End of Month Update- June 2010

To start out, I got one thing done that wasn't anywhere as tough as I thought it would be- I applied for (and so far got) forbearance on my (non-private, in repayment) student loans. So Bonus. If (when) I finish filling out the paperwork at an "employment" agency (also known as a temp agency) I can apply for deferral instead.

New website isn't coming along. I had the main page up, but decided I didn't think it was going to work. Rather than work on it in WP, though, I decided to try it in Joomla again. Mistake. I can't get it to look professional *at all*, so back to WP I'll be going.

I managed about 6 applications (so far, month isn't quite over yet), so I was 2-4 short. I'll call it a half fail.

With one day to go, I haven't *quite* hit my income goal (20% was, maybe, a little ballsy), but I've still grown over last month. I've have joined a new ad network, which pays totally on eyeballs, rather than clicks, hopefully increasing my income there. It also shares headlines, so I might get some new visitors as well.

I *did* leave the house about 4 days a week, but usually only one or two was before noon. I (mostly) managed to talk to someone each time, except the library- they've put in an automatic check out, and I don't think they care that I'm trying to practice being social.

Oh, and the meditating? Not so much. Even when I remember to try it, I can't shut my brain up enough to want to try it. I know, can't get better if you don't practice.

I did manage to not totally freak out this month. I called and cashed out my (one) stock and my (whole $200) 401k, which took calling and talking to strangers with out hyperventilating. Yay for shy geeky anti-social types!

Now I'm gonna write out a check for the rent (and the back rent) so I have a place to live in July.

Nothing today

Back to posting Wednesday. Honest.

What A Crap Job Is To Me

Normal people probably think of a crap job as one of those jobs where you're working with raw sewage, or at McDonald's, or digging through garbage, or even taking off your clothes for money. In my world, those don't even count as jobs. Those are my own versions of Dante's hell.

So what, then, do I mean when I say I want a crap job?

Simple. I want something that pays (just enough) to cover the bills, but not so much that I won't be able to afford to leave. Something that's interesting to do for a year (or even two, if I need/ want to) but that doesn't really have great opportunities for the rest of my life.

Mostly, these are going to be entry level jobs. Think parking lot attendant, or receptionist in a (non-boring) office. Personal assistant would be either too interesting (with a cool boss), or too hellish (with a bad boss) to make the cut. Entry level kitchen work would be a good fit, if I could stand to work with meat all day.

Really, I guess when I say "crap" job I mean "day job"- even if it's at night. Something you do while you build something else. Interesting enough to not make you head-desk all day long, but not so comfortable that you can never leave. I want something that's interesting with enough space to learn new stuff that I'm not totally bored, but not so good that when I'm ready- when my "business" is ready -I don't want to leave.

Wow, it's weird talking about this internet stuff as a business. That's what it is, though, I guess. Much like an actor's or writer's career is a business, even when they aren't making anything from it.

Maybe I shouldn't call them crap jobs. I'm sure some people out there desire nothing more than to be a parking lot attendant for the rest of their life. To me, though, they're just an intermediate step. A stop along my path that is only intended to be temporary, so shouldn't be *too* comfortable. I don't enjoy being an employee, so that shouldn't be a problem, right? I don't know, and I don't want to test it.

So crap jobs they are.

Mini-update

Just 'cause I think sometimes it's good to get stuff out there so i know where I am with those pesky goals-

• I've put in for forbearance on student loans, and will probably be picking up some deferrals as well.
• I've applied and applied (and applied) for jobs, but still no luck.
• I'm in the process of attaching myself to an employment agency or two.
• I've meditated all of three times this month, but when I do it, it helps.
• Have been accepted into a shiny new ad network for my food blog. Should be going live with the new ads either late this week or early next. Bonus- they provide somewhat more transparency than the big G.
• Went from having things set up to start my local guide page, to dumping it and switching from WP to Joomla. I like WP, but it's not right for this project. Now I just need to learn Joomla and I'm set.
• Actually called and sold my (1.148 shares or something) stock from the job-o-doom at WM. Cashed out my 401(k) as well, and will be getting that money in the next week and a half or so.
• Returned library books on time this week so no fines.

So that's where I am right now. Still a bunch of stuff I need to do, but not bad, otherwise. With about a week left to go in the month, Hopefully I can do even better. Stranger things have happened.

Finding Cash

I've finally ended most of my associations with the huge retailer I no longer use. Called and sold my 1ish shares of stock and cashed out my 401k.

