I think I've discovered what I'm going to do to increase my cash flow. Those of you who know me well(and since only one person READS this journal they can feel free to skip this part unless they're up at 3am and so bored that they want to read about stuff they already know about because their ex whined it to them over the phone after waking them up at 2 in the morning.....I'll bet you forgot what I was talking about before those parenthesis started didn't you? HA!!! 
)
ANYway....those of you who know me well know about my financial sufferings but for the benefit of those who are total strangers, I will enlighten you.
I'm broke. Constantly. I never seem to have enough money to do what I want to do or buy what I want to buy. I struggle to make my car payment every month and when the insurance comes due twice a year I scramble around in a panic and all my other bills go a couple months overdue. I've been 30+ days late on my credit line EIGHT TIMES. What the hell is wrong with this picture? The reason I'm IN this rotten predicament is mostly my own fault. Before I took the position I'm in now at work(assistant bank manager) I was just a plain SSR. Sales and service earning 12 an hour and whatever bonuses from breaking my sales goals to pieces. It was a good job. Not a whole hell of a lot of responsibility(I took on A LOT more than I needed to but I'm just that kind of guy), decent pay and interesting work. I was working at a good time. My whole region was overstaffed and I was working between 60 and 75 hours a week(my best was 80). These massive amounts of overtime, plus the fact that I was absolutely KILLING my quarterly sales goals led to checks that made me feel like quite the rockstar. I was easily able to pay all my bills, put some money into savings and still take three or four of my friends out to get completely bombed every weekend. Suddenly, two assistant managers in the region quit and one gets fired. I think I see a golden opportunity to move up to a more lucrative position. At the time, my branch had a brand new manager who knew absolutely NOTHING, no assistant manager and me as the only other supervisor, so I ended up doing most of the management work. I figured I would be a shoo-in for the position and I was. The problem arose when I went for my interview. The topic of "salary" came up and I told them a figure that I thought was a reasonable jump from the ACTUAL money I was making. It was MUCH higher than what a starting assistant manager was making but a little less than what I was taking home then(after all the overtime etc). My request was essentially laughed off and I was told I would be making the starting assistant manager's salary.
This was a dilemma. On one hand, I could stick to my guns, demand what I knew I should have been making, and tell them to call me when they were ready to pay me. This plan looked great. It's the kind of thing John Wayne would have done if he was a banker and, you know, not dead. There were problems too though. If they were completely unwilling to dish out that much money, I might be seen as greedy, and so passed over for future promotions, raises and other oppurtunities. On the other hand, I thought that if I worked at the lower pay rate for a while, really kicked ass at my job and showed them just what I was worth, I would be able to use my performance as leverage to pry more money out of them and get what I initially wanted. After a lot of thought and talk with my close friends and family, I went on the latter plan.
Boy was that a mistake. In their eyes, I laid down like a dog and took a beating. So NOW, I'm making MUCH MUCH less than I was making before and so all the bills I was able to pay before, have piled up from my reduced income. It also took a while for me to realize that since I wasn't making as much money, I wasn't going to be able to party as hard. I made a whole lot of bad choices with my money and now I'm paying the price.
I'll let you guys take a short intermission here. I KNOW all this is boring and you're tired of hearing it so go and get a drink(or two), stretch your legs, rub your eyes or whatever you need to do. Here, listen to some music while you wait.
Still here.
Take your time.
You ready?
OK....
SOOOOOOOOO. Lately I've been trying to get a second job, maybe as a waiter, or pizza delivery guy, or similar part time-mostly cash position. However, the hours I work make it next to impossible to get a job like this. I start at 12 every day except fridays and saturdays, when I start at 9. Then I work til 8 every day except sat, when I work til 4. I can't work friday or sat nights, because I'm in a band and we play shows most weekends and I really really really don't want to work on my days off because I want to have SOME time to let my brain recover from the work week and do some laundry.
Then tonight, it fell in my lap. A friend of mine just told me how she wants to start a T-Shirt business and needs a partner to do the sales and marketing end of it. She doesn't need any money cause she is paying for the initial investment, she just needs someone to do the work that she has no time or patience for(making a website, posting on e-bay, pounding the pavement selling them to local clothing shops). I'm confident that I can sell any product that's even half-way decent, and twice as confident in her ability to make a product that is not just decent but phenomonal. So I think that's what I'm going to be doing. Thanks for sticking with me through all that bullshit(if you just skipped to the end just humor me and PRETEND you read it all), and wish me luck.
