Interest Based Income - part three

 Part one was about some basic math for interest based income. 

 Part two was about some personal math.

 So the numbers I showed you from part two for what I would need if I was to rent out my house.

Single family rent per month =$1,400

Single family rent per year = $16,800

Two family rent per month = $2,800

Two family rent per year = $33,600

Again, this is the magical $30,000 a year just without starting with a million dollars first.

What people don't talk about is that until that money is in your hands, it is not and will not ever be a guarantee. 

There are many landlords who talk about that money as if it was a guarantee and it is a very dangerous mindset to be in. This is how debit and foreclosures happen.

During the plague there were a whole bunch of landlords that not only thought this but demanded this while also telling the renters that they were going to be evicted. Thanks to that type of landlord there is a great deal of justified broken trust.

At an old job one of my coworkers was also a landlord. He would not send that current years rent until the following year. He treated it as interest from an investment. He also still have a full time job. Why? to cover his existing mortgages. His house was paid off. He had at least one other property paid off. He did not consider the next months rent as already in his pocket because he was fully aware that life could happen at the worst times.

I would have loved to have heard him making fun of all the terrible landlords that were crying about their renters leaving them because they jacked up the rent too high & were verbally abusive so now they couldn't afford their own mortgage OR the mortgages of their rental properties. 

Are there terrible tenants? I have known a few but they were always justifying their actions because the landlords were being horrid to them. If they hadn't had that opening they could have been shamed into caring. Mostly they just didn't pay the last month and used the security deposit as their last months rent. Not the best but there are details and horrid landlords.

Also, landlords are not ever able to go into tenants mail because that is 100% mail fraud and USPS will go after them.

This is to say that having a rental is not for the feint of heart or the cruel of mind. IF you are still thinking about it then a property management company is what you want to have. A lot of people don't realize just how much renters think you can control the companies. But you do want to listen to them because they will have the most contact. You don't want a company that drives away your renters.

 Think of the rental properties that you see for sale on sites like zillow. They are mostly listed by people that don't want to be landlords anymore. One would hope it's for good reasons but most are probably landlords that are just burned out and can't be bothered. 

It could be a grandparent that just is too old or they passed away and it is easier to sell then fight with family on who gets it.

It could be a a married couple and one of them landed a job that needs them to move and being an out of state landlord is not something they want to deal with.

It could be that a new landlord has 'graduated' from a smaller property to wanting to focus on larger ones. Which are easier for them to get cheaper loans for.

A divorce of family feud can also cause problems.

 Many seem to be stupid landlords that think their tenants money is theirs and as such planned out non-refundable trips and done other things to spend the money that they think is theirs. This is a very fast track to bankruptcy. Many of them are the type to try and evict people during a plague. They think only of their own benefit and fail to see how no one has to put up with that.

Please don't be like that group.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Interest Based Income - part two

Part one was about some basic math for interest based income.

Now the fun part, how would you could even start getting $100,000 let alone $500,000 saved up?

Yeah, this is the horrible part because most things these days are not designed to make it easy to save money. I have never rented so I can't guess on that type of budget. I do own a house though and that does open a door for me to get started saving. If I chose to sell my house I could in theory make $100,000 after everything is said and done.

I have not put a lot of money into my house but with just the base improvements I could see getting $100,000 from it if/when I sell. 

Could I do more improvements to my house? Of course. I would love to replace all the windows and the siding. But I will never see that money returned to me. It could cost $25,000 for all the windows and $20,000 to do the siding. Then another $10,000 for the driveway. I would just never see that $55,000 investment ever again. Not to mention I do not have the money to even consider doing them.

I will probably look into adding a pull down stairs for attic space. That is closer to the $1,000 range. The potential attic space wouldn't be to much but it would be worth it. Especially considering the only other access it a tiny little square. I still can't figure out how my house inspector got through it because I was cramped when I went through it.

The reason I could even hope to make $100,000 after selling is because I got a very affordable house when the interest was super low a few years ago. I got very luck and I know not everyone will want a cheap house in the middle of no ware.

I have also already updated the electric. That was a nightmare of tracking payments so I'm not full sure what the true total was but it was between $10,000 - $20,000 which was only because he was good friends with my realtor. The work took two years and was worth it.

Never buy a house from a church. Do not do it.

The bad part of that is that my tiny town hasn't seen an increase in prices. It is stuck in a price range and I would have to get very, very lucky to get more. It's just not an area that has houses that go more than $200,000 for my size of house.