Wow, do they make that both easy and crazy hard. I tracked down what paperwork I have. I put more money into stock then they're showing, but no way to prove that, so... They charged me $20.10 to sell my 1+ shares. They're really all about keeping the investors. The guy tried to upsell me to faster check postage, but I wasn't going for that. My 50 had already shrunk to 35, I wasn't interested in shrinking it any farther.

Then I called and dumped the 401k. That was actually worth more than I thought. When the lady told me that I wasn't fully vested, that I'd have to spend a full 6 years there to be, I almost cackled over the phone at her. If I'd spent much more time at that place someone was going to end up dead. Probably me.

So they held back 15 for fees and 40 for estimated taxes, and she advised me that I should talk to someone about taxes, because it could get complicated... I said that's nice, and USPS for free is better than UPS for $20, now just sell the dratted thing.

So sometime around the end of the month I should be getting two checks for a total of about $230, no small pile of cash in my world right now.

Yay?

The Crappy Job Dilemma

Kind of thinking I've mentally gotten close tot he "any job, no matter how poorly paid or unpleasant" point.

For the longest time my roommate has been suggesting I try delivering papers. He does it and doesn't mind it, and it is (to him) good money. I've been less than enthused by the idea because it doesn't really pay that much ($150 or so a week, maybe up to 300 for a good route), and it's all 1099 work.

Well, that and it requires driving all over town in the middle of the night.

Maybe it's a chick thing to be concerned about that, maybe it's just a fear thing. Maybe it's that my car leaks gas and I'm not sure how many more miles it has left in it (it was, after all, $600) and I'm out of cell phone time until I top up.

My roommate doesn't do his own taxes, though, so I don't know how much the 1099 thing effects him. He also doesn't own a car- he's using the other roommate's, so he doesn't worry about the associated costs of driving around.

Otherwise, it's really not that bad a job- just driving around, dropping off papers. He doesn't do home delivery though- he's the guy that refills the boxes and drops piles of papers off at stores and hotels and whatnot. He's done in just a couple hours, though, so... I don't know. I should google it.

Really though, it's pretty seriously low pay. Figure nothing will cost less than $5 a night in gas alone, so that's $30 a week. Insurance would go up (eventually) which is another however much a month. Self employment taxes and needing to either file myself or pay for e-filing/ online tax-prep. Additional time spent doing paperwork, wear and tear on the craptastic car-o-doom, more regular oil changes (or oil changes at all) and eventually another car. When does the "just need to bring in *something* outweigh the expense of doing it?

Heck, if the average route is 40 miles of driving, and the fed expense rate is still 55 cents a mile, that's $22 a night in car alone- $132 a week. So I'm sure it's a good deduction (if you can take it) but it also means I'd have to manage expenses like a w00t 1337 winner to be making more than $0.50 an hour after expenses. And that doesn't pay the rent any more than 50 cents a day on adsense does.

Pleh. I don't know. It'd be better (mentally) than working at McDonalds. Dunno about financially.

I didn't get that article written. I knew what I wanted to write, and i just didn't do it. It could be fear (I'm unusually good at that), it could be laziness (good at that too), or it could be this sort of creeping ennui, in which case I think I'm SOL.

After all, fear can be fixed with a quick trip to the doctor for some tasty valium, a trip to the liquor store for a bottle of something cheap and strong, or the ever popular "finding something worse to fear", which for me usually just makes it doubly unlikely that I get anything done.

Laziness is something I'm working on. I've actually developed and (mostly) stuck to a schedule here and on my food blog, which is quite an accomplishment. I just need to add two or three more things into the mix. I can't say here that i'm going to do something, then not do it because I don't want to.

Heck, most of the time the thing I don't want to do lately is even *interesting*. How often is the thing you have to do *interesting*? Sure, I need to figure out some design stuff, but other than that, this is *fun*. I get to create something from nothing, and because it doesn't otherwise exist, no one can really tell me I'm doing it wrong.

Then, I'm also fighting the new shiny ball problem. I have another idea (or three) that seem like they'd be less work, or more fun, or just different, and I want to do those instead. Pleh.

So how do I think I can work with this? Simple, i'm thinking about taking the weekend off from the internet. I'm sure i'll be twitching by Saturday afternoon, but I don't need internet to write articles for a web site. I can fix them for SEO Monday. I can fix the page itself Monday. But if I'm actually going to get something done, I need a stick to smack me into wandering in the right direction.

My motivation for finding a job is just as low as what I've got for my projects, lower even. I'm applying for jobs that (mostly) don't interest me doing (mostly) things that disgust me, working for companies that I (again, mostly) don't support. I'm sure this has a lot to do with why everything else is all screwy. Maybe I should listen to the roommate and get a paper route. The money really *can't* be any worse than doing nothing, right?

