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 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?

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.