She eats, sleeps, has friends over, plays video games, and reads library books, rather than putting the spare time to use earning a second income.
There aren’t enough roll-eyes smilies in the world…
Sven, I don’t know what to tell you. You need to find someone who knows something about money and finances and have a good long talk, because you clearly don’t know much. Not trying to be insulting; lots of people don’t understand that kind of stuff.
You have thousands of dollars in CDs. What makes you think you have “no meaningful assets”? CDs are a MUCH better asset than any car or computer because they don’t depreciate. If you are telling any credit card company that you have NO assets - if you don’t consider your CDs an asset - then you really need to learn some basics about finance.
You could get a loan from any bank in the U.S. tomorrow, easily, by using your CDs as collateral. (Not that you should do this; it’s just an example.) A CD is guaranteed money. Very few banks will count a car and certainly not a computer as collateral for anything, because they are ephemeral. They depreciate extremely quickly and they are extremely easy to crash/wreck/otherwise render useless, and therefore useless to a bank as collateral or as part of your schedule of assets. Your CDs, on the other hand, are considered very secure by a bank. They are a much more “meaningful” asset than any piece of metal sitting in your driveway.
No, you don’t need to have any income at all. You simply need to show that you have the means to pay back whatever you charge - whether that’s by past credit history or by showing that you have sufficient assets. You can show that by using your CDs as collateral.
$600 income per month is plenty to get a credit card with a $500 or higher limit. Unless you have bad credit - not no credit; bad credit. Even if you do have bad credit, your CDs will offset that by being the collateral.
I don’t think you should get a credit card just to get one. But when you have an emergency like having the ATM eat your debit card and you have no other way to get cash, a credit card would be useful.
What are you talking about? You do it constantly. Every thread is an even sven pity party, and back when people were cool with it and giving good advice, you ignored it. Now you’ve started whining about how mean we are even though you never whine! The mind boggles.
I don’t see why, if you’re sitting on money (yes, even if you owe some) you don’t make an investment in your future, move to another city (since it’s seemingly impossible to get another job where you are - and yes, it is impossible to get a decent job in some places) and earn some real income rather than constantly bitching about how you don’t have anything. It wouldn’t take a fortune to move somewhere else. Move in with your folks, in fact - you’re poor and it’s what poor college kids do! Do something with your life because compared to a lot of people I know, you have an asset that if you used, you could turn it into a real investment in your future.
See, I have a friend working more hours than you who earns a lot less, and really couldn’t find a better job, despite a year of sending out job applications. Thank God she finally did, and she’s moving cross-country for it, but she’ll have a living income now. There are jobs out there, and you could take a thousand or two of what you have, move, and get a decent job. You’d end up earning it back toot sweet. The fact that you don’t makes it clear that you don’t have any desire to improve your own situation, or make even the slightest effort to plan financially (not having any cash around! That’s ridiculous!) You have the resources to improve your situation, but instead you seem determined to live in the most expensive city in the country, not work to your potential, and play victim of fate until you’ve spent all your cash. Then what? You’ll really be fucked at that point.
Stop it, GoBear!!!
Paper Bag?
Argentina?
I’m still trying to get Jesus from tapdancing in my head! :smack:
[QUOTE=Excalibre]
I don’t see why, if you’re sitting on money (yes, even if you owe some) you don’t make an investment in your future, move to another city (since it’s seemingly impossible to get another job where you are - and yes, it is impossible to get a decent job in some places)
[QUOTE]
This thread inspired me to take a look at the job postings at UC Santa Cruz. Universities are job factories-someone’s got to keep up with all the students and the faculty, someone has to make all those appointments and handle all that paperwork. Someone who can drive and read can get 1,800-2,200 a month for sorting and delivering campus mail. How bad would that be by California standards?
Actually, if I read that right, it will be worth taking twelve hours of another person’s time.
sven, does your salary include living quarters? Just curious…you know there’s a big difference between an income of $600/month and an income of $600/month plus a place to live.
