Slacking And The "Real" Job

I might have mentioned last week that this outside the house job is killing my energy. I think I mentioned that I was getting none of my own work done.

It also made me sick, but I guess that happens when you touch money and/or things touched by germy other people all day.

I'm taking today to work for myself, though. In a 10 hour day working for tarjay I'd make $75. If I can make $60 today, I'll consider it win, and quit my outside job.

I think, not working for so long, and having so long when I didn't have to(savings) followed by so long when I just didn't (thanks dad, really), I forgot just how much I hate working for other people. How even though $7.50 an hour would pay the bills, it's less than I can make working for myself. How even writing the worst, spammiest, most unpleasant article is better than working for someone else.

Simply because if it's going bad, or I'm sick of it, or there's something I'd rather be doing, I can drop it and come back (or not) when I want.

Don't want to write articles about stainless steel countertops at textbroker? I don't have to. I can write about something random and put it up on CC or hubpages, or someplace else. I can put it off until late at night, or I can go for a walk in the neighborhood, then come back to it when my brain is working again.

Working for someone else, not so much. Don't want to re-fold infant clothes? Too bad, do it or leave. Don't want to stand for 8 hours, smiling at angry people? Too bad, they've bought your time.

So yeah, I made about $300 at that dayjob. It sucked the work right out of me, though. I bet I can make just as much working at home. I bet I can even enjoy it more. I just needed to be reminded how much it sucks.

Work and Work

I do two kinds of work. One *can* pay crap, and is part of a kinda floaty long term plan. The other *only* pays crap and is over in January.

Yesterday I was supposed to do the first type. I had it all planned out- after 8 or so hours of goofing off and relaxing, I was going to do this work that'll pay off later.

Then I made the mistake of answering the phone.

I guess it's been too long since I worked in a "real" outside the house job. This time last year I knew better than to answer the phone on my "day off". Yesterday, though? Ha.

So I went to the place where I'm working temporarily and stayed there from 4 until 11. That whole time I stood at a register, then tidied the store. While my check will be kinda nicer, it means I didn't get to do any of the things I needed/ planned to yesterday. Things like:

• write articles for up-front pay
• write articles for my own sites
• write articles for places that do revenue share like HubPages
• Do laundry
• get my food made up for this week
• relax
• catch up on NaNoWriMo
• get some work done on my blog that *really really* needs to be done
• buy groceries

Instead all I did was earn $42, give or take $3. I'd have been much better off, crazy as it sounds, staying home. Now I have to find some way to fit all that stuff that I didn't do yesterday into a schedule that's already taking over my life. Oh, and I need to cancel an appointment, because "work" can't/ won't reschedule me around it. Even though they knew about it *at the interview.*

Soooo not interested in this work thing. really, Not. Oh, yeah, and being around all those strange people and little screaming kids, I'm getting a cold. Extra Pleh.

Busy

Really. Post Monday.

For Now I (conditionally) Have a Job

A local retail store (not Walmart) is hiring for x-mas, and some other spots, too. I applied, figureing it couldn't pay *that* badly, right?

So, yeah, after about 1.5 hours of interviewing, I got my offer.

$7.50 an hour, if I don't fail my drug test.

Since I don't take drugs, I've almost definitely got a job. That pays $7.50 an hour. Mom says be happy, it's more than you make writing articles. But ugh. *and* I have to pee in a cup.

Otherwise, I don't know how many hours I'll be working, if it's part or full-time, if it's seasonal or permanent, what kind of hours I'll be working, what department I'll be working in, or even where employees park.

Worst case, it's permanent, I work until the day (or week) before I leave the country, and call it good. Best case, I work an insane number of hours for the next 6 weeks, still manage to get my writing and web stuff done, and don't fall behind.

At least I'll be getting out of the house?

Seriously, though? Pee in a cup for $7.50 an hour? I'd expect it for $20 an hour, or something where you might actually risk harming yourself or others, but... How on earth do stoners find work, if even the crappiest of the crap jobs require drug tests.... They can't *all* be cooks and dishwashers, can they???

Post After Noon

When I know for sure what the money stuff looks like this week

I Have Some Motivation, Kinda

Some famous guy, somewhere in the past (I think it was a writer) once said something like "the trick to getting things done is to have something you want to procrastinate on *more* than the thing you need to get done." Give or take.

I've found that thing. Well, ok, I've found dozens of those things, and dozens of things to do instead of them. Really, though, I've gone and done something so terrifying that I now *have to* do something.

I made a twitter account for the website I haven't actually built yet. And then I followed people with it. And it points people to the website. The not-yet-up website...

Um, yeah.

So now I *really really* have to get the website going. And you know what? I did a bit of work on it. Not much, but some. I see where I could go with it, what directions I can (maybe) take it. And I now risk people showing up at my empty, not yet search engine-listed website.