)
ANYway....those of you who know me well know about my financial sufferings but for the benefit of those who are total strangers, I will enlighten you.
I'm broke. Constantly. I never seem to have enough money to do what I want to do or buy what I want to buy. I struggle to make my car payment every month and when the insurance comes due twice a year I scramble around in a panic and all my other bills go a couple months overdue. I've been 30+ days late on my credit line EIGHT TIMES. What the hell is wrong with this picture? The reason I'm IN this rotten predicament is mostly my own fault. Before I took the position I'm in now at work(assistant bank manager) I was just a plain SSR. Sales and service earning 12 an hour and whatever bonuses from breaking my sales goals to pieces. It was a good job. Not a whole hell of a lot of responsibility(I took on A LOT more than I needed to but I'm just that kind of guy), decent pay and interesting work. I was working at a good time. My whole region was overstaffed and I was working between 60 and 75 hours a week(my best was 80). These massive amounts of overtime, plus the fact that I was absolutely KILLING my quarterly sales goals led to checks that made me feel like quite the rockstar. I was easily able to pay all my bills, put some money into savings and still take three or four of my friends out to get completely bombed every weekend. Suddenly, two assistant managers in the region quit and one gets fired. I think I see a golden opportunity to move up to a more lucrative position. At the time, my branch had a brand new manager who knew absolutely NOTHING, no assistant manager and me as the only other supervisor, so I ended up doing most of the management work. I figured I would be a shoo-in for the position and I was. The problem arose when I went for my interview. The topic of "salary" came up and I told them a figure that I thought was a reasonable jump from the ACTUAL money I was making. It was MUCH higher than what a starting assistant manager was making but a little less than what I was taking home then(after all the overtime etc). My request was essentially laughed off and I was told I would be making the starting assistant manager's salary.
This was a dilemma. On one hand, I could stick to my guns, demand what I knew I should have been making, and tell them to call me when they were ready to pay me. This plan looked great. It's the kind of thing John Wayne would have done if he was a banker and, you know, not dead. There were problems too though. If they were completely unwilling to dish out that much money, I might be seen as greedy, and so passed over for future promotions, raises and other oppurtunities. On the other hand, I thought that if I worked at the lower pay rate for a while, really kicked ass at my job and showed them just what I was worth, I would be able to use my performance as leverage to pry more money out of them and get what I initially wanted. After a lot of thought and talk with my close friends and family, I went on the latter plan.
Boy was that a mistake. In their eyes, I laid down like a dog and took a beating. So NOW, I'm making MUCH MUCH less than I was making before and so all the bills I was able to pay before, have piled up from my reduced income. It also took a while for me to realize that since I wasn't making as much money, I wasn't going to be able to party as hard. I made a whole lot of bad choices with my money and now I'm paying the price.
I'll let you guys take a short intermission here. I KNOW all this is boring and you're tired of hearing it so go and get a drink(or two), stretch your legs, rub your eyes or whatever you need to do. Here, listen to some music while you wait.
Still here.
Take your time.
You ready?
OK....
SOOOOOOOOO. Lately I've been trying to get a second job, maybe as a waiter, or pizza delivery guy, or similar part time-mostly cash position. However, the hours I work make it next to impossible to get a job like this. I start at 12 every day except fridays and saturdays, when I start at 9. Then I work til 8 every day except sat, when I work til 4. I can't work friday or sat nights, because I'm in a band and we play shows most weekends and I really really really don't want to work on my days off because I want to have SOME time to let my brain recover from the work week and do some laundry.
Then tonight, it fell in my lap. A friend of mine just told me how she wants to start a T-Shirt business and needs a partner to do the sales and marketing end of it. She doesn't need any money cause she is paying for the initial investment, she just needs someone to do the work that she has no time or patience for(making a website, posting on e-bay, pounding the pavement selling them to local clothing shops). I'm confident that I can sell any product that's even half-way decent, and twice as confident in her ability to make a product that is not just decent but phenomonal. So I think that's what I'm going to be doing. Thanks for sticking with me through all that bullshit(if you just skipped to the end just humor me and PRETEND you read it all), and wish me luck.
VIEW 9 of 9 COMMENTS
I've always wanted to make my own line of t-shirts or articles of clothing with random dorky sayings on them but meh,... I'm a lazy slag =P
Good luck!