Crazy April

This has been a completely insane month. I knew by late March that I would be overwhelmed, and pretty much looked forward to its conclusion from day one. Don't get me wrong, this April has been absolutely fantastic. In the past thirty days I have...

...celebrated my birthday, my Dad's, and my Aunts at an awesome party.

...started learning a new craft that has forced me to also learn musical theory, which I managed to largely postpone for most of my life so far, and attended my first craft fair as an artisan.

...accepted my first job as a sort of independent contractor and was treated like an actual carpenter, more so than when I was paying mad dues at the union.

...quit the full-time job that I sometimes loved and sometimes involved fearing for my own safety.

...gone on stage to deliver stand up comedy for the first time. It went went TERRIBLY, by the way, so much so that I'm actually looking forward to my next go. There's no way it could ever go that poorly again!

...Quit drinking. Um, mostly. After bombing last night, I did trade in my free drink ticket for a Shiner. But that was it.

I also dealt with the financial emergency that was Darling's shingles, paid May's rent early (so we're broke and ahead at the same time), and was offered a serving job at one of the busier-but-still-chill-and-not-as-corporate-as-it-could-be local diners in town. Oh, the bikes came in the mail! And there was probably some other stuff that has slipped my mind.

Heck, I even did everything on last week's to-do list, with days to spare. Including catching up on my sleep. What are the chances? Well, technically I didn't do well at open mic, but there's no helping that now. Here's what's on my plate for the following week:

- Renew my TABC and Food Handlers Certification

- Put my mountain bike back together/pick up Agni's old bike that's still at the co-op and get it functioning so I have a quick little road bike for my upcoming commute.

- Update my net worth, monthly tabulations, wall chart, and other YMOYL stuff

- Get my debit card from my credit union in order. I opened the account a few weeks ago with some cash, and pretty much left it at that.

- Learn one song on the guitar. I can play the dulcimer relatively well, but the chromatically fretted three-strings are still a mystery.

Happy Confession And Carpentry Gig

I have a confession that's kind of weird to be a confession. I mean, the implications behind this being a confession are more bothersome than the confession itself. So here goes: a friend gave me a laptop. A really nice, brand new laptop, "just because."

How weird and awesome is that? This is the second laptop Darling and I have been given in the past few years and the second amazing tech gift we've received in the past five months. It's brings our gadget inventory to include two laptops, a Kindle, an Android phone, and Darling's fantastic PC. It's kind of an embarrassment of riches. I'm SO grateful, and I love the laptop SO much...It's absurdly light and fast and simply easy to cart around...but I felt shy to admit the gift on my blog.

Before...

As an Atheist I don't feel entitled to use the word "blessed," but there's no better description of my life. With or without the influence of a benevolent creator, my existence has been entirely charmed in every possible matter. I guess that's why this feels like a confession. I don't deserve the warm bed I sleep in, I don't deserve to have more technology than many third world villages, I don't deserve the forgiveness and understanding and respect of my amazing friends and family. But somehow, someway, I've weaseled my way into this privileged lifestyle. 

At least no one can say I didn't earn my keep one way or another. Technically, last Friday night was my final shift, but I've worked harder in the past seven days than I've ever worked in my entire life. I've already mentioned my crazy weekend, during which I worked over twenty-eight hours straight. Monday I took it easy, but was offered a carpentry job by a friend. She's renovating a house and, having recently had the porch extended, needed a new railing. I jumped at the opportunity. She definitely made it worth my while, but it made for a fairly Hellish few days because (surprise!) I had very little of idea what I was doing.

...After. Well, actually, about 75% finished. I added a top railing and such. 

All told, I made significantly more money this week than I could have at the hostel, and doing the sort of work I love. The only bummer is that I was so physically exhausted at the end of every day that I couldn't drag myself into the workshop to tend my own business. So that was pretty much put on hold. I'm pretty pleased to have accomplished my first week's goal (to make money somehow, someway). Now I look forward to my other goal, namely, to catch up on my sleep!

A Hard Gamble

It's been over a week since my last list of goals. I accomplished almost none of them. I chickened out on selling plasma for the dozenth time, decided to hold off on my friend's mountain bike because my own bike should be on it's way, and, because I'm paying to ship my bike and didn't sell plasma, haven't had the money to cover the pedicab licensing.

R and I finished all but once of the second set of instruments and priced all of the finished product. Two out of five, er, could be worse. 

