Goals February Review

february



Here's how I did on my February Goals:

1. Look for more places to apply: Met and Passed. I applied to 10 more places with in the last month.

2. Gain full time employment: I got an part time job, but have yet to gain full time employment.

3. Find more ways to bring in non-salary income: Counting the Part Time job towards this goal as well. I've tried to doing surveys, and have found one thing out I'm not a survey type of person. Through CashCrate.com I've only qualified for 1 and earned a total of .80 (wow!) and it was irritating, it was a movie survey and basically it was trying to get me to see this one movie, it was very bias to that one movie. I still need to go through Linkworth's and start implementing that, so I'm going to say this is 70% done.

4. Post more articles on Helium: 100% I posted a total of two articles this month.




Am I the Only One Who Thinks Some THings Happen for a Reason?

I know I'm not, but I can't help to think sometimes I am. This morning I talked about the lows and highs I went through these past couple of days. I'm sure you might recall me posting about how I turned down the Edward Jones job. Well after I did I sort of regretted it, but I didn't pay it no mind. Because I often regret choices I make. I'm use to it right about now. Well this one wouldn't go away and something about just kept nagging me. Well this morning when I went to check my many emails, I found a email from Edward Jones asking me to reconsider the possibility, adn you know what I am?


I'm not positive on what I'll do but I'm going to take a closer look at it this time around for sure.


Vacationing from The Edge: Mood Swings

It's amazing how one can go from a high to a low in space of a day. Well maybe in the space of a weekend. Last week I wrote how I had gotten a part time job, well I still have it, she just pushed back my start date. I was suppose to start this morning, but she wasn't quite ready for me. Hopefully I can start next week. Then my dad did my taxes, I was slated to get almost $300 back from Federal and just over $200 from state. Which I was glad to get, since I had only worked technically part time the whole year. Well they rejected both state and federal and my dad had to re-file for me, the problem? There had been a tax update within the week he had did my mom's and sisters and mines. That update affected me and the tax limit bracket I guess I was in, thus I get nothing from federal and only $54 from state, that's a big difference. Although I wasn't that upset because taxes are something you should never count on having. The government is to fickle to rely on, so oh well.


So I was bit bummed about that, I was going to use half of the money to pay off some debt, but oh well. I'll just use half of that to start the high yield savings accounts. Later that day the post came, and I must admit I love getting mail, even if it's just junk mail. I like it to see my name on it, it's weird I know. I don't necessarily like to get bills, but it is mail so I'm torn on it. Well yesterday there were several things for me, I felt so special. There was a first class envelope with no returned address, some samples I had sent off for, a coupon for free kid's yogurt, and a letter from my student loans provider.


Of course I was curious over the first class mail, no one ever sends me something so important it has to come in a priority mail envelope, not even my college degree was sent in one. So I tore it open, and it was a letter from some government agency conducting a survey. The survey was about how American students pay for secondary education. In gratitude they send you a $30 check after you finish it, since it was a web survey I logged on and completed the survey in about 25 mins. So in about four weeks I should be getting a $30 check. That of course lifted my spirits.


The samples and the coupon lifted my spirits even more, another thing I love is free stuff. I'm really excited to try the kid's yogurt. Even though I'm no where near a kid, the things they put out for kids tend to be more nutritious than the things they put out for grown ups. This one has less sugar than normal yogurt and plus its free.


But the biggest boost was the letter from the student loaner, I thought it was just my monthly statement that they send. But no it was a letter say that two of my loans were being dropped because of no disbursal. For some reason when you graduate in December they still give you financial aid for the spring semester. I had to wait for my alma matter to say I was no longer enrolled before they took away the loans. So a total of $2,751 was dropped from my total debt. Bringing my total to $15,190.98 in student loans and $17,904.00 in total debt. That's not bad, compared to some other's (got to stay positive.)


Well with all that good news coming back to back how could I get into a low? Well I received an email from one of the jobs I applied to and they decided to go with some one else, oh well. Then I sent an email to my mom asking what's the hold up on that job. Apparently they too went with someone else but that person declined the offer. So I'm just going to go ahead a say I didn't get that one. My mom thinks I should send an email to the head inquiring about the job and how I would really love to work for them, but I'm like I wasn't there first choice and they aren't my first choice, I'm not going to "beg" them for the job when I don't really want it. So back to the hardcore grind of applying for non-existent jobs.


I think the good and the bad have just even me out, I'm bummed but not to bummed. I would really like to get started some where in a job, just to give myself something else to think about.