On the flip side, if I wanted to rent out my house instead of selling? I could list it as is for renting as a single family house.

If I wanted to rent it as a two family, I would have to rip out two doors to make it a legal two family rental. Then I would have to figure out what to do about laundry for the second floor. So a two family is out.

However! While renting out my house would be ideal, it is only possible if I could find a management company in my area. I know they exist but I have yet to actually find one. My town is full of rentals and I can not for the life of me find any info online. I don't have any idea who in my town I could talk to about it because my town is a little bit weird about some things.

Which brings me back to square one of selling the house once I am ready as being the best option. Pending locating the cryptid management company in my area.

So, why go over all of this? Because it shows just how much a little thing can snowball and branch off into so, so many other things.

The numbers that you want to see (based on what I want to rent out for)

Single family rent per month =$1,400

Single family rent per year = $16,800

Two family rent per month = $2,800

Two family rent per year = $33,600

And that right there is the magical $30,000 a year just without starting with a million dollars first.

What people don't talk about is that until that money is in your hands, it is not and will not ever be a guarantee. 

Part three is going to be going over that very valuable point of view.

Many updates on many sites

 Hello!

 So! I am doing a whole bunch of updates in the background. A few fun blogs and then on a few of the more normal type sites and blogs. Fun things over there that need so much art. So Much Art.

For here the updates are just going to be more posts. I have quite a few things that I want to post reviews for and then some more Work Stories. The reason work stories are so few is because my current job is very cut & paste of the same thing over and over.

I have more things to review but the posts are slow to write. I want to just say that it came in on time and it works but that feels a bit empty. So after that I want to have just a little more info. I'm only going to post the good things. So unless I get something spectacularly terrible, it'll just be good to neutral reviews.

I also want to share videos that I'm watching on YouTube. Mostly It's going to be Minecraft and Liziqi and adjacent style of videos. Again, I'm not going to have much to say about them.

It's much easier for me to blather on about potentials with numbers. Like view, post or interest rates. I have a few posts ready that go over interest from savings accounts. It's minor data but fun for me to type about.

Then there are the... other sites that I have. They are mostly just for reference for various interests. The story based ones are either still in the writing stage or got back tracked to the writing stage from loss of notes or hard drives. The one with the videos hit a terrible snag due to burnout but it has a little art that I can do and then I can get it going again.

And then there is the one that is currently bi-weekly short snips. Too short to be stories but a lot can be said in a few lines. This also had a file vanish but I think i might have a backup. I don't know for sure but if I don't thats fine. They are pretty easy to get typed out as long as I'm not trying to only crank them out. This blog-thing also will have a fictional newsletter of sorts. 

This will eventually be a weekly thing. I want to also get shorter bits for an additional post for during the week. Like fake adds and random updates. 

And also get a weekly horror scope going. Yes, pun intended. I was thinking of just sporadically doing one sign a week but a clump for all signs would be nice. Like on a Wednesday. Maybe I'll do a string of lucky numbers each day. I have images for each sign so that would be the only part that would take time for making sure it's formatted right. Not counting figuring out all the little quips that could go with each so that it's not just a string of numbers? One of the reasons this is still a work in progress.

So, several things brewing and soon more updates will be had.

Interest Based Income - part one

 Interest Based Income

What I mean by this is earning enough money from your interest based savings account with a bank. I'm going to be tossing around a lot of numbers but the base interest I'll be using will be 3%. It's not the current interest rate but it's the one I'm going to use.

The thing I will not be getting into is going to be the taxes. If you earn $10 you will get a 1099-INT and you will just file that when doing your taxes. File your taxes. It will effect you yearly return. Thats all i have to say on taxes.

The basic amounts that I will be working with are going to be as follows:

$100

$1,000

$10,000

$100,000

$1,000,000

These are the big break points when talking about interest. When you have the small amounts it feels like it's not doing anything but that can carry over to the larger amounts also. The most common way people talk about earned interest is as yearly amounts.

Per Year

$100 = $3

$1,000 = $30

$10,000 = $300

$100,000 = $3,000

$1,000,000 = $30,000

Where I'm from, $30,000 is a full time minimum wage job. 

What you also want to focus on is the per month interest because this is what you will be able to budget with like an additional paycheck. This means that you will want a savings account that will pay you per month and when they pay you will be at the end of that month.

