You Don’t Know Me...

A girl stopped me on the street the other day and asked me to give to a charity. I like to give to charities, there are some that are very important to me. People close to me know that I bother them for money every year as a raise money for children in schools. However, at this time in my life, I am flat broke. Most of you know this based on reading my recent blog posts. So this sweet girl, who is attempting to do something good for others, stopped me and gave me her speech about broke ass children. I politely apologized and told her I had no cash. She then mentioned that all I needed was a credit card to pledge. I told her that I was completely broke and didn't have any money to pledge. She, obviously being used to rejection, thanked me for my time and tried to leave an impression by relating to me personally.

In retort to my saying I was “too broke to pledge,” she responded with:

"I'm a student, I know how that is."

You have no fucking idea how it is...

You don't know what it's like to not know if you'll make rent each month. You don't know what it's like to pick which bill you aren't going to pay that month in order to make sure you can eat. You have no idea what it's like to play Russian roulette with your credit rating. You don’t know the embarrassment of letting your friends invite you to their place for dinner because you can’t afford to go to the supermarket.

Spare me the small talk darling, because you don't know anything about me.

Bloggers note: This is said without any responsibility to anyone besides myself, like children. Comments from those who have more than their own life to worry about are more than welcome

When you broke, You broken

This is hard.

This is really hard...

I’m an optimistic guy.

But I’m done. Just done…

If this isn’t the end of my rope then I am terrified to find out where that is because I can feel myself dangling and I’m just done.

Last week was my birthday. This week has been the worst I’ve had since the layoff.

I cut a rent check this week and bought a one way ticket to Boston. This leaves me with $15 dollars in my bank account. I’m not even sure I’m going to be able to afford a bus ticket back. I’m not sure I want to afford a bus ticket back.

I had to skip a bill this month, this is incredibly embarrassing for me. I’m embarrassed that I could not afford my phone bill. I am embarrassed that I am packing my dirty laundry into my suitcase to bring home and wash at my parents house. I am embarrassed that I cannot afford 6 dollars to go downstairs and do two loads of laundry. I’m embarrassed that I am going to have to borrow $20 from my mother in order to get back to my apartment.

It’s days like this where I wish I was as anonymous as I pretend to be.

Saturday is exactly 6 months.

Happy half year Jackson…

April Comes Earlier Every Year

Opened my mailbox the other day and guess what I found…

A CHECK!

This is a spectacular thing for me. I did my duty and worked me some freelance gigs a week and a half ago or so and this was my payday. This was great, I owe a bunch of money around and this is going to be a big help for me. So I open it up and it’s like $300 dollars short!

Alright then, time to do a little math.

After going through my calendar the hours seem correct. Originally when I was booked it looked like it was going to be more, but all the jobs didn’t take us the entire allotted time. So the actual hours worked were lower than the anticipated hours. Being that this was hourly and not a day rate, these types of things obviously effect the paycheck.

Ok, so worked a little less than I had anticipated, but still that doesn’t quite match up. The lower hours would have only made up about $150, so there is still $150 that I can’t account for that I feel I’m due…

So let me look at this stub a little closer. I have my Earnings… Taxes… Deductions… wait… taxes what is this?

What’s a FICA and why does it cost 40 dollars?

How is MEDFICA different than a FICA? At least that one only costs 10 bucks. What else is there, FED WTH? Those aren’t even words. NY, NYCITY, NY DIS.? What is all this? Well, how much is the total?

ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY TWO DOLLARS?!?!?

What the hell is going on here? What is this? Today marks the day that my payment plan for my aught seven Taxes. How much do I owe? I mean seriously? Doesn’t the government know I’m broke? They certainly should. I registered my brokeness with them. Are they not paying attention? I went to them like I used to go to my mother (and by used to, I mean last month) and beg for money!

Dear The Government,

In case you hadn’t noticed, I am receiving Unemployment Benefits. This means I don’t have a full time job, so if you would be so kind as to leave my wages alone when I actually DO get a gig I would appreciate that.

Seriously, I have bills to pay.

Regretfully yours,

Corporate Kerouac

The More Things Change

I have found some work recently doing college commencements. This has given me a strange feeling deep on the inside. I think it was a feeling of happiness for those graduating. Obviously they are full of glee and it seems to fill the air and get inside of you like a virus.

Thankfully I know the cure for such an illness…

Spoke to a friend of mine today and learned that two of our friends had been laid off at the end of last week. Obviously, though things have seemed to be getting better, they have continued on the same pace. This is disappointing for me. These were two smart girls that were a couple years younger than me at University. They both have degrees and have been working in their respective industries for the past few years.

So I spent today helping out with what I remembered from filing my unemployment and giving tips on health insurance and things of that nature. Obviously any help I can provide I am more than willing to.

However, now looking at the commencements I have been doing. The feeling of euphoria turns to dread almost as quickly as the week begins again.

All of these graduates are now going into the work pool that me and all my friends have to fight against. I remember when I was 22 and out of college, I would work for nearly free. I was very proud to work for lunch. Now I, a man with a respectable day rate, has to scrap for a gig against these kids. The trouble is that I think I feel worse for those kids. I can drop my day rate. As long as I can make enough to make ends meat I will do it. With Unemployment insurance helping out until I get back on my feet I don’t have to worry about only taking my normal day rate. I’ll take a cut and,
with my experience, these kids don’t even stand a chance. I guess the question is then posed, what is worse fate right now? To be laid off with skills, or to be recently graduated with only dreams?

Good Luck class of Two thousand and nine… you’re going to need it.

Excel Has Pretty Colors

So I’ve been working on my budget this week.  I’ve been looking forward to the rest of the spring and summer and how the unemployment will work for me throughout the summer months.  The past couple of months have been pretty rough; brother needs a vacation!

