retirement plans? what retirement plans?

Seems as though some people plan their retirement as meticulously as they plan their weddings or their families. For years, they’ve envisioned what retirement would be like: whether there will be travel plans and to where, whether they want to make time for the grandkids, for volunteering, or for having a newfound social life. They know how much money will be coming in from retirement benefits, pensions, and other sources of nonworking income, and they will have it earmarked: so much for this and so much for that.

Then there are the rest of us. We don’t have a clue what retirement will look like, how much money we will be bringing in to live on, or, really, how much we will need. We also may not realize what we will be doing day to day.

I am planning my retirement much like I did having kids, which means I’m basically winging it.

I planned to work till I couldn’t any longer. I had a half-time to three-quarters-time remote job that I enjoyed and that paid a decent hourly wage. I was able to fit it into my life very well, even when also watching my grandkids a couple days a week and amid other numerous obligations.

Then down came the boom, and I was let go, most likely a victim of the artificial intelligence (AI) movement. I’m collecting unemployment benefits while applying for work, but so far, no luck. At my age, despite my extensive experience, remarkable work ethic (I never took a single week off in the past four years), and excellent performance, I am very likely to not be hired anywhere.

In other words, I may have fallen into retirement by no choice of my own.

Since I consider myself still looking for work, I am not calling myself retired, though. There is always the prospect of getting freelance work if a steady job does not come through. Most of my life, I have worked on a freelance basis, so I’m no stranger to this platform. Still, it doesn’t offer benefits of any sort, not even unemployment benefits when a company suddenly (or not so suddenly) stops calling on you. If you get sick, you work through it. You don’t like the assignment? You take it anyway. In fact, you take everything that comes your way, whether you have the time or not. If you get into the habit of saying no (or do it even one time), you run the risk of being pushed aside by the 30 other freelancer who are an email away who will be happy to jump on assignments and whom the company will come to rely on.

With my newfound free time, I have been able to get around to little jobs around the house: putting in baseboards, wallpapering (I’m getting there next week, most likely), cleaning closets, cleaning drawers, decluttering, shredding old paperwork . . . in other words, all the things I couldn’t get to when I was working 30 hours a week.

I also have time to read, and read I have. I just finished my 38th book of the year today.

But to be honest, I’m getting a little bored. If I had my druthers, I’d still be working. And I’m learning that free time isn’t all that freeing: If you’re a person who likes routine, and I’m one of them, you need to stick to a fairly regular daily schedule, working or not. I do sleep in about 30 to 45 minutes longer than I used to when I was working, but I get up no later than 7:30 every day. I follow a breakfast and lunchtime schedule, I walk the dog one or two times a day, and I start making dinner starting around 5 p.m.

What I’m having trouble with, though, is feeling guilty about postponing or not getting around to certain chores or errands that I know I need to do. For example, I have procrastinated booking an appointment with a mechanic because, I swear, I have PTSD from having had so many repairs in the past go wrong or cost much more than the vehicle is worth. It’s a horrible feeling to shell out what often amounts to a lot of money; and many of us are at the mercy of our mechanics.

But I have found that the only way to get an unpleasant job out of the way is to do it. I promise to make an appointment next week.

I’ve been out of work for a month already, so having free time is still pretty fresh for me. By the time I actually do retire, I hope to have it planned out a bit better.

navigating unemployment insurance . . . and contemplating retirement

I applied for unemployment insurance (UI) about a week after losing my job. My position (there were three of us) was taken “in-house,” I was told, so I am eligible for UI since I was let go through no fault of my own.

Let me say that navigating the ins and outs of UI is not so easy, but I was able to apply, include all the pertinent information (including adding up all earned income over the past 18 months), and, today, uploaded a resume to the linked job board. (When filling out government forms, I always feel for the people for whom English may not be their first language or those with a limited education.) I will diligently look for work, but nothing looks promising so far. I constantly checked the job boards even when I was working, but couldn’t find anything in recent months that even came close to a job like the one I had had.

I have been watching YouTube videos of people who have recently lost their jobs, and those are not encouraging either. This is especially true for the people posting and commenting who are in their 50s and 60s. Of the couple jobs I’ve applied for, one firm has not responded, and the other rejected me in one day. These jobs were not perfect matches, so it’s understandable.

I know of people my age being out of work for over a year. No matter what anyone says, age discrimination is real in the job market. Of course, we are not asked for our age or date of birth, but subtracting a college graduation in the mid-1980s from the year 2025, for example, is pretty simple math.

