And yet another Job Decision needs to be made.

My mom works at a school for autism kids. Well they are hiring, and at first the job they were offering was for a part-time teacher for 1 to 4.5 yr kids. It was 30 hours a week, at $13 a hr. plus benefits, the kids would be both "normal" and autistic. Many of my friends know I have a slight unnatural fear of kids. I like them okay I just can't handle them for long periods of time. But I was willing to take this job, cause one it would be easy to get to work. If my mom goes I go, which is a big thing because I don't have a car to provide my own transportation. Plus it was a job which meant money would be coming in. And at this junction I need money. I wanted to have a job before February...but since that's tomorrow...I need to kick things into an higher gear.

So I sent my resume to my mom so that she could give it to the head boss. Well today my mom sent me an email saying that the teacher who I would be working with has decided that they don't want another person in there. Which doesn't make sense to me, why didn't they say something before and just not have the job offered. So the boss has decided to do another job offering, instead of being just in one class I would be doing 1:1 with some students plus work in several different classrooms. I would basically be a private tutor for autistic kids. I believe that the pay is slightly higher and I think it might even be full time, not sure. And while the aspect of working with autistic children might be admirable I'm not sure about the whole idea of it. I mean I loved working with my mom when we worked with two of her kids especially the one little girl. But what if I got saddled with one that was destructive to themselves and others, I couldn't handle that. And what if I had to help them learn how to use the potty, or if they had a bathroom accident? Its different when it's a toddler then when it's a kid that's 10. Not only that but the working condition isn't all that great. The people there, especially some of the management are basically not cut out to be in the positions they have. And I don't handle poor management well, I run right over them I can't help it I just do.

So if there is anyone out there actually reading this I would like your thoughts on this conundrum. There doesn't seem to be another option in the horizon and I have bills to pay and a sanity to keep. But just at the same time is this not a similar problem that I found in the Edward Jones job offer?

Credit Cards vs. Debit Cards

This morning as I was going through my blogroll I came across a post at FiveCentNickel, which was titled Yet another Reason Credit Cards are better than Debit Cards. I've noticed a lot of personal finance bloggers who have blogged about this one aspect of PF. I personally think the argument is moot. But if I have to take a side, I would go with Debit Cards are "better" for me, I don't like the idea of psychologically paying for something twice (once when I receive the item and then again when I pay my credit card bill). Also I think it's more rewarding to save up for something and pay for it with my own money.

The basis of his post was that someone in a company had made a major mistake and overcharged their customers. This caused a huge wave of problems for some of them. I'm sorry but it doesn't matter if you have a credit card or a debit card, getting overcharged for anything is not a good thing. Well FCN says that this proves that credit cards are better because those who had credit cards on file it wasn't a big deal, the company refunded the money and they went on with their life. But those who had debit cards on file, some of them occurred overdraft funds and some had bounced checks. Another problem I had with the post was one of the comments that said it was harder to deal with this sort of mistake or bank fraud with a debit card versus a credit card.

I had two major problems with this reasoning:
1. I think the post was a bit biased from FCN perspective, he took for granted that everyone who has a credit card had the room on the card for such a charge as well as any other automatic (or non-automatic) charges to occur, and those who had debit cards didn't have the extra cash. Last time I check, once you maxed out a credit card...that's it no more free money. Granted the debit card you have a limit of overdraft fees you can occur (for some accounts) and it too will be freeze. In this aspect neither one wins out.

2. He says those who had a credit card got repaid and life went on...again looking at the note before...I'm sure not every one's life was that happy cherry. He also leaves out the fact that those who had debit cards got their money back as well. Again granted those who occurred fees and other problems have more to deal with, getting it all straighten out, but those who had the same problem with credit cards have to go through the same deal. So again neither one wins out.

As far as the comment about dealing with the mistake, their basis was that you wouldn't know about a identity theft occurrence until the end of the month for a debit card, when your statement arrived. But with a credit card, you would notice it sooner because the card would get denied...