Per Month

$100 = $0.25

$1,000 = $2.50

$10,000 = $25.00

$100,000 = $250.00

$1,000,000 = $2,500.00

The monthly breakdown is how you can see when it makes a difference. $25 doesn't feel like it can do much but that $300 at the end of the year could be a nice cushion or treat.

But $250 a month? That's a bill. It could be an extra payment on a credit card. It could be a car payment. It could be a persons grocery bill. It is a small amount but it is a small amount that will make a difference. If you are able to save it then that extra $3,000 a year is definitely a good amount to have saved up for emergencies or fun.

Will it fix everything? No, but I have had a surprise car repair bill (thanks to chipmunks making a nest in my car and eating the wires) and it was just over $3,000 to fix. I would have been much better off it i had been able to just pay it off with cash instead of using a credit card. The interest I was paying on the credit card was insane.

This is what people mean by wanting their money to work for them.

This is why my ultimate personal goal is going to be to try and get $500,000 because that will be $15,000 per year or $1,250 per month. Which doesn't sound like a lot but it is. For me it would cover my mortgage and car payments. At my current spending it would very much fix everything for me.

I'll be going over my personal reasons in part two.

 I will close with saying that if I had $2,000,000 in the bank I could very easily live off of the estimated $5,000 a month interest. Even if I was paying for my own health insurance.

To be honest I would probably keep my day job just so I wouldn't have to deal with tracking down my own health insurance and then I could keep my 401k. But thats going to be a part three I think.

 Part two was about some personal math.

When Good Jobs Go Bad

 When Good Jobs Go Bad. 

Or when a bad supervisor takes over the whole of the dept and pushes their Bad Ideas that no one likes onto everyone and then they can't figure out why everyone is leave the dept like a sinking ship.

This is not the first time, and sadly this will not be the last time.

I fully admit to having hoped that the supervisor that is literally driving all the good people away from my department was going to jump ship. I had been hoping. I knew it was almost impossible because they have such a death grip in our department.

This person is a micromanager and is very good and not having anything they say written down so you can not use it to defend yourself. The only thing good about them is that when they really want to have your back, they do in fact have your back. They also support the work from home for now.

But they also pick favorites and when they set their sights on you you are pretty much done for.

I am fairly cirtian that they have been trying to get me into their department for a little while. 

They are also fully aware that I refuse to be in their department.

Right now myself and another are being used as tests for learning the stuff in the other department because the plan is to merge them. This is extremely stressful because I hate and refused to be apart of this particular department.

I have a feeling that they are trying this so that when this idea doesn't work, and it's won't, that oh look! the two of you are already trained so you have new jobs now!

I will go to HR if they try that because I did not and will not ever apply for that job and they technically can not force me to move to it because they couldn't keep my department fully staffed before the pandemic and they have shown that they still can't do it now.

I also think that they are setting the new supervisor up as a fall guy. They did it to all the others with varying degrees of success.

I, perhaps, should have tried for the harder butt kissing department were the supervisor that I like moved to. 

There is another department I wouldn't mind looking into but the hours are horrendous. The person I knew that did work there got out as fast as possible but they had no life at all until they did.

I currently have a very good plan because I am not faking how long this new crap takes me to do. It's overly confusing and doing extra work for another department. If I mess up I mess up because that was the only other reason I wanted nothing to do with it. Outside of the supervisor.

If this person wasn't known for being underhanded and back stabbing I wouldn't worry. As it is I will be pitching a fit about this and all the stupid stuff until it's fixed or I find a new job. 

Uhg.

The Covid

 Please put a mask on.

Just please do it.

Also I am trying to get back into the swing of this. I have so many new work things. My house stuff, when I can think about it, Goes to my patreon & blog. Once it's a little less depressingly frash bloody hit to my wallet there willl be more house stories there.

I'm still seeing so many bad takes about work and other corruption that make me go Yikes.

The 'lets make money on the internet' things will start again soon. Many strong opinions will be had. Also opinions on pretty much everything. Along with my very bad opinion on a formerly good dentist because frustration & bad dentistry.

Also I should actually toss in product reviews and such but probably later.

And one day I'll have a book to talk about! If I ever finish it because magic and stuff or one of the million other plot!bunnies. Just like my fanfiction.

Can you afford your job?

An odd title, but an important question that I never thought much about.