Which makes that now the biggest scariest thing in my entire list of stuff I have to get done. I promptly started thinking about story ideas, and will now probably be writing all day. Not what I *need* to be doing- I need to be making money. Closer, though, and better than watching tv or playing games.

Other than writing for NaNoWriMo, all the writing I have to do/ can do is internet content. Most of that pays crap. The content for my website will pay all of nothing until I get traffic and advertising, and who knows what else (i actually do know, really, just not getting into it now). Hopefully, though, I can switch between these terrifying things enough to get a bunch of work done on each of them. Heck, I wrote a bunch of articles earlier this week for $2 each. I can write articles for nothing.

In other news, operation "find a temporary, craptastic seasonal job" seems to have hit a wall. Again. If I weren't the "fall off the ladder" type I'd put an ad in Craigslist offering to help put up lights. But yeah, I'd fall off, break something important, and be worse off than I am now. Meh.

No update today

Just work.

Making Money is Hard Work!

I have some semi-automated blogs. I toss them up a couple at a time, spending maybe 1/2 hour each to get them up and running. Really not bad.

Then I have to go back a month or so later and add advertising, affiliate links, and random other links.

Holy Crap, that takes time. Even just using Amazon I'm spending closer to an hour each to add these links and whatnot. Hopefully it'll make some money eventually. I might just add adsense to a couple of them to save time.

Still, serious time.

Then there's writing for TextBroker. At a penny a word, it takes pretty serious output to manage even minimum wage each hour. And when the only subjects are really dull, or really nit-picky, or just things I don't know anything about yet, the time per article goes way up. Don't even get me started on people looking for too much in exchange for a $3 article.

I'm still too wimpy and haven't managed to submit an article to Constant Content. Super wimpy, really silly, and a bad business decision, too. Writing articles for a penny a word is just plain stupid when you can write them for 5 or more cents per word. It's crazy.

I found a few other places pick up content work, and while one or two are similarly crappy (pay-wise) to TB, a couple may be a bit better. I'm checking them out now. Just need to finish the application. Still, if it works out (and they accept my app and let me work, and rank me higher than the very lowest) I could write those same 300 word articles and walk away with 5 or 9 dollars each. Same work, more money sounds like win to me.

Don't even get me started on the website I've been half-assedly working on since May. Not enough done yet to open it up, and I've been "starting" it for 6 months.

Finally, at the end of this month I'm * definitely* changing around the advertising on my other "real" blog. I want to use something that allows more flexibility for me, doesn't limit me as much in what I can post or how much, or when. Also thinking about (but who knows if it will materialize) moving things around there to put information stuff (like recipes, or easy substitutions) in easier to find/ central locations. I'm thinking about adding a "donate" button, but I want to feel like I'm providing more value than just entertainment before trying it. Also, I don't want my readers to feel like I'm using them to make money, or pushing things on them.

So, That's what the money thing looks like right now.

Jobs and Goals

Well, I earned enough for a payout this week, at least.

I've been really bad about actually writing articles. It's strange, because when I find one that I can easily write I sometimes still procrastinate until I haven't got enough time to write. It's not so good for the budget. Not that really anything I do is, but still.

So with my lack of production (and don't even ask about NaNoWriMo- when I finish this I'm swapping computers in hoes of actually getting *something* done) I've come to accept that I have, maybe, 2 options.

I can actually write.

I can get a job.

There's this in between option, as well, which is writing *while* having a job, but who knows how that would turn out.

So, in an effort to motivate myself (electric shock-style) I've put in a couple applications for seasonal retail work. Applying doesn't mean I have to take a job, and it also doesn't mean I *don't* have to. It just means that I might end up working somewhere other than right here in my warm little writing nest.

Of course, I then looked up how much I was likely to make per hour at each of those places I applied.

It's *maybe* $300 a week. Working full time. 

If I'm thinking about torturing myself for 8 hours (or more) a day in exchange for $300 a week, I should do it at home. Here I get to eat when I want, go outside when I want, drink soda all day and loaf about in my pj's. I only have to deal with people I want to deal with. And I can go off on angry rants without losing my "job".

'Cause the only people here in my writing room are, well... it's just me.

I bet I could make $300 a week writing articles. You know, if I *really* wanted to. Probably do it faster if I'd just try to sell them someplace that pays better than $0.01 a word, but whatever.

In better news, the child-style star goal/ chore chart thing is working out pretty well. even though the only things I've got gold stars in are napping, having fun, and posting blogs on time. But I've gone from a low of 3 goal areas with anything in them other than FAIL to four, five, or six stars a day. Yesterday I got 5. Would have been 6, but that fiction writing thing never happened. 