I have been surviving very well recently, but I have been working over the past months.  So it always sort of worked out.  I was actually making more money and doing better than I had been when I had constant employment.

It was very strange, but a very empowering feeling.   I would collect my weekly stipend when I didn’t have gigs.  However, when I did have gigs I would suspend my stipend and go pull my day rate and walk away with a very nice paycheck. 

So I wanted to see how much extra I would have every month.  I had started putting some money in savings.  I am being cautious of all my 1099 work and the taxes I’m going to owe in next April.  I would be lying if I said it hasn’t been pretty tight over the past couple months, but I feel like I’m starting to get the hang of it.  

Honestly, the hardest part for me was keeping my head about me when I had a surplus of savings.  I always want to clear off my credit cards and spend a bunch of money on stuff, like jeans and sneakers. (the moms would never buy me that pair of Jordan’s)  However, being the learned man that I am, I knew that the rent and bills were always coming right around the corner.  So I did what every reasonable person would seemingly do and save some of the money I made for the next months bills. 

But I was sick of living like that and constantly saving a few hundred to hope that my bills would be covered the next month.  I have had some work, but one of the gigs I worked is already over for the year.  I have survived these first few months, but I know that I must be smarter about all this. 

So I added up all my rent and bills in a neat little spreadsheet.  I only did house and personal bills like phone and medical Insurance.  I left off food and credit cards on purpose because I knew that was going to fluctuate more than the rest of the bills.  This way, I can change how much I am going to save and pay off some of the extra bills that show up.  (This plan is foolproof, I can’t believe I ever complained about being unemployed!)

Then in the other column I put all my unemployment payments and added all them up.  Excel is a really neat program because I could both of these columns next to each other and that made it easy to then take the difference of the bills and the Unemployment benefits.   However, I’m pretty sure I’m doing something wrong.  The difference came up in red lettering and in the middle of a parentheses. I don’t know what happened because it didn’t do that when I added the other columns up...

I mean, I didn’t change the colors or use any parenthesis.  I didn’t want to make it too confusing, you know?   Obviously something is desperately wrong with the programming (it’s the new version, and we all know it takes “Icrosoftmay” at least 2 years to get it right)

So if someone could do me a solid and call up Microsoft and let them know about this programming error that would be awesome.  I tried it on google docs too and got the same problem, so I’m busy trying to get them to fix it on their end. 

It’s a rough life being a technological Samaritan for these big companies, but it’s obvious this recession is hitting everyone hard.  I know that my position I should be worrying about myself, but I can’t help but be heartbroken over all those beta testers that seem to have lost their jobs…  

The Swine Flu, Medical Insurance, and My life

A global pandemic?

Really?!?

A level 5 on the pandemic scale?

I didn’t even know we had a scale!

3 years ago I didn’t even know that pandemic was a word.  I thought epidemic was always bad enough, I didn’t realize I needed something bigger. 

Now with Avian Flu and the newest Swine Flu, AND I DON’T HAVE INSURANCE!!!!

This is a miserable and horrible time to be out of work and with no Insurance.  Although I’m not sure that insurance would do much good since this is a flu that infects pigs that humans have no natural defense for it.  Also, it being a virus modern medicine has very little they can do.  AAAAAANNNNDDDDD  it only seems to be killing young and otherwise healthy people.

AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

So what’s an unemployed, uninsured, otherwise healthy male in his 20’s supposed to do???

I see how it is…

Fine!  You want this life Pig Virus? I’ll give you this life ... when  you come and pry it from my cold dead … body

… channeling Heston sounded so much more badass before I typed it out. 

Does Gary Sheffield count against the Detroit unemployment rate?

The Detroit Tigers this morning released Gary Sheffield and ate 14 million dollars of salary. Being a fan of baseball I understand that there is a lot of money that changes hands, but this seems like a lot to not have someone play for your team.

This news this morning helped to shine a light on the fact that Detroit's unemployment rate is at 22%. Apparently the Detroit Free Press columnist Rochelle Riley compared this to hurricane Katrina. This took me aback for a moment since I quite vividly remember watching Katrina unfold, be it on television, but had trouble comparing the two in my mind. Until I started looking up the statistics of Katrina and was floored. Louisiana's unemployment after Katrina was only 11- 12%. I could not find a specific unemployment rate for New Orleans, but this puts Detroit's unemployment rate at twice the unemployment after Katrina. I'm not sure if you remember, but Louisiana got hit pretty hard by Katrina and New Orleans was partially underwater. Detroit is twice as unemployed as that.

I know this is sort of mixing apples and oranges, but I felt it brought a bit of perspective. Detroit is in some seriously big trouble.

New York city has been hit very hard by the current recession. Many of the layoffs that have come in the financial sector have been in or around New York City. Some of them have been in Connecticut and some also in New Jersey, but the entire metro area has been affected. The city itself boasts an 8.4% unemployment rate. Which is slightly higher than the national average of 8.1, but still approximately 13 points LOWER than Detroit's rate. Strike that, flip it, and reverse it:

etar s'tiorteD naht REWOL stniop 31 yletamixorppa llits tub

That's almost 3 time HIGHER than the national average.

I was shocked to learn this today. I probably shouldn't have been, especially given the winner of this year's Dole Awards, but I was. There are days that I have a pity party and complain about my problems. (those who follow my twitter know what I mean)

Then I wake up, literally and figuratively, and learn something that makes me wonder not when we are going to get out of this entire mess but if. This country's economy is tied together like the world's economy is tied together. I've been over it before and I've we all watched how the world's economy reacted to our economy tanking.
There is going to come a time when the bailouts have worked or they didn't. The more I read every day, the more I wonder which side we're going to land on. . .

. . . and the latter is terrifying to me.