Some Things I Wish I Knew Then That I Know Now

I honestly don't know who said hindsight was 20/20 but sometimes I like to think they were just a clueless about things like I am sometimes. As I come up on my second month of being a college graduate, there are more and more things I wish I had known when I was in my second month of high school graduation bliss that I now know now. But isn't that the case for a lot of people? To keep it in tune with this blog, there are some financial things I wish had known then.


Not all banks are the same.


When I entered college I had a savings account at a then local bank, but when I went to my student orientation, there were sales reps for Wachovia. They were offering free student checking to all students who signed up through them. I had no clue what all entailed in a checking account but it was free and I got checks. So I signed up and a month or so later I got my card, only to find that my name was spelled wrong. After five years, two cards, numerous calls to customer services, and conversations with bank tellers, my name is still spelled wrong. I wished I would have known that not all banks are the same, and I should do some research to find the one that works for me. I've written a total of five checks from that bank in five years, and maybe withdrawn money from a teller once every blue moon. If I would have did a little research even say after my first year, I might have stumbled on some of PF blogs now and been a bit better off now. But I also would have come across high yield accounts, which would have been a good thing.


Not all credit cards are the same.


I hate to admit that the only reason I got my credit cards is because I was tempted with a free shirt, now I still wear my shirt and in way I kind of don't regret it. But again research would have helped a long ways. Compared the rates and find the one that was right for me. I lucked out that the cards I did get were the ones for me with pretty good rates.


The art of saving for the long haul


I've tried multiple times to save, and always ended up saving for short term purpose. Usually to buy something for myself. It never occurred to me to save for the long haul, to plan for longer than an end of a semester. An emergency fund would have come in handy right about now, but then again I didn't know what that was and how to go about it.


Investing in the future and myself


I always thought you had to be a 30 something with a full time job before you could even think about investing. Even now I'm not so sure that's the case. But I know it's not, it just seems like something that's so overwhelming that you need at least 30 years of knowledge just to read through the literature. But here's where PF bloggers come in handy again, by no means are they all knowing. But they probably read more books about the subject then you have, when I'm trying to learn something new, I peruse the blogs read for the basics and then read the literature for myself. By doing this I'm not going into the book blindly, I have some handle on the lingo and the basic structure. It helps.


The difference between a spending plan and a budget


I thought I knew what a budget was, but really I was creating spending plans. I've realize that a combination of both works for me. I budget how much money goes into each category and then devise a spending plan of how to spend that allotted amount, with an eye to save as much from each that I can.


These are just a few things I wish someone had felt the need to tell me before I waved my parents goodbye that August morn.


Vacationing From the Edge: Preparing to Buy the Plane Ticket Back Home

Yesterday I told you that I was able to get a part time job, which is the first part in what I am now thinking of me returning from the edge of sanity (hence this blog post title). If you recall I already have a preliminary working budget, (and also here) where I figured out that I would need $23,769.60 (after taxes), or rather about $1,980.80 (after taxes) a month. I already planned on getting a part time job, although be it I had planned on getting one after I got a full time job, but I'm looking at in a positive light. I was mighty fortunate to find this job and to have my boss understand that I am still looking for a full time job and is more than willing to accommodate this. I'm more than excited to work for such a wonderful group of ladies and want to do my best to help them expand their business. At the rate it is now, it more than compensates for the pay I was looking for in a part time job. So in the grand scheme of things, I might be going about it in a backwards fashion but it'll balance out in the end.


I'm still waiting on the teacher position and I hope to hear something this upcoming week. I'm not all that confident that I will get the position and am still actively looking. I received an email from a former work colleague who asked if I had found work and he would be keeping his eyes opened for anything. So keep the fingers crossed, I still have six days before the end of the month to find full time work in order to meet one of my monthly goals.


Despite the fact that I don't have the full time job I still wanted to come up with a plan of action to jump start my personal finances. I know me if I don't think of it before hand then I'll just go on as before. The first thing I have put down is I can't loan money out, I won't be bringing a lot in so I need to be able to control where that money goes. You might have noticed I put back up my progress bars, although they have been paired down quite a back. I have a bar for Other debt (debt not related to student loans), Student Loans, Car Fund, and Apartment Fund, I might be putting one up for Savings as well.


Other Debt


I currently have $2,713.02 in other debt not related to student loans: credit card 1 ($1,468.00), credit card 2 ($ 777.19), class ring payment ($137.83), and medical bills ($330.00). I plan to get rid of this first for a couple of reasons the main one being it's the smallest amount and I could in theory (if it doesn't grow) knock this one out with in the year.