I spent yesterday and today building porch railings for a friend. I think I'm about 90% finished, which is fairly good considering I had absolutely no idea how to approach this project at the start. At this stage it would be a relief to tear the thing down and redo it much better, but that's not really an option. I just have to do the detail work and feel happy that my customer seems happy enough.

After staining the railing I'll be installing a gate, and then I might stain some other woodwork on the property, and then I might stain the concrete or the porch. One thing leads to another, you know? I had an interview with a pedicab company scheduled today, but my contact was a half hour late and I couldn't quite justify spending longer than that away from one job to try and get another.

Technically, I've been unemployed for four days. I slept in Monday and saw a show that evening, but every other day I've woken up early and worked late. I may be working more hours than ever, come to think of it, for a relatively small amount of cash. Small enough to seriously worry that I'll both run out of gas and bounce a check if things go on this way. I'm hoping this is an investment in time and energy. I have to believe this will come back to me tenfold. Because otherwise...well, I lose, basically. That's how it feels right now, like I've taken a major gamble and at this stage there's nothing more to do than see how everything plays out. Granted that sounds like I'm sitting on my butt watching a chain of events rather than pushing myself past the brink of exhaustion every darn day.

This week's to-do list:

* Make money. Somehow, someway. Get the cash for carpentry, sell plasma, convince someone to buy a guitar, something has to give.

* Accomplish non-shop related business stuff: practice guitar, print up playbook, organize receipts...

* Do well on open mic

* Update tabulations

* Catch up on sleep

Last Night of Work and My First Craft Fair

Oh my.

That's all I can say about the past few days. I woke up at 5 pm on Friday (I worked overnight Thursday) and went directly into the shop. Five hours in the shop before I had to rush into work, which was not only my last shift, but a training shift, AND the worst shift I have ever worked ever doing anything. I dealt with people who were so obnoxiously drugged up and idiotic that they called the cops on THEMSELVES. It was absolutely insane.

And then I went home and went straight back into the shop, hoping to finish five guitars sometimes before having a late lunch. I didn't leave the shop until 12:30 a.m. the next day.

So, I woke up at 5 pm on Friday and went to sleep at 1 a.m. on Sunday. I worked about thirty hours straight. At one point, R and I looked at each other, faces smudged black by metal polish, hair heavy with sawdust, hands laced with minor cuts and scratches, and agreed that we were living the dream, and the dream is hard.

Amazingly, we met our deadline. After a five hour nap for me (two hours for R), Darling and S helped us load up the car and head to the craft fair. The craft fair was mediocre at best. We got a lot of feedback, primarily that we need a website and a business card. R and I agreed, though had we taken the time to build a site and print a card before the fair we wouldn't have had anything to try and sell. We'll get that stuff put together by next Saturday, at which point we're going to make a go at a nearby artisans market.

This morning I woke up and could barely cope with not having a deadline to meet. With no forethought whatsoever, I put some strawberries in a pan with sugar, a splash of lemon juice, and some water and set that to simmer while setting to work baking an angel food cake from scratch. Before long there was a delicious strawberry shortcake for breakfast. Then I checked my phone messages: a handyman job offer from a friend. She needs porch railings. Since I needed to pay her a visit anyway, I drove into town to check the job out. I should be able to do it fairly easily tomorrow morning and make some decent cash.

That cash can cover the shipping of my bikes from Virginia to Texas :) A little more work can cover the cost of my pedicab licensing :) Heck, there might even be enough work that I won't need to ride my bike for money at all for a while...Just a professional builder, me. Better not to get ahead of myself, better to see how this job goes first.

Frugality For The Fun Of It

Tonight is my last shift of full-time work. All afternoon today was spent sanding, finishing, and polishing some instruments. Tomorrow is more of the same, plus some drilling, gluing, and fastening, from the moment I get home at around eight a.m. to whenever we finish. It's equal parts fun, stressful, and instructive to be working towards our first deadline.

Sunday is my first craft fair. I know it will be one of many and every venue will be different, but I still feel like this fair ultimately determines whether R and I will sink or swim. Yet I don't really have the energy to be nervous about Sunday because I can't stop thinking about Monday.

Do you know what happens Monday? Not.a.thing. Nothing! Actually, I'm getting together with friends that evening to see a comedy show I have free tickets for, but officially I have no obligations for Monday. No more job, no emergency instrument building, possibly a little cash in my pocket if Sunday goes well...I can sleep in and spend my day however the mood strikes me. I will play some guitar, maybe finish my first water color, finish reading Down and Out in Pars and London (such a good book!), blog, do some laundry if I feel like it, and maybe prep the boxes for our next batch of guitars.