Okay, umm...this gave me paused. First off, if you are waiting for a monthly statement to arrive to check your accounts, in this age of online banking, then something is quite literally wrong. Even if you don't have access to a computer with Internet, most places offer telebanking to check your accounts. And what if you are like FCN who had a decent balance, your card wouldn't have been denied and thus you still wouldn't have known until the statement arrived. Identity theft is such a major problem now a days, keeping a close eye on your accounts is just plain smart.

Dealing with identity theft through credit cards or debit cards is no real difference, especially with more and more banks offering identity theft protection programs, just like credit cards. (Side notes, both sides charge you for the protection so for those who don't have it...they are still S.O.L. be it they have credit cards or debit cards.) And it's not that easy, no matter what the t.v. says, to deal with identity theft. It's a long and tedious battle, depending on how much money you have.

Having a debit card doesn't make you more vulnerable to identity theft. If you don't practice safe spending and aren't aware of your money and the accounts, then you put your own self up for risk, it doesn't matter what you have in your wallet.

I know that a lot of people have their reason for choosing to carry and use a credit card, but there are just that many people who prefer debit cards. Like I said I think the argument is moot. For every supposed con there is for using debit cards, there's a con for a credit card. For this situation, FCN chalks this up for a win for credit cards, but there are way too many factors he didn't take into consideration. The situation was bad no matter how you look at it, but those who were able take the hit with out it being much of a hassle to fix had it easier, and that goes for credit card and debit card holders.

Let It Sleet, Let It Sleet...Let It Sleet? part II

So as promised her are some more pictures from the ice "storm" of 2008. I decided to go for a walk around the property and find some really nice shots. This was after I had just played three hours on Guild Wars...I needed the exercise. This time I tried to make sure they weren't blurry!

Ice Storm of 2008 004

As you can see it's already starting to melt away, it stopped sleeting a couple of hours ago. Easy come easy go.

Ice Storm of 2008 005

My mom's car again

Ice Storm of 2008 007

The back patio

Ice Storm of 2008 008

close up

Ice Storm of 2008 025

Ice Storm of 2008 029

Ice Storm of 2008 041

This isn't showing the ice, but this sign is right behind our property. I personally think it's rather a great sign!

Ice Storm of 2008 042

Even though there wasn't a lot and it didn't last for long someone was still able to make snowman.

Ice Storm of 2008 043

Ice Storm of 2008 044

The last one's are my favorite.

Let It Sleet, Let It Sleet...Let It Sleet?

Today I woke up to our first ice "storm" since my freshman year in college back in 2003. It didn't do much but it's still sleeting as we speak so it might get worse. But it's also starting to warm up. Here are some of the pictures I took... (Sorry but some of them are a bit blurry, it was still sleeting when I took them.)

025

This was taken from the Living Room Window.

029

Taken from the front door, that's my Mom's car.

030

Someone had already made footprints...I wanted to be the first.

031

The hedge right next to our door.

032

Shot of my Mom's car.

033

A sky shot

034

A close up of the car

037

A blurry close up

038


My sleeve

039

My footprint

041

Our back patio

042

Another picture of the back patio

I'll try to take some more pics as the day goes by. I have to go out later to do the laundry. Our laundry "room" is sort of detached from the house, off the back patio. Today was a snow day so both my mom and my brother are home, talk about family time.

Job Search: Hard Decision Made and Back to the Grind

Well after much debate with myself and some discussion with my mom. I opted to not take the job with Edward Jones. This was a major decision for me and I'm one of those people who always like to think of all the pros and cons before I make a decision. I thought I would share them with you all...so you can see what I was thinking.

The Pros:

1. It was a job which there would income coming in

2. The work entailed some interest for me...basically it would be a continuation of the things I want to eventually do with this blog, financial advising.