Income, Positive Thinking, and Motivation

Totally linked. My motivation and positive thinking are both low (not as bad as last week, oddly, but yeah, down there), so my income is too.

But even as low as my income is (and it doesn't match my expenses at all right now), it's still something. So I'm gonna work with that.

The last two months I've "earned" enough each month to pay any *one* of my two or three (5?) lowest bills. Now, that's not much in the overall scheme of things, and it's not enough each month for a payout, but it's money I wouldn't have otherwise, and I didn't have to go do some job I hate to get it.

It's a pretty bit deal to me. Of course, I don't know what it says about me that I have 3 or 4 bills that run about $15 a month, but wow.

So with zero motivation, and a deep and abiding belief that I'm a huge pile of FAIL, I manage to invent enough money to pay a bill. What could I do with some motivation? And where do I find it?

Now, normally I'm sure people would say something like "fake it 'til you make it", but the very thought of that makes me want to throw up. And I'm a *really bad* liar. How do you fake wanting to do something anyway?

(Note- this might be part of the reason I'm not one of those settled, grown-up, married people.)

So instead I'm going to set a goal, and not let myself do anything fun until I get the dratted thing done. I'm writing at least the home page for my (sitting there empty and abandoned) website. Before noon. And then I'm damned well putting it up. Even if the theme sucks.

So I guess it's time to decide if I'm using WP or some sort of "real" CMS, huh? But not until after I write the damned article.

Building Something from Nothing- part 5

So I brought in 116 and change so far (plus $5 that went.. somewhere- let's count that for the $3 or4 photo hosting cost me back in march...).

What I've spent so far is $42 for hosting for my shiny new site. It's a work in progress, of course, but it's working...

I've also spent $8.59 on a book for the review site. It's a book I wanted, it just came out, and i really like the author, so I would have bought it anyway. the domain for the review site shouldn't cost more than $7, and it'll be hosted at teh same place as the other site, so the only real expense there (other than time) is the domain and books. hopefully I can make part of that go away pretty quick.

I'm doing pretty good on my adsense goal, I'm right about where i wanted to be, but it's a long month, and plenty can still go wrong.

I need to do a lot of writing, I just haven't yet. I need to write articles for the site, since I've already got something up, and it just looks sad and abandoned now. I also need to write the review for the book I'm reading (which is actually why this is a little late today), so I can get it up on not only my site (which I still need to pick up), but also on the various online book sellers. woot?

So yeah, that's now. Halfway through the month.

This earning money thing is actual work. Who'da thunk it....

Totally spazzed!

Here it is, mid-afternoon, and I just now realized that I never wrote anything over here!

I've been out putting in job applications, and I'm not so good with the total people contact that requires at the moment, so... Yeah.

Otherwise...

There's a place around here hiring women to be nude house cleaners. For 50% of the biled rate, it's not a bad deal, I just don't think I could clean someone's house nekkid. even for $50 an hour. I mean, do you act sexy while cleaning toilets? *Can* you act sexy while cleaning toilets?

So, yeah... Other than that, just basic crap job-o-rama. Stupid SC. Stupid working for WM. Stupid j for working for WM then moving to SC....

Oh well.

Responsibility and Common Sense

They're two things in my life working at cross purposes right now. I *want* to act responsibly and pay all my bills. Right now, though, I can pay *none* of my bills, really. So how do I decide which of my responsibilities I can (temporarily) ditch, and which to keep up with?

It shouldn't be an easy decision, but it really is. Turn in the forbearance paperwork, and put off student loans. If I just don't pay student loans, they garnish wages, and can do any number of bad things to me. By not paying my credit cards, I (really) just trash my credit.

So, as I said. Responsibility or Common sense.

I have no great or immediate need for a good credit score. I don't see me wanting to buy a house any time soon, so there's no need to keep squeaky clean for mortgages. The only thing (other than my incoming calls) that might be effected by forking up my credit by paying credit cards last is my car insurance rate.

It still isn't something I want to do. I don't see me declaring bankruptcy. I can't afford to, it's not at all responsible, and honestly? It'd get rid of less than 1/5th my total debt.

Note to people out there- don't move halfway around the world, take on huge debt, then fork it up and drop out- it's forking expensive and damned near impossible to fix or pay for.

So... Right now I'm focusing on making enough to pay the rent, utilities, and pretty basic life expenses. Srsly. If I think about having to pay the rest of it, my brain tries to explode.