If no job comes through in a reasonable amount of time, I will contemplate retiring. But with a meager SS payment coming my way and not a whole lot stashed away in retirement savings, my retirement income will not be what I am hoping for. Still, we need to pull the plug at some point.

The husband of a friend of mine has come down with a form of dementia. He’s 74 and was a medical professional. He was active and physically fit. He had retired back when he turned 60, and although that seemed young at the time, what an advantage that proved to be for him. Had he waited to retire until 66, 67, or 70, he would have had only a few symptom-free years instead of the 10 or so “good” years he’s had.

My best friend, who is exactly my age, has been retired for 3.5 years. She was a public employee who, fortunately, has a pension and will also be eligible for SS benefits. For her, the stress her work brought her and the fact that she had a decent pension made the choice easy.

So, it’s food for thought. No one knows what the future will hold; when to retire is a gamble: Do we hold out for a few more years of income until retirement and then more accumulated retirement benefits, or do we start Social Security early, taking in less per month but having more free time and getting our benefits sooner? It depends on what we think our lifespan will be and our other sources of income.

It’s a crap shoot for sure.

the importance of key words and seo in a job search

Just a quick post to examine how key words and SEO, or search engine optimization, are king in recruiting and finding a job to match your skills these days.

^{Photo by Sydney Troxell on}^Pexels.com

^{Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on}^Pexels.com

I have been applying for a job as a copy editor for months. One of the recruiting websites–a big player in the game–sent me a job link I’d “be perfect for.” It was with a company called Pizza Press that is looking for a Pizza Editor. I thought the company name and job title sounded odd to begin with, and then I read the job description. “Pizza Press” in not a publisher–not even a cookbook publisher–and “Pizza Editor” is not a job in revising copy–not even copy about pizzas. Rather, Pizza Press is a pizza joint and the Pizza Editor makes the pizzas, packages them, chats with customers, does the dishes, empties the trash, and cleans.

Now I make a pretty mean pizza, and my many years as a mom have made me nearly professional-grade level at doing dishes, cleaning, and putting things away, but I don’t think this is the job for me. Sorry, Glassdoor.

What this is, though, is a prime example of how job posting companies and job recruiters use key words and SEO to not only find jobs to post but vet candidates.

Usually Glassdoor, as well as Indeed and LinkedIn, get it right and I’m sent job postings that are a close fit for me (although some of them don’t seem to understand the difference between copywriting and copyediting, but that’s a post for another day).

In fact, just last week I was alerted to a few jobs that I finally got called up for, one of which I accepted. But once in a while job posters get it woefully wrong and end up with egg–or in this case, scrambled egg pizza–on their faces.

wayfair, you’ve got just what i need: an employment rejection letter

Who says customer service is dead?

Of the 35 jobs I’ve recently applied to (28 since February 1), only one company has been so kind as to provide me with a proper rejection: Wayfair. How nice it was to, for once, send my cover letter and résumé into the vast void that is the Internet and to actually receive acknowledgment for my effort.

Be it bot-generated or not, Wayfair’s response was a breath of fresh air at a time when so much energy goes into applying for jobs against stiff competition in this day of far-reaching job ads. And the rejection came the very next day. No wasting my time with hours’ long tests or getting my hopes up after Indeed notifies me that my application was reviewed. What I got was a good, old-fashioned “thank you for your time, but” email. And for that, I am grateful.

This may be an understatement, but job hunting in this age is convenient but also frustrating and quite a bit sad. I am applying for work that I know I can do because I’ve done it before, for decades even. But I’m still not even getting to the interview stage.

I don’t know for sure, but it’s hard not to take the rejection as personal. It’s personal to me, because isn’t that what “personal” means?

On a good day, I picture prospective employers (who are human in my mind and not computer programs) being inundated with applications, too many to review, and understand that a cutoff has to be made somewhere.

On a bad day, I envision those reviewing my application and résumé doing the math, realizing I must have graduated college before they were born. Maybe they’d be more comfortable supervising Gen Yers or Gen Zers younger than themselves. Or maybe they feel people my age would be out of touch with the new generation and the ways and means of working in today’s world. But I have been employed consistently throughout my adulthood, I’ve taught myself how to use–and keep up with–new technology and programs that friends my age have never heard of.

Still, that aspect of employment is ever changing, and maybe they’re right. Maybe I wouldn’t be the best fit. There’s definitely a comfort level with technology the new generation has that we baby boomers do not. I’ll catch my 21-year-old, who has grown up in the age of screens, his fingers dancing and skipping around the keyboard like nobody’s business, while I want to save just about every file to my desktop and even print out a hard copy for safekeeping.

