Student Loan Time

Sort of. 5 years ago, give or take 6 months, I moved to the other end of the earth. I took out student loans (or tried to, anyway) to pay for school. If I'd paid attention, showed up for class or (gasp) actually done the work I'd be graduating with a really cool degree in December.

Instead, I have to start paying back those loans in September and October. I know, because I got the "repayment starts soon" paperwork from them yesterday. I'm not totally clear on the numbers fro one of the loans- it seems bigger than I remember. These things happen, though. I just really don't remember borrowing $33810, or any amount that matches that with the interest added.

So I'm a bit lost with that. Now in October I need to come up with three new payments- $141, $67, and $32. And in September I need to start coming up with $81 each month.

It might be time to hunt down an income contingent repayment plan. 'Cause the day $700 (which is my student loan payment monthly total, I think) is 20% of my monthly income is the day I throw a happy happy joy joy party.

Seriously, though- Don't go into *very nice car* worth of student debt with nothing to show for it. Totally not worth the stress.

Building Something from Nothing- part 7

I haven't worked on my website-dealies in a couple weeks now. More like months, actually. That's not good.

You can't succeed at something if you never do anything. Or so they tell me, anyway. If I don't build the stupid site I'll never make anything off of it. If I don't make money off that one, I'll not be able to expand into another.

It's kind of silly, I guess, to earn money over and over on the same work. Build a decent site once, get everything set up, do the SEO, all that jazz, and (if I picked a good niche) I could eventually make money off of it forever. Well, or until the big G smacks me down.

My wrists are telling me that this not-actively-working thing is a good idea. My brain is seconding. I'm pretty sure my fingers or behind are interested in a vote. What I'm doing for money right now doesn't pay well, and it only pays once. If I can do something that pays equally crap, but over and over again, that's the start of something magic.

Sorry, lots more airy-fairy stuff today, not so much with the hard numbers/ hard work/ results. So to be fair-

Making the writing easier-

Like anyone else who spends more time with their computer keyboard than their SO (or other interesting people) I have bad wrists. My "desk" setup doesn't help. 'Parently sprawling across the bed isn't any better than slumping in a crap office chair. Loafing about on my side puts extra pressure on shoulder joints and spines and whatnot. It also encourages me to wander when I'm writing.

So I'm trying out speech recognition software. Sort of.

In the interests of cheap, I didn't buy anything new, I'm just using the speech recognition that's in Win7. I don't know how it stacks up against other products, I know that it works better than the one I had with XP. It recognizes most of my words and directions. Best of all, it was (sort of) free- it came with the OS.

I like speech recognition because when I *say* the sentences they make more sense. I stick to the topic, don't get lost as quickly, and don't (usually) go off on random parentheticals or just drop a sentence half way through. I can lie (lay?) on my back, eyes closed, and just talk. I can toss the words up in my head, hear them as they come out, and edit on the fly. It's kinda nice.

Problems I have with it, well...

You have to speak clearly- after half an hour or so I lose that ability. You need to remember the commands (another problem for me), and you need to check that it's translating correctly. About 10% of the time it comes up with something that, when reading it back later, really makes me wonder WTF I was writing. Also, I don't think I've managed more than 15 words per minute. If I compose in my head as I write, then type away, I can think for 20 seconds, write for 40, and still ge 30 words down. The talking-thing doesn't work that way. more time is spent going back and fixing things, correcting the computer when it doesn't know what I want, or deleting off what I don't want.

I've read (don't remember where) that eventually the speaking/ writing thing gets faster- the computer learns your speech patterns, you remember all the commands, and it all just works together better. Right now, at a penny a word, I can't really afford to play. My average output with speech to text is 600 words an hour. That's less than minimum wage. Much less, when you consider that I have to pay self-employment tax on it.

On jobs that pay better, I might go back to it. For now, though- before I've built up decent residual income- I need to write faster. Right now, that means typing.

Maybe someday I won't have to write at those rates, and I can get paid over and over for the same words. Today, it's all about efficiency, baby.

Pleh and Double Pleh!

Staying in the US is expensive. Leaving is expensive too. Not as much over the long term, but with the list of things I either want or need to bring with me, it's looking kinda spendy.

Of course, some of it I'd be doing anyway. Things like renewing my passport, hunting down a 1 iron, getting a new camera. A bunch of it, though, is really travel-specific. I need to get a new backpack that's lighter and in better shape than the one I have now. I need a new laptop, or at least a new screen and refurb for the old one. I need sleep sheets, and travel vax, and clothes that are good for golf or touring. I need those golf-able clothes to be at least mostly something I'd normally choose to wear.

All together, including all that stuff up there and transportation to my starting point, I need about $1800 to $2500 worth of stuff. I can cut corners in a couple places, and some stuff I over estimated. Still- I want to be going again by the middle of January. That's not very long.

Oh well, the travel will be about the same cost as staying at home, I'll at least have *some* kind of insurance, and maybe I'll finally smoosh some Spanish into this brain of mine.

One major plus if I begin in Mexico? Spending the same on rent there as I do here will get me at least a studio apartment. No roommates.

What Do You Want to be When You Grow Up?

People ask kids that every day. Maybe not the same kid, but someone, somewhere, asks that. After I got over the fact that I wasn't *really* a princess (which was a bit of a shock, and still hasn't totally worn off) I decided I wanted to be retired.