Student Loans


I currently have $ 17,192.00 in student loans and $749.98 in interest on those loans. I still have four months left on my grace periods and I haven't consolidated it yet either. Which I will be doing most likely in the last month of my grace period. I've already started the process of looking up different options. I have all my loans through the College Foundation of my state, and they boost that they save you money on your consolidation loan, which I would think they all did but guess not.


Car Fund


I live in the south and it's not easy to live in the south without a car. I would like to manage to do without a monthly car payment but I am so particular in what I want: small to medium size and mid-90's to early 00's that I'm more than likely going to have to have a car payment. If I could keep it to under $350 a month I would be good. I've set a $2,000 limit for the down payment. I don't really want to use the whole amount on just the down payment, but on all the other things that goes with starting insurance, tags and licensure, and the payment for driver's license. I've managed to put it off for 23 years I don't think I push my luck any more. Plus I'm getting a bit tired of depending on others for rides.


Apartment Fund


This is the biggest for me, other than getting rid of the debt of course, I need my own place. More for keeping my elusive sanity. I've set a goal of $3,000 for application fees, security deposit, first and last months rents, utilities deposits, first round of food stocking, furnishings, and a house warming party. A friend of mines advised me to have at $1,000 set aside to do the first four items on the list but I like to have a little insurance so I added another $500 to it and the rest of the $1,500 is to do the food stocking, furnishings, and the party all on a low cost budget of course. I would like to find a two bedroom in a decent and safe neighborhood under $600 which I can do, the only aspect would be the commute. Honestly I would be willing to do a longer than average commute if I found my dream apartment. I know with the gas crisis that's a big pf no-no but sometimes it's about filling a want rather than a need.


The Plan


Well like I've said there isn't going to be a lot of money coming in just yet, but I would like to start paying down some debt and saving some money. So the first thing to be paid will be the other debt in a SanityGurl fashioned snowball plan. The class ring payment, then the medical bills, then credit card 2 and credit card 1. There's tons of information on handling a snowball debt plan, which was first thought of (I believe) by a guy name Dave Ramsey. A lot pf bloggers would go with the Highest interest method (I'll discuss at another time along with the snowball debt method) but my credit cards don't have high interest rates and the amount is not that great.I plan to pay off the class payment in full and then take that amount and split equally amongst the other debts on top of the minimum. So in a way I'm doing it the way he prescribes but I'm not over paying just one and not the others. Hopefully buy the end of my grace period in the end of June I will have paid off the class ring and the medical bills, and made a noticeable dent in the credit card debt. I no longer use my credit cards so I don't see it growing much outside of the interest. At the same time I'm paying out for debt I want to make equal payment into a savings account. I plan on opening an high yield one, (another topic for another day) and have three sub-accounts, Car Fund, Apartment Fund, and Savings. I think this is a good start, don't you? It helps that my mom is allowing me to stay here rent free, although I'll still give her some kind of money to help out.


Job Search: Part time job

Well the interview went well, better than expected (sort of). She offered me the job right there, and as I thought low pay and no benefits. But it's okay. Because know there will be some kind of income coming in, which means I will have some personal finances, not much but some. I'm excited, can you tell? So what's the job? It's an office assistant for a beauty consultant firm. I get to do all the things I love to do. I'll be an assistant, web designing, marketing, organizing, PR(ing), inventory, customer relations, accounting, product buying and more. And a few things I don't like answering phones, not one of my favorite things to do but I'll do it. Right now it's only two days a week, it might increase to more days if I'm needed.

It's going to take an initial large sum of hours to get started, mainly because they have been with out an assistant and the head admitted that she had no system so she's opened to suggestions (yay!) and you can totally tell. The first thing is to do an overhaul inventory, it's suppose to be done every January but that didn't happened. She's willing to work with me once I find a full time job to adjust my hours, which is a good thing. I would hate to leave her in a lurch if I were to get a position soon.

So right now I'm probably looking at about $400 a month from this position, like I said not a lot but it's something. I still haven't heard something from my mom's job, hopefully I'll hear something next week. I honestly don't know why they are lagging. It's almost not worth it, but right now that pay is to much to pass up. The next thing to happen is me making a action plan to get the most out of the pay for this part time job.

sanitygurl

Job Search: Another Interview


Today I have another interview, for an office assistant. I don't know how much it's for and I don't even know if there are any benefits. Somehow I doubt it. Why am I pursuing this position? Well the lady who I would be working for is a contact of my mom's. She told my mom she was looking for an office assistant and my mom suggested me. So there is a rather good chance that I will get, but the real question is for how long will I keep it. I'm still going to be looking for a better job, I know this just isn't the one for me.