3. They were willing to train me to become a financial advisor and pay me for my training.

4. I would basically starting my own business and they would hire me an assistant to help maintain the office.

5. The pay was more than I was looking for...just over $30,000 plus bonuses. Their benefits packages was pretty good to... the basic included basic life insurance, basic accidental death and dismemberment insurance, income continuation plan for short-term disability, profit sharing and tuition reimbursement. (They also have optional medical and dental insurance, long-term disability, supplemental life insurance, supplemental accidental death and dismemberment insurance, dependent life insurance, long-term care insurance, health care reimbursement account, dependent day care reimbursement account, 401(k) plan, after-tax plan and investment savings plan.)

So those are some good pros...but what made me decide to go the other way

The Cons:

1. Ultimately this is a sales job...something I don't really want my whole job to be about. I know that almost all jobs has some sort of sales to it. But in order to be successful in this job you had to be a successful salesperson.

2. It's a career oriented job. I'm not looking for a career just yet. I want to go back to school in a year or two and I don't think I could just walk away from this in that time frame.

3. I would be responsible for my paycheck. They only pay you the salary for the first month, after that it's really up to you to have built a sizable business to start making a income.

4. I can't really see myself doing this for long, it seems very stressful and I wouldn't be able to do that and school, plus continue on working on my writing.

5. I'm just too young to start to settle into such a career path.

So five cons and five pros...you can see how I was in a bit of a fix. But I realized that it wasn't really about how many was in each list but how much they each weighed in my life. This is where it really pays to know your life dreams and goals. Granted one of my life dreams is to become financially stable but I don't want to sacrifice other dreams to be financially stable. In my life the Cons weighed more than the Pros. While I feel a little disappoint that I'm not posting about a new job, I'm comforted by the fact that I hadn't sold my soul for money. It's a good feeling.

Job Search: Potential Job?

I finally got up the nerve to call the lady back from Edward Jones. Unfortunately she wasn't there so I left her a message. She then called me back and I didn't hear the phone ring so I missed it. But she did leave a message and I'm suppose to call her back tomorrow morning and we are to have a discussion. I'm thinking they have some sort of entry level position. I don't really know how I feel about it.

On the one had I'm excited about a potential job, on the other hand I'm nervous that I'm getting my hopes up for nothing. So I've been trying my best not to think about it. I told my mom about the other day, and my sister. My mom was like okay well maybe they have a entry level position, just call her back and see what she has to say. My sister was less supportive, saying that I wasn't qualified. I don't know what they are looking for so I don't know if I'm qualified or not.

I'm really ready for a job cause I'm ready to start anew. I know I'm kinda asking for a lot, everyone's saying it's gonna take a while before I can actually get something. My dad has been looking for work for five years. I don't know what all he's applied for but I'm hoping my luck will be different.

On a side note, my mom *suggested* that I think about just going back to school...possibly in another state. I've been thinking about it, but it might not be as easy as everyone seems to think. It's much harder to get into grad school plus find money to do it. Besides I haven't a clue really what I want to go back for. That's why I took the year off to try and figure it out.

Losing Weight at a Discount

You know sometimes it pays to click on a random ad. Today when I logged onto my music "subscription", Ruckus (I'll tell you about that at another time) there was an ad for the National Body Challenge. For a while now I have been trying to lose a decent amount of weight, for various reasons. I can't claim to have tried many different diets, my Mom can though. You see I have an unnatural fear of vegetables. It goes behind the whole not liking vegetables, no they actually cause me fear. Over the years I've been trying to ad more and different types of vegetables, but it's going very slowly. At present I can stomach peas, corn, small doses of Alfredo drenched broccoli, onions, small amounts of carrots and that's about it.

I have tried two of the main stream diets, Weight Watchers and Slim Fast. I have strong opinions of both, the main one being they aren't budget/frugal friendly. Weight Watchers basis of going to meetings is a good one, I mean it's much easier when you feel like you have to answer to someone. And even though they say it's about community, come on who isn't going to be a little competitive in an area like that. Slim Fast, is advertised as free, which in a way they have one up on Weight Watchers, you can easily go online and use their tools and website for free. (Weight Watchers online tools is part of their Weight Watchers Online program and cost roughly the same as going to the meetings programs.) But Slim Fast is really geared around their products that are not cheap at all. It's hard to substitute regular food when they say have a Slim Fast Meal Replacement bar for Lunch...well does that mean for us normal folks?