So I need to earn...

• $350 a month for rent
• $20 a month for internet
• $30 a month for food
• $50 a month for gas
• $40 a month for soda
• $20 a month for entertainment
• $40 a month for car insurance
• $50 a month for car fixing

So $600 will keep me fed and indoors. In an ideal world I'd also have $50 for personal random stuff, and $100 for paying back dad.

So my ideal is $750 a month. It shouldn't be this tough to find a $12,000 a year job, but somehow it is.

Anyway- I'm concentrating on surviving for now. I'll fix my credit when I can afford to, sad tho that idea is.

And you have no idea how crappy that makes me feel. Or how freeing it is.

Equipment, or When Paying More Is Worth It

I am not at home this weekend. I'm dog sitting, so I don't have my computer, I have my mother's. It's not as nice, but it was free. It's also about 5 years old.

I could probably make it a worthwhile machine for $30 in RAM. It'd still be slow as all heck, since it's running windows and five years old, but it'd at least be able to keep up with running the OS, virus blocker, and loading web pages without a 20 minute wait.

This wouldn't work for me, though. Loading a page every 20 minutes is great if all you do is read some AOL mail, look at a couple of pictures of puppies, and sign off. I don't do that. I need to upload photos, stream video, and read blogs (I know, strange needs). When there's a 5 minute lag while something's loading to switch between tabs, that's just not gonna work- what I do at home in 20 minutes has taken me about 2 hours so far this morning, and there are no photos getting loaded anywhere.

While I'm here I'm going to pull their computer case open and see what's inside. I might have a few (free, from previous canibal jobs) parts that will speed things up. If not, at least I can see what they've got and point them in the right direction for picking up some things to fix it up a bit. I do most of their "advice" -type stuff already, might as well fix it up so they don't need to call as often.

Really though? To do something on the internet that earns money (or at least doesn't eat your whole day) you need more than they've got. I *could have* done it on my older laptop. It was designed for battery life and not woot 1337-ness, but it was faster, and sometimes a little upgraded- replacing RAM isn't that tough, even on laptops.

When a netbook able to run graphic intensive games is only $350, there's no real excuse to use something that doesn't work right. Sometimes you don't have the cash (that'd be me, now- but the library could fill in here), sometimes you don't know what you're running isn't enough (that'd be this machine I'm typing on now), and sometimes you just don't care (I don't understand this one, but know it exhists).

Really though, plumbers need pipe wrenches, taxi drivers need cars, and people who do stuff on the internet need computers that are able to do more than one thing at a time.

Should have just brought the desktop to begin with- or double checked that I had the power cord for my slow but still faster laptop. Oh well, live and learn and all that. I'll just bring the cord back with the ram.

Start of Month Update- June 2010

Since last month was pretty much full on fail, I've decided to step back and try fewer, easier goals. I have to accept that I'm doing the hugely depressed/ overwhelmed thing right now, and that depression gets some say in what I do.

So, to try and keep it from taking over totally, I'm going to try small goals, and fewer of them. I think having only 4 or 5 goals (or two or three) should help with the feelings of impending *Fail*. After all, if I have 20 goals and meet 3 of them, I Fail 85% of them. If I have 5 goals and manage three, I WIN 60%. Sure, it's a cheat, but I use what I got.

So for goals.

• turn in at least 2 applications every week.
• Leave the house at least 4 days a week (before noon), and talk to at least 1 person each time
• Fill out forbearance paperwork on student loans
• increase daily internet income from 50 cents to 60 cents on average for the month
• write one article for each section of the new website- basics, food, sleep, activities, other fun.

I think I should be able to manage these. They are goals I can (for the most part) control all by myself- daily internet income excepted. I already have the student loan paperwork. I also have an application I need to turn in.

If *this* overwhelms me and I shut down... I dunno what would be next. One goal at a time?

There aren't any real debt or income related goals on there (adsense doesn't count). There's a pretty good reason for that. With nothing coming in, I pretty much totally freak out when I think about money- how much needs to come in, how far behind I am, how long until I don't have to worry about it any more. So I've got goals that (should) eventually lead to bringing in money/ paying debts off, but without the super high pressure/ drama direct goals.

Oh, one other goal-

• Meditate daily

Hey, it works for other people. What's the worst that could happen? I spend time thinking to myself about not being able to stop thinking? I do that when I try to fall asleep. And maybe it'll help me stay calm.

Totally off topic- If I were ever filthy stinking rich, I think it would be a huge pile of fun to have a tardis in the middle of my kitchen. Even if it didn't go any when.