Thursday, September 29, 2011

I just want to let you all know that I may or may not have written a two page operetta of sorts, so that I might apply for a scholarship to go back to school.

Ahh, the allure of $100,000.


But, seriously. Not only am I juggling a life I can barely finance as is, I ALSO want to put some money in a hole somewhere and then dig it up next year so that I can go back to school.

WHAT. AM. I. THINKING.


As time wears on, I feel less and less substandard though. I've been reading a lot lately, especially stories about people in my generation, and how there has to be no shame in moving home or working a shitty job, because that's all we have right now. I mean, look at me. Yes, I'm still clinging by my fingernails to my own apartment in the nicest neighborhood in the city. But at what cost? My job doesn't pay me enough, so I fill literally every free moment of every day applying for and going to various studies, focus groups, taking paid surveys, looking for online income supplements, working like hell on my burlesque, if only to scrape together a few more dollars. And I'm donating my eggs. If I make it through all the screening tests.

Because, if I do, that pays my entire credit card off, and I can start from scratch again, with the sigh of relief that is not having to devote a whole hundred dollars to trying to dent it each month.

None of this, mind you, gets me any closer to school. All of this is solely to close the gap between how much I make at my day job, and how much my rent/groceries/utility bills cost. Because I'll let you in on a little secret. I make $200 less per month than the absolute minimum I need to live. We're talking $10 a week for groceries, and I *still* need to work an extra job just to make sure I have that.

The good news? You can take out up to $45,000 in private student loans per year.
The bad news? I might very well need every cent of that, unless I can whip up a good amount of private scholarship cash. Because I know myself, and I know that going to school full time AND working full time will never happen. A part time job will only get me so far.


We'll see what happens.

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Remember that part where I'm BAD at this?

Still bad at keeping up with the Joneses blogging.

I'm still trucking away at life. Burlesque things are going well. I'm debuting my SECOND act this Friday, hurray!

The downside to everything is that I'm hopelessly poor, as always, and I'm entirely sick of it. So I'm looking at finding ways to supplement my income a little.

I've dabbled with several online moneymaking schemes in the past, things like CashCrate and other GPT sites... most of which just flood your life with spam, which really isn't worth the $20 or $30 you do end up making with them.

I used to use Associated Content (now owned by Yahoo!), and I continue to receive a few dollars in my PayPal at the end of each month from them. (Not bad for someone who didn't contribute regularly) I really like Associated Content/The YAHOO Contributor Network, or whatever they're calling themselves nowadays. They pay based on page views. If you're savvy (not like me), you can generate a good amount of targeted content that will end up making you quite a lot of money in a short amount of time. I never did make much money through them, but I was never really aiming to either. And the bonus of looking at my PayPal every few months and finding five bucks I didn't know I had is always nice too.

But I'm thinking I need something a little more substantial this time around. And while I *could* pop onto AC and crank out some crap about Kim Kardashian, Dancing with the Stars, or The X-Factor... the truth is I don't even own a television, so I'm not exactly at the forefront of popular culture. So I'm looking into some sites that offer work as a transcriptionist. These are Scribie.com and Quicktate.com.

As of right now, I know absolutely zero about either of them, as I've just signed up. But I have heard some decent things about both, so I'll try to remember to tell you how it ends up.

Really, if I can manage another $10 or $15 per week, I'll be better off than where I am today. And it will be $10 or $15 I can play with, instead of racking my credit card back up through the ceiling.