People keep telling me making money is so0o0o0o easy. Really, if it's that easy why are we still forcing children to attend college? In the digital era however, it is true that is has become ridiculously easy to build up that nest egg. We have places like e-Bay and Amazon Marketplace that make it stupidly simple to take photos of our merchandise and there are even business for the busy (like myself) that will handle the packaging and shipping of the items. Piece of cake.
I went to school for International Relations and Economics. Economics = money right? Well, really only if you get your masters or if you had enough foresight to intern for the company you wanted to end up at every year so they never forget how valuable you are. I didn't do that. I admit to dicking away my summers and my schools years enjoying my teens/twenties.
This has cost me an $80,000 starting salary with any decent qualitative company. I'm now in panic mode desperately looking for a new job.
My women's business group, ABWA, meets once monthly and our guest speaker this time was Gail Perry-Mason. She and Oprah are tight so she must know what she's talking about right???? Aside from telling us the story of her adoption and meeting her birth mother (a hilarious story btdubs) she gave us some great financial advice for making money doing nothing basically that I feel I should share.
Her first suggestion was to attend school for legal mediation. Eight hundred bucks a day those suckers get paid to sit and watch you and some other party bicker. I could use $800. The course work is pretty rigorous but if you work somewhere with good vacation pay, why not flood the bank? I'm gonna be off my parent's lease here pretty soon so she suggested paidride.com for those advertisement cars you see on the roads or swapalease.com for taking over a lease.
istockphoto.com which I had previously been unfamiliar with. Apparently, you upload your photos and people pay for the shots they like. Awesome! Love taking pictures, love getting paid even better!
I could go one but I haven't investigated these all yet. I participate in e-rewards, e-miles, bzzagent, 20/20 research panel and NCP scanning. My e-survey habit feeds my app store habit.
Here are the rest of the sites:
westathome.com - work from home website
pinkpanel.com - try out make up for free
ebates.com - buy something, check ebates, get paid. 'nuf said.
recycle.org - free things your neighbors are trying to get rid of
-freecycle.com (more of the same)
cashmoneylife.com - not sure I remember
howtoshopforfree.com - really?
thepennyhoarder.com
Moi
- Slyvia
- former Strongest Kid in America contestant, North American Contract Bridge League 2006 competitor, Girl Scout Silver Award recipient, TAG fag, Orch Dork, Alto, former McCrew member, mash up enthusiast, 2007 Academite, lover of the best kind of pi: Alpha Omicron
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
DIAL 911 for Europe*
Every year of this whole early twenties thing has gone from meh to "holy uncanny photographic mental process batman" in a manner of days. I get that the midlife crisis is a very real thing but I'd like to focus on my pre, well, barely pre, quarter-life crisis escape plan.
Quarter life - that period of life that spans from late teens to mid thirties.
Simply put, this period of life makes up a good portion of the outliers on my mental health scatter graph and I can't ride the ups and downs for much longer.
My Escape Plan: Part 1
1. Create a minimalist wardrobe
This would involve a great deal of work on my part. I have made many strides in the whole 'stop being a hoarder' part of my life but, um, I still have a major thrift shop problem where I can't stand to leave without buying anything. A minimalist wardrobe is easily portable and has enough of an array of mix and match pieces that I could survive on 20-30 things and have endless outfit possibilities on the go.
2. Account for all liquid assets
No, I don't want the be the idiot that had her crisis, blew through all her saved funds and now has to work as the 84 McGreeter with that painted on smile at the local Wal-Mart until the government says I can finally retire. My parents thankfully gave me a pretty decent step above the rest of the Gen Y kids because of the stocks and bonds in my name. I've already blown through the majority of my bonds sadly and now only have stock but cashing in a few of those means waiting a few more years for the returns to even out. Not a big deal if I have a chance in the future to reinvest.
3. Create a well thought out escape plan
I have some maps saved to my computer that should provide me with basic rail between countries in the EU. That isn't enough this time. I wouldn't want to just get over there, have only the money and clothes on my back available and then start wandering willy nilly throughout Europe. I'm way to Type A for all that. I need a plan. I want my first flight booked open ended with no return date in sight but then I want real details. Like how long would I spend in France? Would I au pair there for a year, sight see for a little while in nearby areas and then switch countries or do I want to spend a month somewhere with locals? Do I want to learn to be a chef and attend a three year culinary program in Turkey learning to cook...whatever the Turks eat? I don't know. I'm allowed to not know because after all, I'm floundering in my twenties.
And here is where we end. That is all I have so far for my escape plan to Europe. I know I'll probably fly Delta or British Airways. I'm a stickler for those kinds of details but aside from that I'm headed back to the drawing board or cartography school to determine how I want to plan this great escape. I think I want to throw an epic "I'm getting the eff out of here party" like two weeks before my official leave date.