So at first I was a bit skeptical of the NBC program. So I clicked on the ad and it took me to the Discovery health website, so far so good. So why am I psyched about this challenge. Well for starters its completely free. The package is amazing to be free, you get:

  1. An 8-week free membership to a Bally Total Fitness
  2. Customized meal plans
  3. Progressive fitness plans, tailored to you by professional experts
  4. Diverse community support (It's called the National Body Challenge for a reason.)
  5. Individualized weight and fitness trackers
  6. Various videos and interactive tools
  7. Plus more!

There is one set back...it's only a 8 week challenge From January 5 2008 to March 2 2008. But I'm sure the information you learn both on the website and on TV you can easily take it with you to keep for life. Another important note is that the you can potential register anytime doing the 8 weeks but the 8 week pass to Bally Fitness is available until the 15 of January (11:59pm).

If your reading this after the end of it...don't worry it's a yearly thing. If I have a great experience this year, I plan on doing it again next year.

Personal Vices

Everyone has a vice or two that cause them money every single paycheck. It's our guilty pleasure, or gift to ourselves for being us. And most people always find it way to account for these vices. But when you are strap for cash or looking to get out of debt, vices can be the bane of your existence.

My vices are gadgets and books, and recently e-books and music. I like to think I am on top of my vices, every now and then I go a bit overboard but not often.

I heart gadgets, I'm a total Generation Y type of gal. If it flashes and does cool things then I'm all for it. The latest gadgets I bought was my cell phone and laptop. I had never own a personal computer before in my life. When I came to college my dad bought me a used PC desktop and used one of the old monitors we had around the house and it lasted me all the way until that summer before it died. Then I went to a rental place a rented a laptop...I went through two of them before the last one fell apart due to shoddy workman ship. My Jr. year a friend of my dad's gifted me with their old PC desktop and it last for 1.5 years, I loved that thing it was the best computer I ever had. But then my dorm room had a surged and it crashed...well after waiting for several months and using my dad's old laptop I had finally had enough money in a paycheck to buy me one. I researched it as good as I could. And ended up with a Toshiba Satellite A135-S4527. It cost me less than $600, and it was more advanced than my two friends Dell laptops that they had both purchased last August (one had went into debt to get and the other one had their parent pay for it.)

Before that I saved for a whole semester to get my self a Nintendo DS and three games. I was so excited to get, again my own personal game console ( I had shared a Sega and a original Nintendo with my sister and my brother had a Playstation 2). Out of the three games I bought I mastered one in less than two months, the other two I got bored with extremely fast and traded them in. I got some more games and one for X-mas but I haven't mastered them either. Since last march I think I've played my game maybe a handful of times. Recently I've been thinking about selling it on Amazon or Ebay. But every time I think about it I remembered how I saved and how I know it's just because I haven't bought a new game for it that I don't play it.

I haven't bought a new book or e-book since October and I won my video mp3 player and I canceled my music subscription back when I bought me laptop...I have Vista and the To-go feature doesn't work with the Vista.

I know that in the upcoming months that these holds on my vices will have to continue but I must confess I look forward to the day when I can dip my toes in them once again.

Happy Birthday to Me

Today is my 23rd birthday, it feels weird. I didn't do anything out of the ordinary, I hate it when my birthday falls on a weekday, not to mention that I have no money to go and splurge on myself. I know there are tons of things to do for free, but not here in the south and definately not during the monf January. Now next week around Martin Luther King's birthday then yeah I'm sure there will be loads of free things. But that's one of the things that can lead to not liking the fact that your birthday is only two weeks after Christmas. A lot of people think you can just lump it all together but I figure if I can't lump your birthday in with the closet national holiday than neither should you being lumping mines.

But other than that I am happy to see another year, I am happy to have my family around for another year. 2007 was not the year I wanted it to be but I survived it and I can only go int o 2008 with a positive outlook.