I'm meeting with her this afternoon to discuss the position, I'll let you guys know how everything turns out.


In other news, I've kinda come at a stall point for things to write in this blog. It's not easy to keep an PF blog, when you don't have PFs. I've actually stopped hardcore reading the many PF blogs I fav. Mainly cause I haven't found blogs that are really talking to me. It might be where I'm looking, but I'm not finding any PF blogs for single recent college grads, especially women. What does that mean? That there aren't any other single female recent grads that take an interest in the pfs? Or does it mean that these people just don't write about it? Like I said it could be where I'm looking. I would like to find some blogs that really are aimed at a person such as me. I'm sorry I can't really get into a blog that talks about family life with a husband/wife/significant other and their kids/lack there of. I'm 23 I'm not looking for a family life just yet.


I would also like to find blogs that don't force their opinions onto their readers. Not that there is wrong with having opinions but some bloggers have strong opinions and they don't take the time to address the other side. I guess that's what I'm suppose to do but if your going to tell me your opinion it would be nice to see your take on the other side to show that you aware of it.


Sorry about that rant, it's just something I've been thinking about.


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Suze Orman's Women and Money

The other day I was lucky enough to be reading several of my PF blogs and saw that Oprah was giving away a free copy of Suze Orman's book, Women and Money. The download was until the end of Valentine's Day, so sorry if you missed it. I've seen her book on other's blog and was a bit curious as to what was detailed inside. But since my local library did not have it, and I haven't been able to get to the main library, I just put it on my wish to read list. Well God most definitely works in mysterious ways. How else could you explain this gracious gift? Well I plan on start reading it today and will be sharing my thoughts through out the course of it.

Does anyone else have any good personal finance books they would like to suggest?

Until next time,

sanitygurl

*Notice the name change? Yeah I'm still crafting my blog identity...which will explain the template changes and what not...sorry, Hopefully I'll hit on the perfect combination soon!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentines Day

I know it's only two hours away from the end of the day, sorry about the late posting. I made a promise to my website readers to have an update by today and I've been working on that all day. I just got finished with that and halfway through the day I thought it would be good to take a five hour nap. But anyhow Happy Valentine's day, I hope yours was filled with love and appreciation. Did anyone do anything special today?

Helium

As promised in this post, here is a detail post about the new service called Helium. Basically Helium is a website were writers go and post articles on a wide range of things. There is three aspects of Helium and how it can earn you money. Here's a quick break down:

1. Write and Rate: This aspect of Helium is quite easy. First after signing up, you can go in to main part of Helium and find a channel you like, Arts and Humanities, Politics, Science, whatever you can think of there's a spot for it. Once you choose a channel you will find different prompts under the channel. For instance under the Society and Lifestyle channel, you have four major sub-channels: African-American Issues, Lifestyle, Racism, and Society & Lifestyle (other). In the sub-channels you will find topics to write on. Examples in African-American Issues: Barack Obama: Christian or Radical liberal?, Lifestyle: Living unconventional lifestyles, Racism: Passing on our prejudice is a disservice to our children, and S & L (other): Dating and the disabled. Once you find the topic you want to write on, you write. I suggest you write in a word processing program of some sort, that has a good spell and grammar check. Usually there is a word limit of 1200 or more, but sometimes it's less. After you wrote your article, re-read a couple of times, just like any other writing. And then go back to the site, click on the topic and it will take you to the page where you can post your article. After you go through the posting process, you will be taking to two articles on the same topic. Your asked to read both articles and rate which one is better than the other. After you post your first article you can start rating others.

How do you earn money? You can earn money from this by writing good articles and writing a lot of them. Just like you rated the other articles, someone else is rating yours. And the higher it goes the more it earns. So the more articles you have out there that are well-written, the more money your going to earn. Right now they are doing a reward-athon, the more articles you post under a certain criteria you earn stars, after you earn a star you get paid a certain amount for every article you post, if you post more articles that meet the criteria more stars, more money.

2. The Marketplace: If you are looking to earn a lot of money quickly, then this is the aspect of Helium you want to pay attention to. In the Marketplace you will find postings from editors and publishers on all sorts of topics. They post the topic and the amount they will pay for the article, for example one of the latest was from a children's magazine looking for mystery stories (even a chance for it to be turned into a series.) If they chose your story, they were going to pay $50 for one. There are pay-outs from as low as $16 to as high as $150 an article. Because of the high pay-outs, these articles are highly competitive (they also have expiring dates- so read the whole post before starting something.).