Now, I get the feeling that not a lot of kids go around saying that. I'd imagine it's mostly adults that want to be retired when they grow up. But from what I saw, work sucked! Mom and Dad would go to work super early, stay there all day, come home exhausted and angry, and have to do it all again the next day. Who wants to do that? In contrast my (retired) grandparents watched TV, went to art classes, joined clubs, and generally had an ok time. Doesn't take a genius to figure out which is the better job.

When people ask what you want to be when you grow up they expect a certain type of answer- doctor, fireman, police officer, video game designer. If you tell them you want to be retired, they look at you funny and tell you retirement comes *after* work. Pretty sure I'm still not buying that. It's one of only three things I've ever wanted to be, though. In fact, it's probably the most attainable. Well, for now.

Being a novelist, after all, requires actually writing a novel- preferably a good one. And animal doctoring? Takes a whole lot more geographic stability (and classroom time) than I can manage right now. I think I proved that one pretty conclusively, at least. So that leaves retirement.

Problem is, I don't want to put it off, and I don't want to work like a dog to fund it. Everything else I've done has really been trying to fit my dream job into some kinda framework that other people thought would be ok. Now I'm trying to work some way of earning money into my dream. I think it works better this way.

Kinda funny, though. Every time I told someone what I wanted to be when I grow up (still hasn't happened) they'd tell me you couldn't do that. I don't remember anyone (before I learned to lie about it) suggesting ways to make it happen. Maybe it's a bit forward thinking of me, or obviously liberal, but you shouldn't have to hate your life for years before you get to chase your *real* dreams.

Heck, without dreams and dreamers we'd still all be living in caves. Un-painted, boring caves. Imagine you're a kid again. You can do or be *anything*. What is the one thing that pulls you hardest? Is there any way you could do it now?

Self-Employment, Life, and Taxes

When you have a job, you just get a check. Taxes come out, but until about February, most people with jobs don't need to think about taxes at all. When you don't have a job? Suddenly the tax thing is a huge scary monster.

When you work for yourself you're responsible for your own taxes. Sounds obvious, but it's trickier than I thought. Take home pay calculators for the traditionally employed are all over the internets. Calculators that can/ will do the math on self employment taxes are rather more difficult to find. To be safe I've been working with 35% overall tax rate- FICA, state, fed, whatever.

Turns out this is (more than a little) high. There's no way in any colored hell I'll make enough to pay that much. This year I'll be lucky if I make enough to pay federal income tax at all. Feels strange to write that, by the way--lucky to pay tax. A more accurate tax rate for me, random web site told me, is 22 to 28 percent, including state, fed, and FICA--if I make $4,000 a month for the rest of the year. Not bad.

Related to the whole tax thing, I have to figure out what my tax home is. I don't think you can be without a tax home, and I don't want to be taxed SC state income tax (7% of everything) while I'm off living in some random country. So I foresee some quality time spent between the IRS website, and their Q&A hotline.

Positive stuff this weekend included reading about someone who wandered past an ~300USD /month studio with all utilities included in the non-tourist part of Playa del Carmen. Ok, the *less* tourist part. With WiFi. That's $70 less a month than I pay now, and without a car my savings would be even better. Mexico and South America sound better every day. I'm dreaming about travelling and paying down my debts, all for about what it's costing me to eke out some miserable un-life here. Sounds good to me, even if it means travelling slower than slow.

Start of Month Update- August 2010

Sorry this was a bit delayed- trying to earn the big bucks take time, I guess- well, at a panny a word it does, anyway.

So goals for August are pretty much all money related. I'm gonna take the relaxing, meditating, exercising stuff off for now, because I don't do them, then I feel bad. So I'm dropping them, but I'm sure they'll be back eventually.

So, goals-

• Make enough to pay the bills this month- including (at least) $100 for dad, and the car insurance which is up at the end of the month.
• Write enough articles at textbroker each day to make $50
• Write and submit at least one perfect, clean article a week to Constant Content * (so 3 or 4 this month)
• No matter what, even if all the available article titles at tb suck, write at least one article
• Start working within 2 hours of waking up- every day.
• Write at least one 300 word article for my travel page a day, starting Saturday.
• Get said website actually up and running with at least 10 pages by the end of the month, with 5 up by the 15th.

And some longer range stuff that I need to work on-

• Passport photos, and renewal
• Price digital cameras to replace the one I killed
• Price netbooks for when I take off again
• Start putting together packing list/ to do list for trip
• Save for that trip
• Get other student loans on either forbarence or income based repayment.
• work on timelines for trip-type departure. Looking at December or January.
• Do more research RE: budgets where I'm looking to start out. Connect with people in those areas, find out realistic prices.
• Work on Spanish.

I think that's enough to keep me busy. Some of this is a bit fantasy at the moment. I'm trying to figure out how much I can pull off. I should be able to travel for about what I live on now, albeit in a rather super-budget-kinda way. I'll have to actually *work* on it now, though. Hopefully the idea of getting back out into the world from my small, sad, rat shack life will be enough to get/ keep me motivated.

* The Constant Content link is an affiliate link. If you click on it and sign up to be a writer there, and actually sell something, I get 5% of the sale price. It comes out of the portion CC takes, and their commision is the same if you use the affiliate link or not. I haven't actually got anything up (as of Aug 6, 2010), so I can't tell you with any real authority that it works, but there are some pretty happy writers there. It's web content, nothing first person (no "I"), no fiction, no poetry. But it pays much better than textbroker, and you can pick what you write.

August 2010 Goal post is Postponed

Need to make the money to pay the rent to live in the house, cook the food, and use the internets.

Back 6th August 2010.

Oh, and I made my July $ goal- by about $0.20. I get paid for it sometime in September, but it's nice to know it's possible.