Actually, I might just sleep for sixteen hours before the comedy show. That sounds quite appealing. Maybe go swimming.

And then the remainder of April will be a matter of rebuilding my new standard of living. By May fourth I want to sign a lease for an apartment, which means, as I've mentioned before, having a lot of money in my pocket. I think I can get that money, and fast, via pedicabbing, so by Tuesday I should gather the paperwork for that. I'll be earning good cash by next weekend :)

I cancelled my dental appointment on Monday because I just couldn't cope with being broke within three days of getting my paycheck for the dozenth time. I'm so over that way of life. It's just too disheartening to put gas in the truck, pay the phone bill, and then have one medical expense/rent payment/whatever and then spend the next eleven days saying, "Yeah, I'd like to go out with you, but I really don't have even $5 to help pay for parking and if I have exactly enough gas to get to and from work every day this week!"

Yeah, over that. I'm totally earning more than enough money to get by from now on. No more scraping and scrimping. Frugality For The Fun Of It might just be the title of the next chapter of the challenge.

Oh. Duh.

Statue at my Mom's house

The last couple of weeks I have just been racking my brain trying to work out how to save up enough money to get the deposit, first, and last month's rent together on an expensive Austin apartment. I planned and schemed, worried and worked, talked to everyone I knew, made a facebook post, and could not work out how to pay an $800+ monthly rent even if my husband and I could weasel our way into a lease in the first place.

The solution was so simple, so neat, and so obvious, I almost don't want to admit it. I am simply out of gratefulness that the interminable weight has been lifted from my shoulders and I can breathe again.

How does someone live in a city that is expensive to live in? How does someone live comfortably in an an expensive apartment? By earning more money. Duh. Heck, go ahead and earn lots of money. Why  not?

I'm amazed to realize that although I have no doubt whatsoever of my ability to earn a high income (albeit not a professional one), it never occurred to me that this would be an acceptable way of making money to buy things I need and want. Ever since I left my last high-paying server job, I've worked for some higher standard or other. Learning a trade, like baking or carpentry. Or filling some social niche at an organic farm or International Non-profit. It's been a long, long time since I thought to work to earn money to pay rent and buy groceries.

So I basically gave myself permission yesterday to get a job that earns enough money to pay an average Austin rent, get a fantastic apartment, and be comfortable. It feels really groundbreaking and exciting. Yes, we could have lived for free in a Detroit squat and grown and dumpstered our own food and blah blah blah, but my family and business is not in Detroit, it's in Austin. Austin, the land of trash compactors and $700 studio apartments. I still plan on pedicabbing, and if that doesn't work out I should be able to get a good job as a waitress in the near future. And we will have our home by June, I think :)

UnQualified

Darling and I totally don't qualify to rent an apartment.

To be fair, we never had to. In my experience, landlords and leasing agents don't care about your income if you show up to view the apartment with first and last month rent, in cash, as well as the deposit. Cash is king, baby, to the degree that six years ago I was able roll into Austin with no job and no prospects but still sign for a two-bedroom townhouse in central Austin. Amazing what you can do with a handy $2,500.

Today, on the other hand, I can prove employment (for the time being, at least), stable work and rental history (the co-op should count for that much, at least), and in-state residency for the better part of a decade...I can also cover the deposit and am willing to sign weeks and weeks in advance...yet I'm nowhere near swindling my way into a studio located closer to San Antonio than downtown Austin.

I just don't have $2,500 to make my usual leasing bribe, nor can I imagine saving that much in the following months. As much as it chafes, however, Darling and I have to man up and start saving again. Not only do we have to save, but we have to save close to $1,900, if we want the apartment that's caught my eye, the apartment that will be available at the start of June. As singularly painful as it is to say this, Darling and I absolutely must save $200 more than we currently owe in debt. I have to stop paying debt. Then, after I stop paying debt, I have to let cash accumulate in the shiny new savings account I opened with my credit union. And THEN - and here's where a sharp, throbbing pain forms just behind my right eye - I have to say goodbye to that money and watch my net worth dip back below zero.


Which is acceptable. Very acceptable, normal, reasonable, and healthy. Darling and I will then have our own apartment and can go back to the good old days of buying our own groceries (packaging-free, natch), baking our own bread, growing some potted veggies, and exploring a brand of self-reliant sustainability that fell to the wayside in our years of cooperative living. And if we're able to save that cash for the apartment, it couldn't possibly be much longer before catching back up and paying off the last of our debt once and for all. Heck, at least then we can have something to show for ourselves.