But hooking a job is more complicated than just being tech savvy.

Until I get a “welcome aboard” email, I’ll keep plugging away and see if anything turns up. And if not a job, I will hope for at least a kind rejection letter.

cutting michelle williams out of my life, or, how not to be depressed when looking for work

Sometimes you’re batting a thousand, and at other times life throws you curve balls. Actually, those both sound like OK scenarios to me. Right now, I’m at the plate waiting for that pitch to come . . . and waiting . . . and waiting . . . and waiting, but it never arrives. Oh, the pitcher is on the mound, for sure. He’s even winding up at times. He just never releases that ball, it never connects with my bat, and so I stand there, looking like a fool.

This is how I feel at the moment trying to find freelance editing work. As of 42 minutes ago, I have applied to 24 jobs since mid-November. I have gotten a couple hits and taken a few tests, but nothing has come of any of it. And I’m applying to positions that fit my experience pretty much to a T. I’m not one of those people sending in resumes to jobs in search of the next head publisher at Penguin Random House. I know my limitations, know what I can do, and I have a great track record with plenty of experience to offer.

So what does this have to do with Michelle Williams? Let me just say that if you’re feeling a little too upbeat, life is going great, and the sun never stops shining, stream a movie starring Michelle Williams and you’ll come quickly crashing down to earth. Watch her movies when you’re receiving rejection after rejection and you can pretty much guarantee a day or more of sheer misery.

I did this on Sunday. The skies were grey, I had been awash in rejection, my best friend was not feeling like talking to me, and I have fear of the unknown in my future. I streamed the indie movie called Wendy and Lucy, and it just resulted in more pain. The 2008 film is about a down-on-her-luck young woman who’s traveling in a beat-up old Honda from Indiana to Alaska. She and her adorable golden mutt break down somewhere in Oregon, and one heartbreak after another ensues. Just when you think Wendy has hit rock bottom, things only get worse.

Of course Michelle is great in this film. That’s the problem: She’s too convincing. I FEEL YOUR PAIN, MICHELLE WILLIAMS. I. FEEL. YOUR. PAIN. And this role fits her like a glove, which is why I must stop watching her movies. Have you ever seen her in an upbeat rom-com costarring Tom Hanks? Do her characters’ lives ever reflect happiness, good fortune, or even the mundane, for that matter? Of course not.

So, I am steering clear of any Michelle Williams/Debbie Downer movies until the pitcher is not only on the mound, but he’s released the ball that has connected with my bat that was misplayed in left field that got me on first base, then second, then third, then to home plate, the crowd is cheering, and endorsements are flying my way.

the corona diaries, day 55: may gray and being denied benefits

Not too much has changed since my last Corona Diaries post, other than more people have become infected with COVID-19 and more have died, including three young children in New York State. How sad is that?

I still am working from home, which I love. On the down side, I was denied unemployment insurance benefits because I was told the money I earn from the part-time job I currently hold–and held concurrently with the one I lost–is $9 more than my benefit amount. You read that correctly. Nine dollars! I make $9 more weekly than what the employment department philanthropists want to pay me in benefits. That’s just over one dollar a day more.

What does this even mean? Here’s how I feel: anger

I still lost my job.
I still am losing income every week.
There are no jobs to be had to make up for the lost income.
At 13 hours a week, I barely earn much as it is–it’s certainly not enough money to even afford the average monthly one-bedroom rent where I live.

How, then, can the government deny me benefits? Because I still hold down another job that pays barely much more than the one I lost? How is that OK? Should I ask my other employer to let me go too? Would that be better, to be completely unemployed, at which time my benefit amount would be much higher? I’m not asking for more than I deserve.

I have a friend who lost one of his two part-time jobs too. Because the one he lost brought in less income than the one he currently has (same as my situation), he was denied a claim as well. We are both diligent people, trying to make two part-time jobs work because full-time jobs with benefits are so scarce. Yet, we are penalized when we lose one of those jobs.

This government that is denying my claim because I earn nine measly dollars more than they think I’m worth, mind you, is the same one that has bailed out the banks and General Motors and every other conglomerate that has caused hardworking individuals to lose their jobs because of corporate greed. Un-f*&$#ing-believable!