How do you earn money? Pick a title and write some of the best stuff you've every written before. You could earn up to $150 for just one article. But remember that this section is very competitive and the titles needed can be scarce sometimes.

3. Contests: This is kind of self-explanatory. A collection of writing competitions for many different topics. It's basically like the Write and Rate section, except you have less choice in the subject manner, and it deals with a point system. You collect points by writing as many highly rated articles as you can, under the channel (which has several different titles to chose from.) But if any of your articles drop below the top 50% points will be taken away from you.

How do you earn money? Like the first two, write good articles. First prize is $75, 2nd is $25, 3rd is $10, and 4th is $5.

So with a good combination of all three, you could really make a killing do what you like best writing. Is it worth the time and effort? I think it is, if you enjoy writing, then you really aren't going to be to bothered about the time and effort it takes to craft a good article. It's going to come natural to you. And like I said if you find a good combination of the three aspects, then yeah it could be worth it. Plus you are putting your name out there, publishers are looking at this site too. There are tons of success stories form people who were picked up full time (well freelance full time) from magazines.

Losing Weight: Update

Exercise Girl

Well it's been one whole month since I started the National Body Challenge. And I thought I would do a post about how I'm doing and share some of the tips that I've kind of collected throughout the challenge. Well first off I've lost some weight, not substantial, which is to be expected. Since the goal of the Challenge is really to get you more healthy, not necessarily help you lose tons of weight really fast. So some is better than none, right? I have three more weeks left before the Challenge ends, it's going to be interesting to see what happens then. Hopefully I will have a job by then and if it's the school one, then I'm definitely going to be losing some weight running after them children.

Here is a short list of some of the tips I've managed to collect.

1. There's a difference between rewarding yourself with a treat and binging. In reality you can eat almost anything, but the key is to eat in moderation. Never deprive yourself of something you love, in the long run your going to do more damage to yourself. I'll never give up three things: sugar, bread and tea. I need them to survive, which is why any diet that cuts those out is not the diet for me.

2. When a craving comes...distract it by eating some soup (which is more filling then most other foods), a salad (which will help you fill up with less calories and knock three servings of vegetables), and nuts (when kept in moderate potion size, they can really give you a boost in between meals)

3. Be a mindful eater, once you get an handle of be aware of calories and setting your daily calorie intake you'll hone a skill of knowing which foods will do you good and the portion size of food. You'll also learn which foods will tend to make you overeat. For me it's sweet breads, it's like a tingling in my mouth, once I have one I have to have another and another.

4. An exercise doesn't have to be some pre-planned can't change the routine hour long deal. As long as your active in some kind of way, that's better then being inactive. Granted as you start to get more and more use to being active, you should explore different exercise types and routines to find the best one for you and do that one. And don't skip out of exercising if you don't have the full hour or so...if you have 20 minutes 10 minutes of weights and 10 minutes of cardio will do.

5. Getting thin and staying thin is not an impossible dream. If your willing to understand your habits and change them, then you can get thin and stay thin. That's what this challenge is all about, understanding your habits and changing the ones that need to change and getting new ones.

6. Know what your triggers are. This is really the apex of the challenge to me. We all do things because of triggers, something we see, smell, hear, taster, feel, triggers something in our brains that makes us do something. Understanding those triggers help you control your habits.

7. Variation is good. Change things up a bit, some of the diets out now a day, calls for eating certain foods over and over again. Which is why diets usually don't work for me. I don't like restrictions on what I can and can't eat and when I can and can't eat something. If I want to eat a slice of pizza for breakfast, pancakes for lunch and a small salad for dinner, then I should be able to as long as I've chosen healthy choices then what's the big deal.

8. Fast food places are not the diet devil. That said, they aren't a diet haven either. But if you know how to navigate the menu then you should at least be safe for a while. Whenever possible go with grilled or roasted chicken (with out any mayo or mayo-based special sauce), baked potatoes (exclude sour cream and cheese sauce), go for deli sandwiches, if your getting a pizza go with veggie toppings instead of the meat lover's special, try and have a small salad with every lunch and dinner meal, if you just got have that burger, go with a kiddie sized plain burger, and if you get the meal you could even get fruit for desert.

9. Set your goals. Before you start any weight loss plan, you really need to know what your goal is. Saying I want to lose wright just doesn't cut. And be realistic, everyone agrees that losing 1 to 2 pounds is an healthy pace, when making permanent life changes it's best to do it slowly.

