But you’re not prepared to pay for them.
I asked my Uncle about the Great Depression. He was born in 1910 and graduated high school in 1928. He married and had 2 kids just as the depression hit.
He swore that he always had a job. Some harder than others. But he always could find a way to earn a paycheck. Money was tight but he got by.
My maternal grandfather was born in 1902 and married in 1926. He worked in the oilfields his entire life. A roustabout during the depression. Hard, dirty and dangerous work, but he earned a paycheck. I found his draft registration for 1940 and he’s listed as a roustabout.
I know that wasn’t true for everyone. But jobs could be found if you were willing to take anything offered.
But SHOULD you take anything offered? Should you continue to work at a location where you know illegal activities are occurring? Should you continue to work at a location where a coworker has threatened your physical well-being?
Used to be death at work was more common and seen more as just a cost of doing business than it is now. Do we want to return to those days?
Meanwhile - yeah, sure, get a job as a roustabout - if you can. actualliberalnotoneofthose points out a few reasons why someone would be in retail rather than one of the higher paying categories and one of those reasons would apply to me - my body simply can not handle that level of physical labor anymore. I still have the muscle but my joints can’t tolerate the strain anymore. And that’s true of a good slice of my coworkers who used to work in construction or the local steel industry - we’re getting older and simply can not do 8 (or more) hours of that level of physical labor anymore. Not without risking permanent injury and disability, which would leave us even worse off.
So you made mistakes, big deal. It sounds to me after three pages of this thread that you are looking for the purple unicorn. We don’t know who you are, and what your prime occupation is, since this is a message board and pretty much describes everyone here, but not knowing your prime occupation is a hindrance to helping you in your job search.
So I am gonna take a leap of faith, and assume that you don’t want the job, you want the money. Student loans and medical bills sounds like you owe between 50-250k on a 70k job. The fact that you are looking for a second job, means that you are a dead ender in a govt job. You have no promotion prospects for more money, and no real lateral job qualifications that would allow you to negotiate a signing bonus to cover part of your debt by finding another job in your field.
Las Vegas is your safety net, take 2-5k and one day only. You blow out, you spend the next year saving that stake again.
You’re partially right. I don’t want the job. Actually, we purchased a vehicle about three months before my wife became pregnant with a payment we could afford at the time because she was working a part time admin job pulling in about 1K a month. Deal was, she was responsible for paying the car payment with her job (about 615 per month). Because I want her at home (she agrees, so don’t anyone go all ballistic on me because I’m a woman hater), she quit her job to stay at home with the little one. No more 1K per month and it’s cramping my ability to pay down those debts. We live comfortably on what I make but it doesn’t leave much additional room to pay down debt at any significant rate. The second job will allow me to throw an additional 1K per month at the debt and pay it off faster. That’s all.
Not really a dead ender and I don’t work for the govt. I work for a small company of about 40 employees and they actually do profit sharing and stock options, plus a generous 401K match which is really nice. Not too much room for upward mobility because we’re so small, but the owner really cares about all of us and we can wear shorts, t-shirts and ball caps to work. Hard to beat that, especially when I’ve been in a shirt/tie/slack company at half the pay.
You and your wife have a $615 a month car payment?
For two cars, I imagine?
Hm.
Seriously, you might want to consider downsizing the vehicle in the sense of getting something with a significantly lower payment. Not saying that’s what you should do, just that you should consider it as an option.
Unless only a portion of that $615/month went to a car payment with the balance going somewhere else. Is that what you meant to say?
(Me, I like having two vehicles that are paid off. But that’s me. And eventually I’ll need to get another vehicle, of course.)
So you’d kill someone for good dependable employees, but you wouldn’t offer enough hours to get benefits or anything better than ‘entry level pay’? I find it interesting that businesses that complain about labor shortages absolutely refuse to engage in econ 101 strategies like 'increase the pay or benefits if you want better labor". Of course no one feels loyal to a part time job that pays as little as you can get away with, and of course you’re not finding good dependable employees if you’re not offering good (as in well paid) dependable employment!
“I used to work at McDonald’s making minimum wage. You know what that means when someone pays you minimum wage? You know what your boss was trying to say? "Hey if I could pay you less, I would, but it’s against the law.”
― Chris Rock
33,000@4.21 for 60 months is 611.
A quick Googling says that 4.21 is the average for auto loans in 2017.
It’s much more economical for companies that hire for menial labor to operate that way. Why spend money on things like overtime and insurance and decent pay for a few loyal employees when there’s an unlimited supply of schlubs who will work for none of that?