So way, way back in 2011 I wrote about debt & controlling mothers... By the end of that summer we got into another argument and this time she said "fine! then you can do it!". I haven't grabbed anything so fast in my life. ((Small recap, my mom wanted to be, and was in total control of my finances because blah blah blah and I was lazy & trying to do too much at once.))

After all was said and done I know have savings. Mostly because I finished paying off my card. I would have more if I have done my credit card balance transfer a hell of a lot sooner.

I transferred two credit card balances into one credit card bill. I had two bills that my mom had insisted on paying more then the min on. $275 each was what she had been doing before I got control of it. After? I'm paying $200 because that is the amount that works and is slightly over my minimum.

Unfortunately I chose to do a little math and looked into what was the minimum I would have to make per hour if I wanted to get a new job. I'm using really bad math but it makes for a nice cushion when planning.

Example:
$11 hr x 40 hr = $440 x 52 wk = $22,880 - 40% = $13,738

I played with my pay check and found that 40% was pretty close to representing taxes and health and 401k crap.  I should have just gone with 50% and made my life a tad easier.

My old job? didn't pay anywhere near that. In fact, my bills were $3,000 over what I was making. Not counting the trips my mom encouraged me to go on and starting a jewelry thing. All the while saying I could afford it.

I was very lucky that I am so boring or it could have been much, much worse.

From a financial point, this was a very bad situation. Emotionally? Nah, I'm good. Yes we argue and such but it's a 'normal' thing. She has stopped asking if I want her help because I was mean and laughed evil.

Personaly I would be much better off if I could move out. But that is slowly in the works (p.s. the first time home buyers club is evil) but I don't know if I can scrounge up the closing costs. Closing costs are the devil.

Longest Interview Proses Ever

"Well, long time no update. The main reason for that is I have been going through one of the longest interview proses in my live. It spanned almost two months with three interviews and one test. Everyone was so nice and everything.

And I got the job. :3

I can't tell you how happy I am about this. All the stress of looking and here it is. I have to say I did not find this job on my own. I did work with a hiring agent and she was very helpful. Two actually, both at different companies and both were very nice and helpful.

I can't believe I don't have to keep waiting to hear back on an interview anymore.

I can't tell you how badly I wanted this job. The people I met were wonderful and it just felt right. They have a wonderful training program. The are also closer to my home so I will have a shorter commute. They also have wonderful benefits.

The only problem is that my new school is near my old job. So I will probably end up dorming 1-2 nights a week and then heading strait to work. it's going to be interesting learning all my new classes and job duties at the same time.

Adding the the stress, I have to go shopping and get my new work cloths because I'm going from uniform to work casual. My sister is looking forward to it."


God this is from so long ago. If you ever find yourself apart of an interview proses that takes two or more months you need to think about it and see if there were any warning signs about the company that you might have missed. Don't let desperation blind you to interviewer stupidity.

And if they ALWAYS get your current job title wrong (say calling you a manager instead of a receptionist) then get the hell away from them as soon as possible.

Just saying...

Easy ways to make money online: Time

Yes, I have talked about doing this and I am finally going to do a series of posts about easy ways to make money online.

While you probably can't hear me banging my head on my desk, I assure you that I am. I have had so much frustration on this subject that I can't even... Yeah more banging my head on the desk there.

The methods I have tried will be what I am posting about. They range from a parking a domain name, blogging, popular web searches for a website to god knows what else. I have so many pages of notes that I scribbled out and what if's... Thinking about the amount of time I have spent researching and testing methods is as amazing as it is frightening.

So, with that said I am going to talk about the time aspect. Easy money and time are not and will not be the same thing. The exception is if you plan on spending a boat load of money and having someone else do everything for you. (Which would be counter productive to the whole making money idea but if that is your prerogative then you are all set!)

Any 'easy way to make money online' is going to take a huge time investment.

First you have to figure out just what you want to do. did you want to write a blog about a little niche topic or one about something that you have endless amounts of knowledge on? While niche topics are will get you higher in Google search rankings they can be a bit harder to work with. You would really have to know your topic and that means more time needs to be spent on each post.

Then you need to find out what kind of site you want to have and if you want to make the site yourself. Using a blog service like Blogger does save you time because if you want to start from scratch with out knowing how to make a site... you could end up spending hours in classes or reading tutorials online and that is a really big nightmare. Trust me, cheat a little in the beginning and use a free blogging service or site.

