I missed a day, guess NoBloPoMo remains elusive to the likes of me. Got some great excuses though.
1) I'm broke. Yes, I came back from the war and filed for unemployment, I think that my plan to attend school in January coupled with already limited employment opportunities is impeding my ability to find work. My claim is under investigation, because I quit the job I had prior to deployment to attend law school back then. Timing sucks, if I were in school I could benefit from the GI Bill and be okay. Now, I just have zero income and we are living off of one part-time paycheck (due to my insistence that my husband take a part time job to ensure that he would be home for our child while I was gone). Great planning and it's biting us in the hind end right now.
2) I'm frustrated. I've been canceling accounts, to save money as well as trying to cash out an old 401K that is not worth much but will get us over this final hump until January. This has led to endless moments spent on hold, untimely disconnections that result in redialing and more moments spent on hold, transfers to "someone who can help" me that again result in moments spent on hold only to eventually have the person on the other end try to convince me not to close my account, offer me a cheaper option and finally say okay only after I have screamed and cried. Good thing I'm not wearing makeup these days.
3) I'm irresponsible. With our money issues I still insisted that we get one "family" gift (truthfully, at the time, I fully expected that the unemployment payments would keep us on top until school started). The first family gift was a BluRay player that was supposed to be Netflix ready. Woke up at 4 AM on Black Friday to get onto the Wal-Mart website and get this BluRay player as well as a television for my son. Wal-Mart never posted the time that they would start their sale online and imagine my disbelief when I found that the TV was already sold out (even before the sale started in any stores in the United States, I'm talking EST here). Anyway, I was able to get the BluRay player and then spend $50 more at Target for the damn TV. We waited in anticipation for the BluRay player because while the TV remains hidden, we set the player up right away (you know, for Netflix, that recently raised our rates by $1 monthly because everyone wants to stream from the site...we could actually reduce our current rate by $2 if we select just streaming). Well, that stupid BluRay player cannot play Netflix. Went to Wal-Mart's website and discovered that I, along with hundreds of others had been duped by false advertising. The good news is that it was no problem taking it back to the store. The even better news is that I found a little thing called Roku that I was able to purchase for $10 less than the BluRay player. We got it yesterday and were linked to our Netflix account and streaming within 5 minutes. So instead of blogging I was watching a movie and totally escaping my reality. Now one of the great things about this Roku is that there are several channels that one can subscribe to, for free! Now, I'm working on getting the boys to agree to cancel our satellite so we can save $30 a month. I have a good argument (obviously, see 1 & 2 above) but the light is so close that we can almost see it. We know that we just have to get through December and then all will be well, thanks in no small way to the Post-911 GI Bill which includes a monthly housing allowance. We budgeted for that event already (since I was planning on going to school last fall, you know!) and we did take great advantage of the extra money while deployed by paying off our vehicles. We just didn't plan for three months of part-time income.
So, instead of blogging yesterday, I was crying, screaming, and (finally) watching "Men Who Stare at Goats."
4 comments:
Take a deep breath. You'll get through this. Being broke this time of year well and truly sucks, I know.
Btw, that last scene in the movie? When the goats run out of the shed? Youngest's dog, Aibhne, the black behemoth? Runs. Just. Like. That.
She's part goat. Part Black Lab, part Rhodesian Ridgeback, part goat.
What a day! You would think that giving up a year of your life to go overseas at the request of the government would make you eligible for UI no matter the circumstances, but I guess that's the red tape... Sucks all the same.
Money's tight here too. We're getting a few gifts for the kids but that's it. I actually found some brand new in the box toys at Goodwill yesterday for less than half of what they cost at Target or Walmart. A few of the boxes were smushed but the toys inside were perfect.
I loathe sitting on hold! I've been putting off a call to our health ins. company for that very reason. That and the incompetent fools on the other end.
The Roku sounds awesome! Do you need a phone/cable line for that, or is it wireless?
Hang in there!
Thanks! I get a kick just thinking about True Blue's dog running...
Aliceson: The Roku is great, wireless and it comes with the regular (white, yellow, red) cable to hook up to the TV or you can order an HDMI cable when you purchase it for $10. We didn't bother with that, still hanging old school over here. I like to watch documentaries in the morning and I've experienced 2-3 instances per film where it stops to catch up (just like when you watch Netflix online) but when we watched the movie the other evening there were no interruptions at all. At this point, I'm not bothered at all.
We seem to usually go light at Christmas, it's just my anxiety creeping up added to the idiot frustration accelerated by the yahoo who offered me a different pay plan after I said I wanted to cancel because I didn't have income.
RK: I am hanging in and will continue:) I've had some anxiety problems for awhile now (okay, probably most of my life) and I do have some great coping skills but every once in a while there's a little melt down and I certainly had it yesterday.
Post a Comment