I found a plan for how to get through the semester with all my present income cut off.
I do not like having all my income being from some government program. Getting off of that would involve possibly having to go over a month with nothing coming in at all, not even the unemployment insurance and food stamps.
There are pretty healthy recipes I know that cost so little that I could afford to get through most if not all of the semester eating them. The ingredients last long enough, and are healthy enough, to do that, though they can be somewhat bland and I will need to take a vitamin supplement. I bought 15 bags of brown rice yesterday, thats one of the ingredients.
My LINK card, which is what the foodstamps are loaded on in IL, is missing. It may have fallen from my backpack or pocket when I was running errands yesterday.
No one can use it without the PIN number, but I can't get groceries without it.
If it does not turn up before tomorrow morning, my plan to go sign up for school at the last minute could potentially be foiled. I will have to go to the DHS office tomorrow, if I am well enough as I am now feeling ill, and see if I can get it replaced in the morning. Whether that can be done that quickly or not will effect how soon, and thus whether, I can register for school at RCC. A little piece of plastic, just a few square inches of plastic. Because of that, the direction of my life could be altered.
The alternative/backup plan is to start the online program through Ashworth college as soon as can get car back to running. Got a starter for it, and a new positive battery cable. just gotta put it back together, and wait for the next (last?) unemployment check to get insurance back on it. That will not help me put the investment class I already bought and read the material for to use though, as my car will still be ugly and loud and ruin my credibility...
The thing with the investments is you have to get an option to buy the property, the kind where you can back out of but the seller cannot. Then you have to find a buyer within the option period, and when/if you do, you buy and sell them at the same closing. Your buyer pays closing costs, and of course they are paying more than you are, so you have a profit. Options tend to cost around $100. In order for people to accept your offer (most won't anyway as it'll be low, but you don't know who will until you try and there are people out there who will) they must believe you can actually buy their house though - which you actually need not be able to do, you just need to secure the option and find someone else to buy it. If you drive up in a noisy, smoking, rusty, heavily dented car like mine, NO ONE will believe you can buy their $100,000+ house! Forget it. Ditto with not having a car at all. That's my problem in that area now.
Going back to school this spring could, in addition to job skills, get me access to resources to get a car with. Being cut off for what little income I have because of returning to school would justify maxing out student loans if I have to, and having a decent truck would enable me to do the investment stuff AND scrap metal. It will also go a long way to help in the traditional job search. So while I am waiting for the right house deal, I can still make money to pay the loans down.That is, even though no payments will be due til I am out of school for six months. There's no sense letting it grow unchecked if I don't have to...
If that plan gets shot down, then I will have to persevere as I have been, and try to fix the car up on my unemployment while looking for a job in a job market where you basically have to have a car or else... In which case it will just take a lot longer to get the same things done, and I will have to persevere for longer. How much longer, I don't exactly know for sure. I have seen a few more "Now hiring" signs lately, so things are picking up...
I met the deadline for that anthology submission, and I did some writing for clients since I got laid off, so to say I was self-employed as a freelance writer is not a lie, at all. I was doing a lot of writing. I had a big project I got done and will hear feedback on sometime in the next week or so, about getting published or not. That stuff all resolves the "gap in employment" issue, I think/hope. Returning to school works pretty good as a reason to stop that "job."
I cut my hair today, since the shagginess and dead ends probably made me look less "together," even though I tried to make it look real nice. I will have to ask my roommates' mom to help me even it out. Then I will be more marketable for both employers and as an investor. It does not look much better now, except the dead ends are snipped off...
Little things make a huge difference, A little bitty piece of plastic, a snap on a pocket or a small pocket zipper coming open, which possibly letting the plastic fall out. Split ends in one's hair. Things that can alter the course of your life in this modern world, because they can deny you access to what you need in the times when you need it, or create an impression of you other than what people want to see.
Life sucks right now, but it could really be SOOO much worse, I really cannot complain. I have internet access and am sitting here blogging to the world about what I am dealing with.
I started this series with the certainty that in the end, it would encourage someone, because they would see what I come up against and yet, I WILL win! I still believe that, and I will never give up.
Neither should you.
Godspeed.
~Mother Star
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