This brings us to the time needed to set up all your accounts. (If you are going to make a separate Google account for your blog you have to keep in mind that Google only wants you to have one Blogger account. Google is effectively taking the anonymity out of the internet. I am not recommending one way or another about this.) A short list would be email, blogger, AdSense, and a web domain name. all you would have to register with before being able to use and then connecting them all together will take more time. You'd be looking at several hours to get this done for your first blog site.

You will need to set time aside to make your posts. This always seems like the easy part. But you have to log in to your blog, come up with a title, figure out what you are writing about, type out your post, label it and then make sure it posts.

If you are adding pictures to it then you need to take the pictures or find them, label them, add appropriate credits, up load them, add them to your post and then make sure they post properly. This is not a couple of minuets. A quality post with photos can take 20 or more to type and set up.

If you post with e-mail it will be faster to get the post on your blog but you will have to go back and label your post after you send it. You can also set it up to not post your e-blogs and then post and label them later. But still lots of time.

There is also getting people to your blog. Just posting can get you nothing for a long time, you will have to interact with other people and blogs that are similar to your topics. this also takes a lot of time because no one is going to automatically follow the new kid on the block.

There is also SOE which takes an insane amount of time just o figure out what it is, how it works and how you should go about it. There is a reason there are companies that offer to do this for you for a large price.

You could make a Facebook page and a Twitter account but these are time sinks and not worth it unless you are a big corporation with the need to be in constant contact with your customers. There are some people with blogs that do have a Facebook page and twitter accounts and yes they handle it well. The difference is that they already have a bigger following and did not use it to advertise.

Advertising is an option but will cost money and time.

Blog exchange sites also take time because you need to register and verify each blog you want to add. You also have to be posting on a more active level. If you only post 1-2 times a month or less then this probably won't be worth your time.

It takes time to get people to your site and it will take time before you see the profit from their views of ads or if you are lucky from their clicks on the ads.

This all takes time. There is no instant money from blogging. In some cases it can take years. If you are blogging to only make money it will show in your posts and chances are you will not make any money with out spending a lot of time on your blog.

A Lot of News

Starting my first class at my new college tomorrow night. It's insanely expensive college but unfortunately we are in a world that I need a bit of paper to tell people I know what I am talking about. Stressful.

Then in another week I'll be starting my new job. So even more stress due to giving my two week notice and having to wait the two weeks to start. I didn't think that it would be stressful but it is. The interviewing took almost two months and I can't wait to start.

And! I need to try and scrounge up $1,240 for a website/project/service/business thing. It's a wonderful idea and service. I just do not have the funds this moment and I have been advised to try and get it up as soon as I can. Joy, more stress.

So! Over all hiring agents are the best thing ever and don't ever think you have to stay with one that is treating you poorly. And keep looking. The jobs might not seem like they are out there but you will find something eventually.

You wouldn't believe how many people called in about my job opening that never showed up to fill out the application. My soon-to-be-old manager said he got 62 responses via e-mail for the position but so far I have only seen 6 come in to fill out the application. Just e-mailing a company your resume does not cut it if they tell you to come in person.

Oi... So much stress.

Searching for a New Job While Working

This is extremely painful and hard.

Recently I have been able to interview with some wonderful companies. With winter over things have seemed to have picked up in the job hunting department. However, all the interviews I have been to have been through a hiring agent. My own searches have led to nothing so this isn't too bad.

Another bit of good news is I have finally gotten a review at work. The bad news is that they are aware of my job search. I made it clear to them that I have no intention of of up&leaving with out being able to train my replacement and that I want to help find my replacement when the time is right. They seemed to appreciate this. I am very lucky that I can actually talk to my manager and let him know what is going on in my search.

The search itself is driving me crazy.

The wait hurts the most, especially when it's for a job I would love. Aside from one day, I have made sure my job search has not interfered with my current job and the work I do. It is a very hard balance to keep. I have been considering what I am going to do with my job search for the summer because It is the bussy seasion for my company and I don't want to have trobel working and timing things.

le sigh.

Other then that, if you have been searching on your own with no luck you should really try a hiring agency. They can do wonders.

Dressing for the Job

This is a very true and very harsh topic and unfortunately no matter what people say jobs do judge you on your appearance. This is why some people can still land a job just by looking 'cute'. Even if they don't have some or most of the requirements because of how they look they can get almost any job if they really need to.