10. Stay strong in the grocery store. Have a plan, never shop when hungry, shop along the sides and the back, and take the time to read the labels. Compare the labels of brands to find the one that's nutritional right for you. Since I'm lactose intolerant, I have to do this any way. Just because it says low fat, how low is it really. And if it's something you will eat with another item, how would that factor. I heart instant mashed potatoes, so I compared the brands till I found one that had the lowest calories, fat, and sodium, but was higher in iron (I'm anemic as well). Do a couple of items every shopping trip until you've gone through your regular items, for instance one trip do crackers, and the next trip do pasta sauce. And do this every so often, companies change up their ingredients sometimes and new brands come out every so often.

Some of these tips are kinda common place now a days in the dieting world, but these are my take on them and the ones that really have helped me along the way.

Job Related News: The Interview

Well I went to the interview. I was a bit early, but no harm in that right? Once they were ready for me, I was given a tour. Although it was a quick tour cause I've been there times before. Then I observed one of the teachers with a kid. This one kid was one of the aggressive kids, there are a total of four of these kids. He wasn't that aggressive and he didn't have a "tantrum", so it wasn't that bad. After about twenty minutes of that I had my interview with two of consultants. I think it went fine, I was asked about my ability to be silly in front of others...I held back a sarcastic look...I think there's a bit dramaticization (is that a word) to me that I can be silly in front of others...Although it's not like I'm use to being such a way in front of others. I only had one question to ask of them, and that was the training process...there's a probationary time of one month before I would be by myself on the schedule. As I walked around I got second thoughts, I was still doubting myself. But then I came home and saw a comment from my friend on my personal blog about the interview and that made me smile. I didn't ask about the salary but my mom told me later.

The base pay of $22,000 (I think the last time I said this was the highest well that's for assistant teachers, but because I have a four degree I can be a teacher) a year (before taxes), is still less then what I want to making (which is probably what I would get yet is still much better than the $18,000 base for the assistant teacher), roughly $1,833.33 a month.

The highest is $26,000 a year before taxes, which is roughly $2,166.67 pre-tax. That's almost $200 surplus and also a no need for a part time job. Which would be a good thing to cover some of the unknowns that I wasn't able to accurately depict in my preliminary budget.

(Just for kicks, the median would be $24,000 a year, $2,000 a month, a $19.20 surplus...it's a surplus not much but it's something. I would probably still get a part-time job but probably after a few months...like a summer job or something.)

So if they gave me the job at the base pay I would still need to get a part time job that would net me just short of $200 a month. Which isn't that bad...I mean if I got a job at say for instance Walgreens at minimum wage, $6.15/hr (NC's minimum) and work for two days a week Saturday and Sunday (although I've always been told not to work on Sunday that whole Christian thing *shrugs her shoulders* I needs the money to get out of here...I'll do it.) a total of 16 hours a weekend. That's just short of $400 a month (that's $200 more than what I've guessed I would need.), and $4,723.20 annually pre-tax, that's a good chunk of extra cash. So if I chose to do the job as a summer job (starting in May and going to the end of July), I could still make $1,771.20 pre-tax, and only have to make up another $228 (perhaps in non-salary ways).

But this is all contingent on me actually getting the job. This is as much planning have done concerning this job and as much as I'm going to do until I get a job offer (which wouldn't be sometime in the next week or so). I'm trying to be positive, but I swear it's the waiting that kills me. I wish they would just tell you right there if you got it or not. All my other jobs were like that...although for all my other jobs I didn't really have an interview either. I just put in an application and it was a "When an you start" deal. Oh I miss those days.

Well I'm off to watch something on the telly. Has anyone tried the Thule trail game yet?

Job related news...

Well I got an interview tomorrow for the school thingy. As of now I'm not nervous, I've been trying to keep my mind off it. Which meant listening to music and sleeping all day. Which is why I'm just now posting something. My mom was able to give me some pointer of the questions they might ask tomorrow, there's only one or two that I might have to tell a slight half-truth on...like why I want to work there...I can't tell the whole truth which would be cause I want a job and this is the currently only option right now. That might not go over so well. I'm kinda ready to get it over with. My mom said that they are looking to hire two or three people, they had an interview today, I'm tomorrow, another one is after me and then two more next week. So I probably won't hear anything until next week at the earliest.

Wish me luck!