So, yeah, more is getting done, now to earn enough that I can get away with not taking a "real" job, even just for the holidays.

Money Disconnect

not mine, this time, but that of RM#3.

RM3 decided that she wants to be a medical biller and/ or coder when she grows up. this is something that is offered at the local community college. The local *lottery funded* community college. At which *all residents* are eligible for almost full tuition grants from the lotto fund.

So she could go there, get the certificate to start working (if she could find a job) and keep working until she had her associates degree- for a little more than the price of books.

Is that where she wants to go?

Nope. She wants to go to the U of Phoenix online. For something like 30k.

Now, this is a job that *maybe* pays 30k a year. The entry point is a certificate. she wants to pay 30k (or rather, wants her parents to pay) for something she could do for, oh, about $1500.

Now, I might not be a bright shining beacon of fiscal responsibility, but even i can see that there's something wrong with her thinking. And not just the bit where she thinks going to school online is *better* ot that U of P is somehow better than the local CC.

It's the bit where there's a program *she can get into* that costs *something like 5%* of what the one she wants does, and she won't even consider it. To the point of screaming and throwing things.

Now, yes, me moving halfway around the planet to flunk out of a program that (can) make people into Vets in 5 years was stupid. I have the study skills of a drunk chimpanzee. And if there was/ is another program that would have taken *me* for the same price or less, I'd have moved my pale scrawny butt there instead.

I went to the *least expensive* option open to me. Crazy, but true. Then I forked it up, but that's not the point.

RM#3 threw a fit because her parents said that if she wanted to go to the place that costs *20x* more, she'd have to pay for it herself. Dude, if I have a choice of mediocre product for $10 and mediocre product for $200, my ass is *so* in the $10 line.

WTF.

srsly. For 30k she could go to a *real* school.. with, you know, classrooms, and stuff. Heck, she could get her whole forking bachelor's at College of Charleston for that much, including living expenses *and* beer.

Then again, I moved to Wyoming because it had the second least expensive out of state tuition in the country and my parents wouldn't pay my tuition if I went to alaska instead, so what do i know...

November! Goals, Needs, Crazynesses

Even on time for once.

I promised a certain money-lending parent type that if I wasn't making $25 a day by the 5th I'd begin looking for an "outside the house" job. So I need to make the dollars. And, of course, any day the total drops below $25 or the average for the days running up *to* that short day is under $25, I'll need to do the job-for-looking thing. Which I hate with a foul passion.

I also want (need?) to actually *win* NaNo this year. I like the idea of actually *finishing* something that big. Even if it *is* just 1667 words a day.

And (it's on my list/ sticker chart) I want/ eed to start writing the articles for the site that pays better. Even though I'm pretty much convinced they'll suck. Even though I'm scared. It just makes no sense at all to spend 30 or 40 minutes writing a crap 300 word article for $3 when I could spend 1.5 hours writing a *good* 300 word article for $20.

Hmmm. What else, what else...

My car needs an oil change. I suspect it's getting to the desperate point by ow, so that's on the "must have money for" list. My friendly friends at Sallie Mae are getting pretty sternly worded in their requests for money, so I need to get something to them soon. Or soon-ish, at least.

Oh, and I've begun scaling down my list of wants/ needs for this move-out of the country, start traveling the world thing I'm planning. To do it the way I want I'd need about $2000 before I go, plus a steady income of at least $1000 a month. Most of that pre-cost stuff is equipment, snazzy special stuff I don't actually *need*- well, not yet, anyway.

I still need a camera (thanks, washing machine), and a good lightweight backpack. And I *need* a working computer and a shiny new passport. I don't need a *new* computer, though. Or a video camera. Or the golf stuff- I can wait for that part of my dreamy trip. And cutting the possibility of golf out of my first 6 months or so cuts back (a lot) on the monthly expenses, too. $1000 a month in Mexico sounds like a tiny amount, but if I can find a cheap place to rent, don't go overboard with internet or food, $600 give or take a bit could work pretty well for a month.

I'll try to earn more, obviously. If I've got myself into a pretty solid "earn $800+ a month" groove, it won't be as much of a problem. If I'm still puttering along well under that, well... nothing like being stuck in another country for motivation, right?

So this month (November) I'll be writing- articles, outlines, synopsis', fiction. I'll be earning dollars (better be, anyway) or I'll be picking up seasonal work. Might do that anyway... I'm sure *someone* is looking for holiday cashiers... I just really don't want to.

Right, also hope to be sending off my passport renewal, doing some hands-on research for a backpack, and haunting my favorite charity shop for cashmere sweaters- better than fleece and cheaper, too.

Ack! I run away in barely more than 3 months and I haven't got *anything* ready yet!