They also don't realize this.

If you don't dress just right for your interview then you won't land the job. Too fancy and you won't get it. Not fancy enough and you won't get it. I think that if you look like your are ready to work for the company rather then 'dressing for an interview' that you would have more luck. I did that for my current job and I got it. My bosses also complained that I haven't straitened my hair since. I think I should start doing that again.

And if you think your male boss/coworkers are not looking at your appearance think again. I can't tell you how many times my boss 'teased' me about my white socks. I wore them with black shoes and pants. I finally told him that if it bothered him that much he could buy them for me. That shut him up but I did end up getting them.

It did shock me at how much the guys in the office talked about fashion. Well... more whined but still, it was interesting. Their conversation on pink was highly amusing.

Dressing for an interview can get even more frustrating if you can't seem to get called for an interview. This can cause people to get depressed. Because why get the nice outfit that will go out of style before you can ware it?

I think that if you think of it as treating yourself to a new outfit that will come in handy, then you can start getting into a positive point of view. Personally I would try for this 2-3 times a year because fashions and personal tastes do change. Plus, it won't hurt your budget as much unlike if you grab them all at once.

Baby steps, but you have to start someplace.

A Voice of Reasion

So... Even though I said I would be calm I wasn't. I sent a few panicky Facebook messages to my friend in CA and then a few more apologizing to her. She called today and we talked and I'm pretty sure that she rolled her eyes at me a few times. She also laughed at me. This is a good thing.

First she nixed the idea of me getting a hotel room. She also think renting a car would be a waste of money but she agrees that it would give me more options to get to possible interviews. She defiantly thinks it's about time I moved to a new city.

She is very reasonable, my friend.

She is going to e-mail me when she finds out which month would be the best month to go out there. She is doing this ASAP because the gas rates are making the price of airfare skyrocket. This way we will be able to have the most time to go do stuff. And if I happen to find a job while I'm out there? Even better.

This puts me in a position were I have to have a plan. I admit I like this and ironically it calms me down a bit. Digging through my finances is going to be fun... ick.

Revelations in the Planning Department

If I wanted to move to California I would have to do the same planning that I have done for New York City. The only difference is I would have to factor rent into my math. i have no idea who would rent a room to me for a few months. Let alone how to go about it.

And I have no intention of wrecking a friendship just to have a place to stay. She did that once for me before and I bailed. I will not do that to her again. Plus the more I think about this the more it feels like a bad idea.

Actually, I'm starting to talk myself out of the idea as I type this.

Maybe I should hold off on planning anything until I hear from the college. I wish the college would just tell me if I was accepted or not. Especially since they had me ask the government for money already. The school is supposed to be really good so I really would like to attend their bachelors program. Uhg.

College and Choices

So, I never thought about what would happen if I didn't get accepted into this new college that  I want to go to. I have/had no contingency plan at all for the possibility of a what if scenario.

But at least I now have the start of one.

Provided I do not get accepted I should take my two weeks of vacation time and go to NYC or San Fransisco to job hunt. I start calling agencies and applying 2 weeks before I leave with all the nice contact info in my cover letters along with when I will be in the city.

The main problem with going out to San Fransisco is that I will have to rent a car and force myself onto my one friend that lives there. And if I find a job? I have no idea what I would do for living accommodations. I would be SOL. I would have to drive my car there with it packed with things I would need. I would be in debt up past my eyeballs.


If I went to NYC I could stay at my sisters and ride a bike/use mass transit to get around. Then if i was hired I could jump around and stay with family until I could get my own place. I don't know what I wold do about my car.


I think now would be the time to unload some of my beading supplies onto the internet. I won't get what I initially paid but it should help in the long run. Oi... planning sucks.

One Year Older

Yesterday was my birthday and I am now 29. Woop-dee-do. This weekend I am dragging my parents to a few store that I have been wanting to check out and then for Dim Sum. The tasty-ness will be mine! Mwahahaha!

On the college front I am waiting for my acceptance letter before I can go any further. I did find out there is part time dorms. If I can get into it I won't have to pay as much nor have to commute home at 10pm. Which in my opinion is totally worth the money. Woot.

The job hunt is going slow. I'm staying in touch with my agents. One let me know about an opening that was almost twice as far away as my current job. I politely declined it and thanked her for thinking of me. I hope no bridges were burned.