I’m sure TRC4941 feels pretty put out, dealing with all those schlubs, but if management actually cared it would hire on a core group of permanent workers.
And the worst part is that this feeds into the “there are jobs out there” narrative, because work like that is readily available. There’s plenty of work out there if you don’t care about little things like a living wage or insurance or respect.
And of course, when illegal immigrants take those jobs (because they often don’t care about those things when weighed against making American dollars), it’s “they’re taking jobs away from citizens!”
Yeah…We spent about 7-8 years having both cars paid off and my truck started to be worth more as a lawn ornament than reliable transportation. So instead of being smart and buying a smaller less expensive car for cash, we bought her vehicle with a 4 year term which made the payments a little higher, but would be paid off sooner.
Then I knocked her up and things changed. Regardless, I can afford it, but would be a lot better off if we had an old beater. But then again, since I’m an atheist and believe this is the only life we have, I figure we might as well enjoy some of the finer things while we can.
I’ve thought about this as an option. I like having paid off vehicles too, but they depreciate so much that I feel I’ll have thrown away a lot of money. This car should last well past our last payment, so in the end it will have been a good long term buy. Plus paying it off a little early will help alleviate some of the additional interest. And the 615 is the full car payment per month.
… when nobody forced the employers to give jobs to people who likely don’t possess even a convincing simulacra of actual documentation, and who may all be using the same SSN.
Illegal immigrants don’t steal jobs from Americans. People who hire illegal immigrants steal jobs from Americans.
The true value of a vehicle, to my mind, is not the Blue Book value or whatever but that it provides reliable transportation.
I have a 15 year old car and an 18 year old pickup and both are quite reliable and in better shape than many vehicles considerably younger (I took the truck on a 2500 mile round trip last October with no problems, for example). Of course, this also requires paying attention to what’s going on with the vehicle, preventive maintenance, and about $800-1000/year to keep both running properly (stuff wears out - the car needed new tires this year, and the truck needed a new wheel rim and a few other bits that have simply worn out over time). I don’t consider the maintenance costs of those vehicles “throwing money away” because I’m buying reliable transportation with that money. But I am very aware that this is not how many other people do things. I typically keep cars 12 years or more (obviously) so my calculations are different than someone who replaces them every 5-6 years for whatever reason.
Another option you might consider is to take out sufficient loan to pay off the vehicle now, but with repayment terms considerably lower than $615/month to take the pinch out of your budget in the short term. Yes, that means a longer time to pay it back and more interest, but with more assurance you can actually make that payment every month so you’re not risking repossession AND you have a bit of money for the expenses newborns incur. It’s not an ideal situation, but it would ensure you keep the vehicle and have sufficient money each month for other bills. And if/when you get more income you can double up on the payments (or even triple). Again, it’s an option. I get that you want less debt, not more, but don’t hurt yourself by trying to get out of debt faster than your income can handle.
So, OP, which second job did you end up taking? I assume you must have one by now.
Almost forgot. Have an offer pending for the pizza delivery from interview Friday night. They’re waiting on the background check to come back, criminal and driving history (of which both are clear, so it’s a done deal). GM says his drivers typically make between 12-18 per hour. They actually pay 5 and change for driving, and 7 and change for in store activities. Then add full tips and mileage. So he says it ends up being in the 12-18 on most nights. I am having an issue with insurance though. My insurance company won’t cover me if anything happens while on the job. So I’m waiting on a quote from another company who will cover. Doesn’t look like too much of a jump, but still a small increase. But pizza delivery insurance is like a black hole hell. Just FYI for anyone out there who might end up doing this. I think nobody really acknowledges that this is even a thing.
Got another interview request from another pizza joint this weekend. Haven’t called to schedule interview yet. Still waiting on grocery store to call me back. Not sure if he will or not, but don’t really care. That one will pay a lot less than the driver should.
My interview was really surreal. I’m in my late 30’s and I’ve never worked for a “kid” before. The GM of the store seemed to be about 25 or so, maybe slightly older. I sat there watching him intently as he did the interview and he seemed somewhat nervous. Sentences came out as he was thinking through them. Bounced from subject to subject. Repeated himself a couple of times. I’ve always been so nervous in job interviews before now, but in this case, I didn’t need the job, was more composed and confident than my interviewer, and it felt weird being in that position. He was a very nice guy and seems to have the respect of his employees so we’ll see.
What, no drug test? I’m shocked!
Personal experience suggests that, if pizza delivery drivers had to pass drug screens, we would have a dire shortage of pizza delivery drivers. 