A Trip Down Memory Lane and Freebies

Do you guys remember the Oregon Trail game? Well someone has down a more up-to-date version of it, I don't know if you've heard of it, Thule Trail. It's basis is similar to the old game, you're on a cross-country trip with other people. But instead of the settlers heading to the west, you and some friends are heading to a music festival. There are still some similarities, you chose what occupation you want to be, you chose who is in the car with you. You have to stock up on things before living the first city, you can go hunting for food, and people still get sick. Yet there are some differences that adds the more modern touch to it. First you can chose to be a student, slacker, or a professional. Then you chose your vehicle: a SUV, a turbo wagon, or a hybrid sedan. You have a choice to stock up on music, magazines, car parts, gas, bags of groceries, and pellets. Instead of shooting deer for food on the road, you shot images of different fast food (at the end of the "hunting trip" it tells you how many bags of groceries you filled up.). I wasn't able to finish the whole game cause it froze on me and then I exited out. But on my cross-country trip, I took my friends "I", "J", "J2", and "N". I was about two cities away from the end, "I" was the only one to get sick (no surprise there she gets sick in real life easily), someone gave "N" a purple nurple because he didn't like the music that was being played. "J2" kept finding money in odd places and "J" kept falling asleep (which she was in the shotgun spot and thus the navigator [in my head] and I kept getting lost...I wonder why?). I picked up a hitchhiker who then stole $160 from me. I won $150 in a skiing contest and lost a kayaking contest (but that was when it froze). Despite all that happen my car morale was ecstatic. As I played I came up with several ways you could apply this game to personal finances that I'll go over in another post. So if you get a free moment or find yourself a bit bored...go check it out and tell me how your trip went.

In this post I mentioned my music subscription Ruckus, well they just sent out this thing saying they need more people to sign up. So I'm doing my part in spreading the news. If you haven't heard about Ruckus let me tell you. It's basically like Napster but for college students only. You need to have a valid college email to sign up with. I signed up in November, I put that I graduated in '07,and they haven't canceled the subscription (although on their help page it says alumni can continue with a $7.99 subscription, still cheaper then Napster). I don't know how they make sure you are still in college cause they don't send out emails or anything. The reason why I like Ruckus is because it's free, like I said it's like Napster with their $9.95 to download music to your computer that you have to update every month, but with Ruckus it's free. It also takes up less space on your hard drive. They have a to-go program as well, instead of the $14.99 ($14.95 for Rhapsody) it's $20/term (Spring= Jan. to May, Summer= June - July, and Fall= Aug.- Dec.), which breaks down to $4 a month for Fall and Spring and 10 a month for Summer...still cheaper than Napster or Rhapsody. I've been able to rebuild most of my library, there are some songs they don't have, but that's just like both Napster and Rhapsody. There was song that one had that they the other didn't and vice versa. The reason behind Ruckus is pretty admirable, he (the creator) wants to keep Ruckus free for as long as possible, because he wants to stop poor college students illegally downloading music. Something he use to do, he's been clean for only four months and one week. You can watch videos on there too. So I imply you to take a look and seriously think about getting a subscription...(unfortunately or fortunately [ however you look at it] it's not I-pod compatible.)

Well that's all I have right now for the freebies...once I find more I'll let you guys know. Anyone else have some cool freebies?

Goals: February

Well as promise here are my February goals. Since it's a short month, I have to be very selective of what I want to accomplish.

1. Look for more places to apply: This month I want to apply for at least one job a week. I don't want to over do it and have too many resumes out there. There's four weeks in this month so that's another four places I have to find to apply.

2. Gain full time employment: I still haven't heard from my mom's boss. I'm not relying on getting that position, since they can be so iffy. However I would like to have a job before March 1st.

3. Find more ways to bring in non-salary income:I've place ads on the blog from Adsense and the Amazon Associates, but until this blog starts gaining more views I don't plan on seeing any revenue from them in who know's when. I have applied for an online tutoring job, which I need to finish the subject test for. I've also signed up with Linkworth, another advertising deal. And the other day I created an account with CashCrate.com. I'm going to look into survey sites, any suggestions?

4. Post more articles on Helium: This kinda goes with #3 and I'm dedicating a separate post for this one with more details about what Helium is.

Along with my personal goals and writings goals, these are my February goals. Not much but enough to at least keep me busy. Anyone else have February goals?

Goals: January

I just like everyone else tend to make some sort of New Years Resolutions, although I'm not into the label New Years Resolutions. I rather call them goals. Nevertheless, when the new year came about I too was busy making goals. I probably should have posted these goals sometime in the early month, but I like to take the whole month of December too come up with my yearly goals. Unfortunately this December was hectic and busy and I just couldn't wrapped my head around what was happening in the future. I however I was able to make some small goals for January and I wanted to share with you on how I've done so far.



  1. Look for places to apply: 100%. Although this is currently an ongoing goal until I find employment. As it stands I have applied to a total of 8 places (although I pretty sure that the number is higher but I can't remember nor find my list as of now.)

