude | ˈfɪnɪtjuːd |
noun [mass noun] formal
the state of having limits or bounds: one quickly senses the finitude of his patience.
In Japanese, ‘the state of’ would be replaced by a こと・さま at the end of the sentence. The truth is that ‘the state of’ contains very little information: it just tells you how to categorise the information you’re about to receive. Japanese can choose to preserve that information with something fairly specific like こと・さま… or, in a sentence in which such an issue is being discussed, it can simply be replaced by の and commented on.
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I happen to know that Jona lives in a similar time zone though
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