After Two and a Half Years of Unemployment I have a Job
FINALLY. After weeks of sending off applications I finally have a job that I actually think is OK.
So here are the stats.
After two and a half years I sent off an average of five applications a week. Over that time I only attended ten interviews. Of the ten interviews, I got one job.
I finally gained interviews I think by cutting down my resume so you could not tell how old I must be. That got me in the door. No hiding my age when I got in, but luckily my employer wanted someone with a lot of years of experience to get their practice back up to speed.
So my financial position is still precarious to say the least. However I now have a few irons in the fire.
My bank accounts are bleak. As of this writing my everyday account has $800 available from an overdraft. My health fund account has $300 so I am taking all of my vitamins and eating well as my backup. I have squirrelled away $900 as emergency rent money thanks to a tax return bonus.
In the meantime I have revived my ebay account and started selling like a crazy hoarder and gradually specialising in one area. This has netted about $1,000 in profit since January 2019 which I have reinvested into stock purchases so this is going to take a good while to get up into a significant contributing side hustle.
I am typing for two clients. This is very sporadic work and cannot be counted on or factored into the budget so anything I make from this I’m putting straight into the health fund. Over the year I hope to get the equivalent of my annual membership fee or at least average $250 a month. This kind of takes the pressure off finding this in my meagre weekly wage.
My job is just covering my rent and bills and food. I get paid just over $800 so rent is $365, bills $150, Food and spendings $150 a week. The rest stays in my account to try and bring that back to the black instead of overdraft and covers the direct debits I forget about like my insurance for contents and car.
So I kind of have a plan now moving forward. Now my rent and food is taken care of I feel I can concentrate on my other streams of income. I have head space to write now so that is something I will be doing a lot more of. I have set aside Sundays as my sewing day to return to my joyful craft without guilt and feeling like I should be doing something to make money. Ironically, I’m selling what I make now so that kind of is making me money but for some reason I couldn’t see this in the depths of my unemployment. Hopefully this will build up to contribute to the retirement savings.
My superannuation account has just on $60,000 in it so having a job which is contributing to this now at approximately $200 a fortnight should help with this. All of my other spare money will go to paying off my son ($20,000) and then into savings and a managed index fund towards my retirement.
So it’s a plan but I don’t know if I’ll pull it off.
Stick around and find out! With this new headspace I’m returning to writing How I Lost Everything in 83 Days so hopefully that will make you feel better about whatever your situation is.
Don’t forget to follow me on Instagram and I’m thinking about starting a Youtube channel as well so keep your eyes out for that.
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