By California standards? You could maybe afford to rent a room. If you went to a bad part of town and subletted from a meth addict named Julio. With the money left over, you could have one “non-Ramen” day a week, and you’d have enough left over for gas and car insurance. If the car got 87 mpg and was so old and junky that you’d only need liability coverage. It also should be enough to cover utility bills. If you keep the thermostat set to “Off,” and only use your refrigerator every other Thursday. The remainder should just about cover health insurance. If you get one of those “disaster” plans that only covers you in the event an Argentinian death squad invades your home and leaves you a colostomized cripple who needs at least 7.3 months of full-time hospital hospital stay, and you can cough up the 93% co-pay.
(I moved to Texas for a reason! :))
even sven, nobody is suggesting that you need to blow a big wad of cash buying gifts for the world. If they were, they’re assholes. However, do you need to bring it up as some sort of whining ‘woe is me’ issue? “I can’t buy the one present I can afford this year, a book for my sainted mother.” “I only wish I had food in my cupboard to help me through this week.” “This xmas was going to suck anyway, because I’m poor and sad.”
People are sick and tired of hearing your tales of woe when you have the means to make things a bit better. It doesn’t even necessarily mean spending like a Rockefeller, just quit acting like a pauper who needs to stuff newspaper in his coat and cardboard in his shoes.
You’re doing the RIGHT thing in not spending the money willy nilly, but dammit do we have to hear about how poor you are every week?
$10 to the first person who figures out what “Squacking” is.
[QUOTE=Fionn]
[QUOTE=Excalibre]
I don’t see why, if you’re sitting on money (yes, even if you owe some) you don’t make an investment in your future, move to another city (since it’s seemingly impossible to get another job where you are - and yes, it is impossible to get a decent job in some places)
If the situation in Santa Cruz is comparable to places like Irvine, than at least half of that is rent for a studio apartment, that doesn’t include monthly utilities (The lowest my electricity has been this year is $60 and that’s during the winter when we aren’t home 12 hours a day and never run the heater, for example. I don’t know how much water and trash is though.). However, if she doesn’t have any crippling debt (other than student loans. I mean CCs, car notes, etc), then yeah, it’ll be enough to squeak by on.
Oh, I noticed Metacom mentioned health insurance. Um, yeah, that changes things, if a person really wants health insurance. But if she’s willing to risk living without it, things should be ok.
Still, it’s better than trying to scrape by an existence on $600 a month. I make a little less than that, and I would be absolutely homeless if my husband wasn’t bringing in a decent income.
You are right. Sven would rather take twelve hours of another person’s time to be chauffeured about than to take a bus for ten hours. Sorry about the counting error. Being a dumb artsie, I have difficulty counting past ten with my socks on.
Actually MY FAMILY (my mom one way, my grandma the other) volunteered to drive me, since they too would like to see me for as long as possible during the holidays, and they don’t want me to have to
The as-yet-unrecalled hiring freeze is still affecting employment at the University. Most of their hiring is done in house, and as a state agency they have to hire based on objective experience, not on giving a nice young girl a leg up. Most of those positions represent who they would like to hire, or are reserved for people who are already state employees.
$1,800-$2,200 sounds like a fortune right now, but I’ve sent out apps for every on-campus job I’m even vaguely qualified for- from baker’s assistant to power maintance worker to nude model to copyhouse employee to test reader. All I’ve gotten out of it was out the bus ride to campus for a few interviews and an endless stream of rejection letters. You gotta believe me when I say my job search has been as exhaustive as is possible.
I know the answer is getting out of Santa Cruz and that is exactly what I am doing. But I was already unemployed for six months, and there is nothing to say that I won’t blow my wad moving and sit there unemployed again. Twice bitten and all that. My friends in other cities have not fared much better than me, and it would simply be foolish for me to place my bets financially on getting a job within a couple of months. I’d hate to just throw all that money down the drain and then end up moving back in with my parents. My plan was to wait until this big “earn $5600 in one month” hotel job that I was supposed to have in Janurary and use that money for movie. $5600 in one month is worth some lean months. But there was an illness in my employer’s family and I just found out last week the $5600 thing wasn’t going to happen.