Of course, as always, I'm skipping a vital step: I'm unemployed as of next week! But I have a plan, one just slightly more sensible than totally depending on arts-and-crafts to make a living, or even arts-and-crafts and Darling's side job...I'm going to pedicab.

I may not be as cute as this pedicabber, but hopefully I'll be busier

I've lived with a number of pedicab riders and have been impressed by their income, flexible schedules, and general physique. It's something I've always wanted to try (actually, being a bike courier was something I wanted to do since watching Dark Angel as a kid, but pedicab is the only cycling job I can find in Austin). I'd intended to try it out before falling out of shape after my bike tour, but I was out of shape by Christmas so that didn't work out.

Considering I'm trying damn near everything else that intimidates me in 2013 (stand up comedy, self-employment, working on my first book...), I might as well try something that might pay for the rest of my mistakes...or at least compensate for my diet choices.

So, goals this week:
* Apply for the various licenses needed to start pedicabbing, and contact various companies to determine rates.
* Finish the first set of guitars AND the third set, as we have exactly seven days before the craft fair!
* Sell plasma for the first time (speaking of things that intimidate me) and hope to God I get enough to cover gas until my paycheck on Friday
* Fix up my friend's mountain bike he said I could borrow
* Price the instruments (holdover from last set of goals) 

Moving Along

Not much in my life stays the same for very long, it seems, and blogging has felt almost like a retrogressive process because, the moment I publish a post, my best-laid plans have shifted tangentially off-center and I find myself heading in a completely different direction altogether!

R and I are still in business. I'll consider it a serious business after our first sell, which we've been putting off for the sake of accumulating inventory for our first fair. By the end of this month we intend to have about $2,500 worth of product. That's product, not profit, but I still like the look of our numbers. Thank God for our League of Investors, who have so far covered much of our tool and material expenses. It's amazing to have friends who really believe in me. It kind of takes away my right to not believe in myself.

I let myself hate my job a little more every day. It's still a non-profit, still the closest thing to doing no harm than I've ever gotten paid for, and still in the service industry, which I'm good at. The problem is that my position forces me to say "no" to people who would like to take advantage of me and my workplace. In fact, I have to sorely disappoint a shocking number of people who feel completely entitled to totally screw me and my employer. I actually miss waiting tables, where my job is to say "yes," and maybe commiserate on the rare occasion that my "yes" isn't magical enough to make everyone's dreams come true. I hate saying "no." I hate having to judge people, too. Because so many people are given the opportunity to endanger my workplace, I have to recognize those risks the moment they walk through the door and guard myself accordingly. Having dispelled what little romantic idealism I ever had in Detroit, the once soft-edges of my accepting and forgiving nature are growing ever sharper, ever more cynical. The time to step out of this environment is long overdue! Just seven more days, and it's just me and R and the shop!

In the meantime, Darling has a side job and has agreed to pay rent on the apartment we're hunting for. We've fallen in love with a particular neighborhood. It's a series of quiet cul de sacs located behind a grocery store, next to a comic store, across the street from a fantastically beautiful park, on a particularly useful bus route and along a great bike path. It's a twenty minute bike ride from the workshop, and close enough to central Austin to get decent work. Yet it's far enough south that rents are extremely reasonable. I can get a two-bedroom apartment here for the same price a studio goes for in my old neighborhood. One unit will be available in May and another in June. So the current Big Scary Question is do we move in two weeks, which feels way too soon, or in six weeks, which feels far too distant? If we go for the May deadline, we basically need the deposit this week. And then we will need rent in two more weeks. Which is insane. But I haven't had an insane short-term money goal in a while, and I really miss my privacy...

Coming Soon:
*  Will we make any money at my first craft show? Will we be a hit? Or laughed out of town? Will I have to get another job to survive, continuing my never-ending journey towards total burn-out, or is self-employment an actual possibility?
* Will Darling and I move into an apartment just weeks after leaving my full-time job/sole source of income? Are we really that stupid? What on earth will we do with two bedrooms and next to no possessions?
* Will we find a decent dumpster from which we can stock our refrigerator? Work part-time at a farm? How will we meet our needs on a part-time job and a fledgling crafts company?
Stay Tuned!