Both my friend and I went out of our ways to notify the employment department that we currently still hold part-time jobs so they wouldn’t overpay us if thinking we lost both our jobs. Most people would not have done that, I believe, and would have taken whatever handout they received, whether they deserved it or not (see my reference to the banks, General Motors et al. above). But in being forthright, we are without the money we worked hard for. Once again, the government shows that honesty does not pay off. I mean, just look at who was rewarded with the highest office in the land!

But I digress a little. june gloom

We currently are in what the locals refer to as May Gray, which is followed next month by June Gloom. At this time of year, mornings are overcast with a thick, white blanket of sky. If and when the sun does shine through, though, it reveals what I consider to be the most glorious weather. Some parts of town along the coast never see the sun at this time of year. We live far enough east to have (a) lower property values and (b) more sun when it’s key to brightening bad days.

With the coronavirus pandemic still hanging around, there is a lot of cloud cover above us all right now. We don’t know when those clouds will melt away, but we do know they eventually will. Yes, there will be an end to this madness. It’s just not very clear at the moment when the sun will shine again.

the corona chronicles, day 5: parks and beaches closed

Our mayor announced yesterday that all city parks and beaches would close. The day before, just the lots were barricaded to discourage people from parking in them and to reduce the number of visitors. But now, no one can hike, hang out at the beach, swim in the ocean, or take a boat out on the lake.

gray storage shed on brown sand — Photo by Guillaume Hankenne on Pexels.com

Confinement is being taken seriously, and soon it will drive some up the wall. More and more businesses are closing. People who can work from home are advised to do just that. Those who cannot are going without work and, many, without pay. My younger son works at a coffee shop with a drive-thru window. Frankly, I wish it would close, because the longer it’s open, the greater the chance is that he brings home the virus. But the Starbucks next door shut down and my son’s employer is capitalizing on Starbucks’ lost business. I hope it’s worth it to the owners. I hope my son, who just started this job in January and would probably be the first let go if there’s a reduction in customers, doesn’t come down with any symptoms.

My other son, an employee of the YMCA, is home with pay until the end of the week. The Y is still charging its patrons membership fees while it’s closed. A friend of my husband’s just canceled his membership because of this, and I’m guessing he’s not the only one. No money coming in means no money going out to workers.

I am fortunate that the city I work for is still paying its hourly workers like me, but how long will this last, with talks of budget cuts having started pre-pandemic? So far, we’ve been paid for one week without physically working. Our next pay period ends on April 3. The city was hoping to reopen the libraries by April 6, but that looks pie in the sky.

At my other library, we are still working from home, which is going fine so far. We can do research online for our patrons if they need help. We can also work on other tasks.

I am able to take my dog to the vet today. He’s diabetic and needs his insulin checked every other week. I may ask the vet to send me home with a test kit that I can use without coming in. Maybe I can report to her the result I get and she can monitor and adjust his insulin from that reading. Or I may just ask to come in less frequently. Since we’re almost all home, we can spot if the ol’ boy is doing well or poorly. So far, he’s responding very well to the insulin.

Will weddings go on? We have one to plan for. Our second eldest is getting married in October, but, of course, wedding plans are on hold. The venue, a community center run by one of the local cities, has closed its doors. Brides and grooms who had booked in March and April will have to postpone their weddings for sure and most likely find a new place for the reception. This venue is very popular and is booked at least a year out. We put a deposit down months ago, fortunately. Now we’ll see if the wedding will still go on even seven months out. Everything is so uncertain. I’m glad we haven’t booked a caterer yet.

Typically in March I’m fully in the process of planning our summer vacation. My husband was having a hard time even picking a free week this year at the very start of coronavirus. We finally decided on a week in September. Now that too will have to wait. Who knows what is in store. One thing is for sure, though, even a trip to a local beach will feel like a vacation.

Stay safe. Stay well.

freelancing lies part 2 (or, sometimes you have to hide the truth to get the job)

Freelancing can turn you into a liar. Case in point: This week I had to omit the truth from a client who was checking on my status on a project not due for a month and wanting what I’ve worked on so far.

what I’m doing Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

I told him I’d do my best to get him what I have so far but that I have another editing project with a very short deadline that I’m focused on currently, which is true. Typically I wouldn’t have mentioned the other editing job for fear of looking like I’m too busy to work on his assignment, but I did so to let him know that I have another short-term responsibility I’m working his project around and will definitely be able to meet his January deadline.