Actually MY FAMILY (my mom one way, my grandma the other) volunteered to drive me, since they too would like to see me for as long as possible during the holidays, and they don’t want me to have to see me any more worn out than I am going to be. Go ask the homeless why they arn’t selling their kidneys for cash or something, Muffin, you really arn’t contributing here.
The jobs on campus arn’t so easy to get due to UC’s finacial woes (most hiring is restricted to those that are already state employees) and the fact that as a state agency they must hire the objectively most experienced person- and you’d be surprised. I didn’t get a job that I gave a perfect interview with to my personal friends in my old department that I had experience for because some crusty old guy just happened to have twenty years of experience renting high-end film equiptment. If it exists, there is some unemployed guy in Santa Cruz who has more experience than you in it. I’ve applied for every UC job I’m vaguley qualified for from baker’s apprentice to copy room assistant to nude model…so far no luck.
I know the answer is getting out of Santa Cruz and that is exactly what I am doing. But I was already unemployed for six months, and there is nothing to say that I won’t blow my wad moving and sit there unemployed again. Twice bitten and all that. My friends in other cities have not fared much better than me, and it would simply be foolish for me to place my bets financially on getting a job within a couple of months. I’d hate to just throw all that money down the drain and be in nothing more than a worse situation than I am in today. One of my biggest fears is reliving the nightmare of long term unemployment, as you watch everything you’ve worked for drain slowly away and everything you own go for pennies at garage sales and your relationships sour as you borrow money to feed your hellish bare minimum life while you slave endlessly at the sisyphus-like toil of sending out resumes to the thankless gaping maws of the lords of the job search and never get anything more for your work but great fistfuls of rejection letters. I want a job or at least there months living expenses before I move.
My plan was to wait until this big “earn $5600 in one month” hotel job that I was supposed to have in Janurary and use that money for move. $5600 in one month is worth some lean months. But there was an illness in my employer’s family and I just found out last week the $5600 thing wasn’t going to happen. Now I have to come up with a different plan. It seems like things might go my way with this potential new job…we’ll see
FWIW, I don’t need to go in later tonight, so I had time to get money from the bank, buy food and christmas presents, and get my pills. Thank goodness!
Excuse me, apologies, I just don’t understand how you can be working 7 straight days. 24 hours a day, and be netting $600/month.
Worn out from what? Sitting on your ass playing video games and hanging with your friends at your “ungodly easy” job? Doing piece work is hardly selling a kidney. Taking a bus rather than having others chauffeur you about is hardly selling a kidney. Scamming free birth control when you have money in the bank and a rich boyfriend is hardly selling a kidney. And why would you want me to contirbute to you? Me me me me me, that’s all you have to say. Stop saying it. Stop whining about your self-imposed circumstances.
This is a vicious cycle right here. Even sven likes to feel sorry for herself. Everyone else likes to jump on her for it, causing her to feel ganged up on and even more sorry for herself. It is never going to stop.
Sven, I believe you when you say your life sucks. It probably sucks hard. It sucks as much as you want it to, which is lots. To tell the truth, my financial and living situation is probably pretty similar to yours. I am living in a very, very run down apartment, with a none-too-glamorous job that pays about $600 a month, with no driver’s license, and, yes, a tipped uterus. Somehow, my life seems not one hundredth as depressing as yours. I’m pretty damn happy with it, actually. I wonder why that is?
There are only 3 rules in life…
(1) There’s always a victim
(2) Don’t be one
(3) Nothing else matters.
even sven is absolutely wallowing in; revelling in; joyously partaking in doing the exact opposite to Rule Number Two.
That’s an interesting point. I donate to Planned Parenthood, so if that’s where she’s getting her pills, well, part of those are from me. Merry Christmas, even sven. I had hoped that money would go for someone who actually needed it, though.
The site you linked to said the hiring freeze was only through June of 2003. Has it been extended?