In which I miss my boyfriend the Internet SO MUCH.
I lost my job in mid-June and applied for unemployment. I quit filing for benefits a few weeks ago because I hadn’t gotten any money and it seemed like a waste of time.
Last Saturday, Bread brought me a check that had arrived in the mail at the farm, and we drove to the bank to cash it. (Yes, it only took three months to get that stunning $164 a week benefit processed.) The teller informed me that there was a garnishment on my account and that it was overdrawn to the tune of $2,600.
Because clearly, I wasn’t already feeling bad ENOUGH.
(I quit paying a credit card bill last year when we were too broke to pay everything and it went to collections. I’ve been paying on it — sporadically — but the collections company that bought the debt is incredibly aggressive and put this nasty garnishment on my account. I don’t even know how it can be legal. May they rot in fucking hell.)
The bank cashed the check anyway, bless them (let’s hear it for small towns where they actually know you) and I gave Bread some cash and kept the rest. The next day it all went to bills because we have to pay the property insurance to keep from breaking the contract on the farm. I have $5 to my name because NLW, for whom I’m doing some data entry today, gave it to me.
I still don’t have a job, and the WGI gig is over. I’m overqualified for everything I’ve applied for. I’m starting to dumb down my resume in hopes that it’ll get me hired, and sadly enough find myself wishing for an $8 an hour job.
To make me even more retarded, it’s That Time Of The Month again, which means my hormones have made me stupid. I know I need to sit down and make an action list for dealing with my considerable financial issues, and that I’ll feel better when I start checking items off, but because I’m hormonal and depressed I keep putting it off. Hopefully I’ll have my brain back within the next couple of days and will be able to get some proactivity going on. I need to make a lot of phone calls, and tell various creditors why I’m not paying them and that it looks like I will continue to not pay them for awhile to come.
My bank is actually paying my automatic withdrawals and the checks I had out, so at least I don’t have to do the walk of shame into a variety of businesses I’ve been writing checks to for the past 15 years. God, I hate bouncing checks. It’s so embarrassing.
To recap: I’m depressed, broke, jobless, and despondant. Soon I’ll no longer have a cell phone, because Bread and BoSe are also broke and can’t pay the bill so they’ve decided to cancel the phones the three of us got in Indy (one of two cell phone contracts in my name). I have no idea how I’m supposed to job hunt without a phone, but maybe something will come up. Maybe.
Thank you all for your comments. I miss you guys.
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I’m totally missing you, too. Big ‘ol sloppy southern smooches to you.
mush- the tech job market here is in overdrive. there are more opportunities than people. maybe you should consider moving east for a while.
I have a skype phone. I paid $40 dollars for a phone number for an entire year. At least people will be able to reach you. -gregg
i wish there was something i could do, but i don’t think that fortuna has smiled upon us…at least bran hasn’t said she has. chin up. something will turn up somewhere.
Mush, have you looked online at the University of Iowa’s employment website? Next time you have access (like, say, NOW), go there and look at ALL the jobs (merit and P & S). The benefits are incredible and they will do damn near anything to help a new employee. Cuz if the jobs ain’t in FF, maybe you should consider elopin’ with your own bad self. I know it takes moola to move, but it sounds like SOMEthing needs a little push to get your life back in a rolling groove. It won’t be this hard forever, y’know. Big hugs to you, love.
*SMOOCH*
*HUG*
take care of yourself, Mush.
all i can do is send good thoughts and there are TONS of those being sent from me to you.
Go here. If you breath, you can find work. With signing bonuses.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6098557
Spend a couple years here and you’ll have a nice nest egg for the rest of your life.
No actual helpful advice – but sending you good thoughts.
Hey, which e-mail address do you actually use?
[…] Via fax (because the agency wouldn’t use email and I couldn’t speak to my agent over the phone without wanting to kill myself), I made payment arrangements. I didn’t keep to them — because of the whole let’s-go-to-Indy-and-make-money fiasco — so the collections firm garnished my checking account to the tune of almost three thousand dollars. Note that the original card limit was only $1200. […]