What I omitted, however–and would never have been able to say–are that I also hold down two part-time jobs; it’s the holidays and my birthday week; and I have four kids, a soon-to-be-son-in-law, a husband, four siblings, and friends to shop for; there are two work Christmas gatherings approaching, Christmas Day dinner to host, and many other obligations to attend to. Had I mentioned any of those things, even one, I would look unprofessional and would probably never hear from him again, because in the fickle freelancing world, I am expendable and the next independent contractor is just around the corner.

The fact that the editor even asked for part of the project isn’t fair at all. The project isn’t due until January–nearly four weeks away–and I was never told I’d have to turn in partial sections of the book along the way when I took the assignment. Of course, the editor asked kindly about the progress and if it was possible to send back sections already worked on, but what was implied was that he really wants something. Now.

I am, if nothing else, excellent with time management. No matter how busy I am (see the above list), I never go over deadline or fail to get everything done. I never turned in late assignments in school and I haven’t in my career either.

But the editor’s asking for what I’ve finished thus far threw me for a loop. I have a system of how I approach a project, especially one this ginormous (over eight hundred pages). I tend to do a once-over and then go back and double-check my work. Now, since I plan to turn in something to him tomorrow, I had to stop my forward progress and do a reverse take, double-checking what I’ve already worked on.

I had every right to tell him on Friday that I will turn in the entire book on January 4, as agreed upon, but instead I e-mailed him back saying that I’d be happy (another lie) to give him what I’ve done thus far. I didn’t mention that I’d be working both days on the weekend, eight hours each day, to get him what he wants, not needs, so he isn’t stuck with this massive project landing back on his desk in the new year.

what I’d like to be doing Photo by Kilian M on Pexels.com

It’s unfortunate, but when you freelance, you can never avoid working when other obligations are pulling you away from your desk. You can’t shut down the desktop, close the blinds, turn off the light, and lock the door behind you, saying goodnight to the janitor and tipping your hat to the lobby security worker at the end of the day. If you have work, you must work, no matter the circumstances, whether it means working until 11 p.m. after getting off from your day job or both days on the weekend. The show must go on and the work must get done.

It’s the holidays and my birthday week, to boot, but I am rushing to get out my project due on Thursday for another editor and now this one by tomorrow while trying to do a bang-up job along the way so I will be called upon again to handle similar projects. And I’m doing all this while working five days a week at two part-time jobs. Oh, and did I mention the holiday obligations that I have?

As I said, I’m nothing if not a good time manager, but in the freelancing world, time is always never enough.

freelance vs. part-time work (or, which gives me more free time?)

I cleaned my entire fridge this morning. Yep, I took out everything shelf by shelf and wiped down every surface.

What’s so amazing about that? It’s because I don’t go in to my part-time job until 3 p.m. today. If I were freelancing, I’d have been at my desk by 8 a.m., tapping the refresh button every thirty seconds, looking for work, finding none or little, and having turned, say, $20 an hour into about $7.50, when accounting for all the time I’d have spent seeking and not finding.

design desk display eyewear — Photo by energepic.com on Pexels.com

Until last December, I had a part-time library job that supplemented my busy freelance career–my main work–giving me a place to go to to get out of the house too. I had felt a little trapped freelancing, especially after all my kids were almost out of high school and driving on their own. No longer did I need to be tethered to my home and the minivan, shuttling one to soccer, the other to swim, and the other to a friend’s house. I also had lost the companionship of my own friends, many of whom were my kids’ friends’ parents, as their children aged and they took on outside work. But my freelance career kept me busy all day long too, sometimes morning till night, every season, even on holidays. If there was work available, I’d be at my desk, my neck and eyes hurting from the strain.

I enjoyed the part-time library job, but the pay was low and the commute was too far to make four and sometimes five times a week. Plus, there was a shift in management and things began to change. Add on top of that the sudden aches and pains I began to have as my Hashimoto’s set in, and it made quitting a pretty simple, necessary decision.

But no sooner had I left that job than my freelance career started to fizzle. A career in freelance proofreading and copyediting was something I’d had for thirty years, long before the gig economy became a thing. I had settled into two decent jobs over the years, one for a publisher and the other for a financial company.

The work was fairly steady for the financial company, with extreme peaks every few months. The publisher had me busy twice a year for several weeks at a time. It seemed, though, as the publisher added on new freelancers, I was being called on less and less, having to contact the editors for work and oftentimes getting little if anything. And the financial company, whose editors we U.S. freelancers work with are based in the Philippines, finally got savvy and decided to give a greater proportion of work to the Philippines-based workers, who undoubtedly make considerably less than the Americans. I have been with the company for ten years and it has kept me quite busy until now. I had a feeling, though, that once the Philippine (and then India-based) contingent became better at their jobs (and they do good work, I might add), we U.S. freelancers would see less and less work.