During my own searches I jut poke around and if something really catches my eye I'll toss out a resume to it. Providing I remember. I haven't been spending too much time in front of my computer at home, which is a good thing.

On the future front, I realized while driving into work that if I was going to be out of work while looking for a job in NYC then why don't I take a few months and look in San Fransisco first? My friend and my sister both think I should move back there because it would be good for me. Cash would be tight but it could turn out ok. Even if I wasn't in the city itself but in the general Bay Area it would still be good.This will definitely require further planning.

So, the waiting and planning game is getting old. One day I'll be free to a different waiting game but for now this works.

Advice for Job Hunting on Craigslist.org

Because everyone wants to avoid the spam & scams that plague Craigslist.org

So, first things first. To get directly to your city on Craigslist, in your address bar type Your-city-name before dot-craigslist-dot-org. Like this: newyork.craigslist.org  which will take you to the New York City page.

Next thing you want to keep in mind is to keep a look out for scams. Easier said then done right? Not so.

1) Look for names. If the add asks you to put it to the attention to a specific person the chances are it's a real ad. The same for if there is an e-mail or mailing address that they ask you to respond to.

2) Read the ad and follow any directions it might have. It the add says to send it attention 'specific person' or to add a specific job number, do it. Put it in the subject of your e-mail and in your cover letter. This shows them that you can follow basic instructions and thus shouldn't get you weeded out of the running.

3) Avoid ads that offer to pay way higher then the going rate in your area. If in your area your job lands you $10 and the post is offering $20? Chances are it is not legit.

4) Watch out for duplicate ads. Sometimes the scams will use the same format for the same position and post many times. Some sneaky hiring agents do the same thing. After a while you will notice that some look exactly like ones from the last time you looked and while the location might change chances are they are a scam. Also, Craigslist has a 30 day rule which is basically that you can't post the same ad with in 30 days of your last post. A handy little thing to keep in mind.

5) Watch their grammar in both the subject and the body of the ad. Most are gimmicks to get you to apply, they are pretty obvious but some might sneak past your watch. There are some people who are legitimately bad at making postings. These are usually done by people that are not used to looking to fill an opening, by people who don't really use the internet or just someone having a bad day.

It's not a long list but if you keep these things in mind when job hunting on craigslist they could make you search a little bit easier. I use all of these methods in my own searches and I use them as I discovered them. I have gotten more call backs using this list then I have just replying at random.

Another Job Search Method

So in my current search I had decided to only reply to postings that supply a separate e-mail in their add.

As you can image this has dramatically reduced the amount of e-mails I am sending. With this I'm hopeing this will also reduce the amount of scam adds that I respond to. Or the amount of sneaky hiring agencies that try and trick you into applying with them and you never hear from them again.

I have not tried faxing to companies because I do not have a fax machine. The ones that ask you to call are also not high only list because I would have to call them during work and I am not comfortable with that. But if you are go right ahead and try it.

The advantage to this is most News Paper Ads will have e-mails in them. While it is hard to tell how long the ads have been there, or if the position has been filled but the ad is still running, they are still worth a look.

Because you just never know what you might find.

Waiting for a Call Back

This is probably the worst part about job hunting. Will they call me back? What should I do if they don't call me back?

Having a promising interview only to hear nothing ever again hurts. It always has and it always will. You could almost feel led on by a good interview. Personally I think I might prefer to hear at the interview if I wasn't going to be considered. On the plus side I would know not to hold my breath and stress out about all the little "if's".

Actually, if I knew flat out that I wouldn't be considered I would feel better in the long run. I wish more companies would do that instead of leading you on.

I will never understand why an interviewer feels the need to make vague promises to someone who doesn't fit the bill and would be wasting their time giving them every bit of information about the company that only employees really should know. Mainly Vacation, pay and in-depth explanations of benifits. thease tend to be trigger words that make people think they are getting hired.

Also, being told that you are the first one that they have interviewd so far. Not as vcalming as they might think.

Stress? Me? Never...

How to Change Your Mailling Address

So you have a new job in another city, got a P.O. Box, switching apartments or you are moving for better weather... Now you have to look into switching your mailing address. The United States Postal Service has made it very easy to change your address.

This is the link you want.

this makes it extremely easy to do when moving or getting a P.O. Box or switching apartments. Which ever the reason this is the link that you would want to use. Or you could always go in to your local post office and get a form to fill out. Which ever you are more comfortable with.