In other news, I have gotten another email from Edward Jones about a possible job, I know I should get in touch with the lady. It's a job, but I don't know if I am truly qualfied to work there. So I am going to sleep on it and perhaps call them tomorrow morning. I know I can't dally to long or I might be passing up a good chance. I know I can learn and excel anything I put my mind to, dealing with other people's finances? *sigh* that's a big thing.

Well I'm off to do something...maybe this weekend I'll do something festive for my birthday.

Vacationing From the Edge: The Reasons part 2

In the last part of the Vacationing From the Edge series I talked about my low-self esteem issues. Today's post will cover the Dreamer part.

Dreamer

Being a dreamer is a permanent characteristic for me, so I'm going to preface this with a I don't see me ever not being a dreamer. Some times my dreams get lost amongst reality and some times I prefer my dream world over this real world. And this has really caused a lot of my problems to date but I don't see me forsaking my dreams to become financially stable.

For starters being a dreamer helps me cope with life. I mean life is not a easy thing to deal with. Because with life you have death and that's not a real awesome thing to think about (Unless you are a Goth- I'm not...nothing against them.) Being from a barely above poverty line family I got use to drowning everything and everyone out when things got bad. But as I've gotten older I know and understand that things could have gotten a lot worse.

How does that translate to my personal financial predicament? Well often it means I set to high of a goal for me to obtain in the small amount of time I give myself, which means I usually fail. And I've talked about that already and how that affects me so no repeats. But one of the truly big dream that I have that affects me the most is that I want my family to be happy and stress free. I know there are some going...Wait you can't put that all on yourself...you gonna drive yourself crazy trying to do that. Hence the title of the blog. Well I've been trying for 20-something years and I've not manage to do it. My family is miserable or anything they just aren't as happy as they could be, if we all weren't financially burden.

Often I catch myself daydreaming while others are living their life. And over the few weeks I've been here trying to find work I have come to some decisions.

It's time to stop living in the dream world solely, I think it's fine for me to visit at least once a day. I'm very creative...creativity is an extension of my soul. I need it to survive which means I need to dream to come up with new ideas of creativity. From writing to photography, digital arts to sculpture, painting to basket weaving. I've done it all and I'm always interested in coming up with new ways to express my creativity. I've come up with a list of new hobbies I want to try that I'll post about later.

I don't look at being a dreamer as being a negative thing, but I do understand the part it had to buying me the ticket to the edge.

The Job Search

As you know I am currently unemployed. Which is a major bummer. After having a solid job for fours years straight I got use to having one. It's weird I always thought I would prefer not to have to have a job but now that I don't I want one. It sucks not having money. Not because I want to buy stuff, cause I don't. I've had plenty of chances to spend the little bit of money I have on frivolous things but just haven't been in the mood to be a consumer.

But I have been proactive, as much as I can be without a car to go searching for work. I have actively applied for four different positions in the last three days. All at local colleges and one at a bank for a financial advisor (on the job training). I have a phone call coming in for the bank to talk about a interview set up so let's keep our fingers crossed. I would like to have some sort of employment before the first of February.

In the mean time I have been looking around for other ways I can make some cash while I wait. I've signed up for Google Adsense and Amazon Associates for this blog, and I'm thinking about put my other blog and website on the account. I have a website for my fictional writing and I get a pretty steady stream of business on there. I have some diehard readers that come by on the regular. Speaking of writing I've been looking for competitions to enter to gain some revenue plus get my name out there. Anything and everything (that's legal of course) I'm looking into.

I have a massive paperback collection. About five or so boxes worth of books in my parents storage. They have been in there over a year now. I figured since I haven't really missed them I can start selling them on Amazon, they are all in excellent order. I was taught how to maintain a paperback collection and how to repair said paperbacks for commercial resale. So my paperbacks are practically like new. At least they were before going into storage, there is no telling how they are now. But I have some books that I kept out of storage that I can start with.

I'll keep you all posted about how this all works out.


up