*Dialing 911 will not get you Europe, but it will get you a nice hefty ticket!
Quarter life - that period of life that spans from late teens to mid thirties.
Simply put, this period of life makes up a good portion of the outliers on my mental health scatter graph and I can't ride the ups and downs for much longer.
My Escape Plan: Part 1
1. Create a minimalist wardrobe
This would involve a great deal of work on my part. I have made many strides in the whole 'stop being a hoarder' part of my life but, um, I still have a major thrift shop problem where I can't stand to leave without buying anything. A minimalist wardrobe is easily portable and has enough of an array of mix and match pieces that I could survive on 20-30 things and have endless outfit possibilities on the go.
2. Account for all liquid assets
No, I don't want the be the idiot that had her crisis, blew through all her saved funds and now has to work as the 84 McGreeter with that painted on smile at the local Wal-Mart until the government says I can finally retire. My parents thankfully gave me a pretty decent step above the rest of the Gen Y kids because of the stocks and bonds in my name. I've already blown through the majority of my bonds sadly and now only have stock but cashing in a few of those means waiting a few more years for the returns to even out. Not a big deal if I have a chance in the future to reinvest.
3. Create a well thought out escape plan
I have some maps saved to my computer that should provide me with basic rail between countries in the EU. That isn't enough this time. I wouldn't want to just get over there, have only the money and clothes on my back available and then start wandering willy nilly throughout Europe. I'm way to Type A for all that. I need a plan. I want my first flight booked open ended with no return date in sight but then I want real details. Like how long would I spend in France? Would I au pair there for a year, sight see for a little while in nearby areas and then switch countries or do I want to spend a month somewhere with locals? Do I want to learn to be a chef and attend a three year culinary program in Turkey learning to cook...whatever the Turks eat? I don't know. I'm allowed to not know because after all, I'm floundering in my twenties.
And here is where we end. That is all I have so far for my escape plan to Europe. I know I'll probably fly Delta or British Airways. I'm a stickler for those kinds of details but aside from that I'm headed back to the drawing board or cartography school to determine how I want to plan this great escape. I think I want to throw an epic "I'm getting the eff out of here party" like two weeks before my official leave date.
*Dialing 911 will not get you Europe, but it will get you a nice hefty ticket!
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
Essay Questions - What's Up With That?
I love writing, obviously. Why the hell else would I be attempting to blog if I didn't? What gets me every time are essay questions. I think essay questions are just as pointless as interview questions. I'm sorry, God blessed me with dyslexia and I'm pretty sure the rise of spell check has left me an even worse speller. It's not fun to answer those short essay questions. I'd be in the Peace Corps or working in Chicago with AUSL if it had been!
We put a lot of thought into these three and four paragraph essays that you read through with such the fine toothed comb. We look back after we sent them in, after our rejection letters start rolling in and all we find see that we forgot to put a period at the end of the second sentence on the intro. Suddenly, to us it becomes clear why we never heard back from anywhere.
We are all human and to be human is to make ALL SORTS OF errors.
I'm (undiagnosed) dyslexic and it has only gotten worse over the years. Things you say all the time don't look right on paper when you finally realize that the phonetics don't match up with the lettering. Phrasing is different in our minds than when we finally sit down to let the thoughts flow.
I have so many friends with other learning disabilities: the boyf, yes boyf, and family have all have ADD and its happy happy happy hyperactive cousin, my cousin is on the Autism spectrum and so many more of my friends are on adderall just to focus on getting their basic tasks done. How does this leave time for me to fill out your online auto formed disabled app and get other things done?
I understand that the reasoning is to deter lazy people and congrats, you've definitely accomplished that but at the same time, you deterred valid application with mental disabilities that find essay questions as time consuming as they do intimidating.
We put a lot of thought into these three and four paragraph essays that you read through with such the fine toothed comb. We look back after we sent them in, after our rejection letters start rolling in and all we find see that we forgot to put a period at the end of the second sentence on the intro. Suddenly, to us it becomes clear why we never heard back from anywhere.
We are all human and to be human is to make ALL SORTS OF errors.
I'm (undiagnosed) dyslexic and it has only gotten worse over the years. Things you say all the time don't look right on paper when you finally realize that the phonetics don't match up with the lettering. Phrasing is different in our minds than when we finally sit down to let the thoughts flow.
I have so many friends with other learning disabilities: the boyf, yes boyf, and family have all have ADD and its happy happy happy hyperactive cousin, my cousin is on the Autism spectrum and so many more of my friends are on adderall just to focus on getting their basic tasks done. How does this leave time for me to fill out your online auto formed disabled app and get other things done?
I understand that the reasoning is to deter lazy people and congrats, you've definitely accomplished that but at the same time, you deterred valid application with mental disabilities that find essay questions as time consuming as they do intimidating.
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