  2. Start Reading Personal Finance Blogs: 100%. I've started a good blogroll of pf blogs that I tune into everyday. I am still looking for more, especially those with my audience in mind. I haven;t really found any of those. The ones I have found, deal with couples (married and not and with and without kids) or single-parent families since I'm single and without kids, I have to be very selective with what I take from them.

  3. Research different savings venues: semi-done. Since I am still without a job I haven't really done that much research into my savings options.

  4. Research different retirement venues: I want to have a good knowledge of retirement fund terms so that I know what I want when I look at my employer's benefits package. Semi-Done!

  5. Set up a preliminary budget: This was really so I know how much I income I will need to accomplish certain goals. Done!

  6. Keep the bank account in the positive: Although there isn't much in there it's still positive> Done!


Summary: I didn't really have that many financial goals for this month since I don't have much finance to deal with. But the ones I did have, I've manage to complete about 80% of them. But that means the ones that weren't completed have to be pushed to February.


Since January is now over I can share with you my 2008 goals as they stand now:



  1. Get a decent paying job - if need be get a part time job

  2. Get own apartment

  3. Get license and car (I've managed to put this off until now, but it's starting to become more of an hassle to be in the south without a reliable mode of transportation.

  4. Open an high-yield savings account (which with the stock issues now I need to get on this as soon as possible)

5. Monetary goals: I'm holding off on making these until I receive employment and I have an knowledge of my expected income.


With that in mind, what are my February goals? Still working on those. I should have them ready by tomorrow if not Monday at the latest.

The Job Search: an Update

Although yesterday's post could be seen as an update of search for my job search, but it was more like a post for posing an question for this subject. I decided to go for the job. After posting a similar post on a more friend's only post, a friend of mines gave this advice:

There's something that both Nana and Momma have told me over the years that may apply here: If you really want a job, some things just won't matter.
When it comes to dealing with potty issues, I'm pretty sure you'd be fine after you got used to it.
You're resiliant and I think you'd probably get into the swing of things after a few weeks. Also, you have your mom. She's been doing this for I dunno how long, so at least you aren't going in completely new to the whole thing and you have someone to go to when you get nervous. I've heard you talk passionately about some of these kids- about them as people and about the way they're treated at home. You care. That right there makes you more qualified than some people I've seen in a similar job posistion.
I've got faith you can do this.

I really took this to heart. Sometimes I don't always have self-confidence in my own skills and capabilities. It's always great to have a love one say I know you can do it. Last night I wrote up a cover letter (which was a bit of a hard thing, because I wasn't quite sure what she wanted they are so lax and not all that professional so I was afraid of over doing or not doing it good enough.) This afternoon I sent it alone with my resume to her. I haven't heard anything but I figure they are waiting for others to apply to. Now that I have it in my mind I really want this job. It's less then what I want to making, the highest would be $22,000 a year (before taxes), roughly $1,833.33 a month. When I started my job searching I did a preliminary budget, and all though there were a good amount of unknowns, I have figured I would need at least $23,769.60 (after taxes), breaking it down to about $1,980.80 (after taxes) a month. That means if I got this job I would have to find a part-time job that would net me roughly less than $2,000 extra a year ($147.74 extra a month). That's not that much more of a gap. But that's going with the idea that they would give the highest. I highly doubt that, since I don't have any experience per se.

I've already started thinking of some ways to try to earn the extra $200 a month. I would hope that the revenues from this site would help, but I'm still too new on the scene. Plus I haven't done any advertising for the blog, I'm waiting to I can regular post about personal finances (which means I need to get a job to have finances in which to talk about) But until then, I have to look to other means. In this post I gave some ways I was trying to earn some money. One of them was the selling of my paperbacks online. Yeah that didn't work out so well. I did a price check on the ones I have and saw that people were selling them for pennies. Granted I hadn't spent a lot on some of them, but I wasn't willing to let them go for pennies. So I've rethought the idea, there is a used bookstore, Edward McKays, (which when I was looking for the link for them I saw they were hiring...I applied for 20 hours, unfortunately it doesn't say how much the pay but I think that would be a good part time job.) I could sell back some books there. Although I think I would get cash and book credit, which is good that way I could use the credits to buy more books and not spend any more money. New books, without spending any money...works for me!

I could also try and find some seasonal work, which means I would have to temporarily cut back on some of the budgetary items, savings, until I found such a job and then put all the earnings from that job to it's respective areas. This would be a last resort scenario sense I need the money right now.

Tomorrow I'll give an general goal update.


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