And so it goes. I missed my library work anyway, so I kept applying to jobs with the city and county library systems, as well as with an occasional other source. In June, I was hired at a health-care district library for a couple handful of hours per week and then, finally, I was called from the city. I now work a dozen hours at a nearby branch.

library So, here I am, at 10:30 a.m. typing out a post instead of digging in to a book or cleaning up transcripts or, more likely, tapping the refresh button. There are times I don’t like having to leave my house (I work five days a week and two days in a row until 8 p.m., for instance), and I do dread trying to make appointments around my new hours, but so far it’s working out OK. I know that if my freelance career gets back on track or if one of the part-time jobs becomes too burdensome, I can always quit something. For now, though, it’s nice to have hours I can commit to and consistent paychecks, even though my per-hour rate isn’t so great.

I think I’ll remake my home office while my editing work is slow, maybe one day using it consistently again. In the meantime, though, I will enjoy not having to sit and wait for work.

So freelance or part-time? So far, part-time is giving me more free time.

the icebox challenge (or, trying to make use of what we already have)

Americans waste nearly a pound of food a day, and I’m here to prove it.

Nearly every week, I throw out bananas that have gone black, oranges that have gone green, and reusable containers filled with leftovers that, by the looks of them, I’d rather not use again.

Take a look at my fridge right now (trying not to judge my housekeeping skills): fridge

It’s brimming with food.

Sure, I could argue that I don’t have that much space and the bulky broccoli heads and sourdough loaves take up a lot of room, let alone the family pack of chicken thighs. But truth be told, I have too much food. And some of it will be tossed.

As a way to remedy this, I plan to use up what I have before I buy more. That’s right. I’m going to see how far the asparagus (at least the fresh bunch I picked up Saturday and not the one tucked in the back of the veggie drawer), milk, butter, and fruit can go before I spend more to replace them. You see, because of recent circumstances, I may need to stretch the budget.

Today my husband told his employer that he wants to cut his hours and, along with cutting his hours, his pay. He’s stressed out and wants to pursue another occupation. I thought I was OK with this until he did it and it became a reality. This was the one year in his entire thirty-year career that he’s made what he’s worth. And now he’s not.

To make matters worse, my work and pay have been dramatically cut this year, none of it my doing. My freelance work is in the tank. I’ve had nothing for two months’ straight from one client and nothing but a four-hundred-dollar project from the other. I apply all the time to various companies, but it’s a cut-throat world out there, and one job ad posted on the Internet can warrant hundreds if not thousands of applicants, especially in a national search. I work a part-time job, but all I can get are 10.5 hours a week. Try living on that. I could barely make a car payment on that kind of money.

I look for jobs–and apply–all the time in town, too, not just remotely. But it’s so hard to get a fish on the hook. I’ll be lucky to find something in six months (that’s how long it took to get the 10-hour-a-week job I currently have). On top of it, one of my four adult kids is recently unemployed and another is woefully underemployed. It’s ruthless out there.

So there is now a financial incentive to cut back on food shopping. I plan to do my part to keep expenses down. I’ll use up what we have, getting creative when I need to. I also plan to cut cable and take on one of the streaming services instead. I may cancel the newspaper as well, although it gives me great joy. Still, if I cut it, I’d probably be lured back with some good incentives. We have old cars (nothing even in the 2010s vintage), so selling a car isn’t going to help. In fact, we could use a newer car. They all have well over 100,000 miles–one has over 220,000! (Yes, it’s a Toyota.)

I have a gym membership, but it’s free because my son is an employee, so eliminating that won’t help. We eat out a few times a month and it’s usually just to get fish tacos or Thai food (the greatest bargain ever), but that will have to go. Add big birthday dinners to the list. No more treating the entire family of seven adults to a meal, which can run up to a couple hundred dollars. It’ll be a bargain movie and a slice of pizza from now on. I’m looking into doing more crafting with my time and maybe opening an etsy shop if I can make enough product to sell, but supplies cost money and storage isn’t plentiful in our house, where my two adult sons also live.

The thing is, I have a history of scrimping and saving. This past year I finally was able to loosen my belt and flop back on the couch a bit more, arms and legs spread eagle and a look of contentment on my face. Now it’s pants fully tightened and nose to the grindstone as I try once again to make ends meet. The fridge is my first attempt.

rose in real life

getting through real life one day at a time

Category: Work