Insurance

Thanks for the fantastically kind comments on my last post :) On a quick practical note, Lizzie mentioned that Darling and I could get in a lot of trouble without health insurance, and she is totally right. A more sensible American would be looking into all sorts of options, ranging from HSAs to emergency disability insurance to full-scale personal insurance. I looked into all that around 2009, when I dropped my uber-expensive employer's coverage (It was about $300/month for fairly minimal coverage), and purchased personal coverage (about the same price for even less, I dropped it very quickly).

What did I learn dabbling with insurance, researching it for weeks upon weeks online, and numerous frank discussions with friends and family about their choices? That a plane ticket to England would be cheaper than the cheapest insurance option available to me, that's what. I'm not saying that would be the easiest option in the world, but if Darling is every seriously/expensively ill, that's where he's going. I also have no problem heading to Mexico for affordable healthcare. Obviously neither option works in the event of emergencies, which is a shame, but I can't afford to pay between two and four thousand dollars a year "just in case."

The good news is that open enrollment for The Health Insurance Marketplace begins October of this year! I plan on applying at the absolute first opportunity, so I'll have health insurance in nine months one way or another. Hopefully tax credits will make the insurance very affordable or free, and hopefully Darling and I avoid further illness in the meantime.

The Plague and a Job Offer

Darling has shingles. He suffered through about two weeks before we finally decided to go to the doctor, thank goodness, as the condition is somewhat viral and contagious...Doctors visits and prescription medication cost us just short of $200. Which is about how much I lost by not working last month when I was sick. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that we had the cash to pay for treatment. It's just a bummer to be so totally broke for yet another month. I was planning on having the bikes shipped to Austin with that money. Now I don't know what to do.

I've only turned in two job applications, but I did have one really positive interview today at a restaurant. I was basically offered the job, with the unfortunate stipulation that there aren't any positions available at this moment. I'll find out next week if they'll let me work part-time while someone is on vacation, otherwise I might have to wait until fall. This provides an interesting set of choices. On the one hand, I only have three more weeks of work at the nonprofit and can't afford to not have a job over the summer. On the other hand, I could be very, very busy making instruments in the next twelve weeks, which was the whole point of staying in Austin in the first place..

It's worth noting that this is a really good job, I could easily earn twice as much money working half as many hours. And I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that I would fit in, which may sound shallow or whatever, but I've been playing the outcast at work for way too long. Good money, short hours, and friendly atmosphere? Yeah...that might be worth the wait. Earning that type of money I could see myself making a financial recovery. I could see myself renting a decent apartment, too, and even enjoying some leisure time. One way or another, I'm pretty sure this is going to work out for me.

Assuming I don't come down with the plague, of course.

April 2013 Net Worth

I had a lot of highs and lows in March.

A painful and lingering illness, the cashing of a forgotten check, deciding to stay in Austin, slowly coming to terms with my financial situation from a family perspective, and toying with the idea of starting a business resulted in a certain degree of stress and anxiety. I found myself seriously considering retiring The Challenge altogether, seeing little to be gained in drawing out the inevitable conclusion that there is no way I can achieve my goals by this point. I couldn't even reach debt freedom in five years. Hell, I couldn't maintain a steady job, and spent a good deal of money determining that my husband might not either. I think our financial life will always be okay, but with so many strikes against me ( X Million Dollars of dental work still to be done, no college education, flighty temperment, needy parents ) it's hard to imagine ever achieving anything like "Total Financial Freedom.

I know this is a little simple-minded, but tabulating my expenses and discovering we spent less than I earned this month provided a big boost in confidence. That's amazingly challenging even without credit, though it's hard to say how. Then I went to update my wall chart and fell back into a funk when I saw how much less we earned this month than last...then I updated my net worth and was equal parts pleased and disappointed with myself.  Pleased because my net worth increased by nearly $400 to -$1,491.84...there's just something awesome about being less than $1,500 away from a positive balance. However, I'm still not where I was at last May. I still haven't made ANY progress in a ten-month period! That's a little devastating.

The Current Assembly

Darling and I are going through a major transition period, one that I think is coming to a conclusion in the following months. We had one hell of an adventure last year, and - in many ways against my better judgment - have decided to settle back down. This can and probably will be a good thing, for this blog especially, because it means re-learning a lot of normal behaviors. Buying groceries, paying rent, maintaining a savings account...This could be really exciting and even liberating after spending so many years living cooperatively and months of communal living. Who knows, maybe my business will take off and we will achieve something that looks like success after all.