The second job since quitting the pizza delivery job never panned out. UPS never called. The dream of keeping a somewhat normal schedule looks like it will be broken. I followed up with UPS in late October and was told I would hear something the first or second week of November, that call never came. It is now mid-November and I feel confident in saying that by now they would have their seasonal positions filled. When I met with them for a tour of the facility there was 8 of us and 1 position open. The odds were stacked against me.

This had left me to move on and seek other employment elsewhere. I am trying for a job at a big box home improvement store using some networking of a person I know there. Hopefully that will pan out since they have some open positions. I would think that would easily add a few hundred to the plasectomy busting.

Oh, also this month we re-worked our budget and for the first time really went cash only. It feels weird and seems to work. More on that later.

What was it this week? You will never guess because it, to me at least, makes no sense. In fact, the three other people had as much of a puzzled look as I did. The owner, who I have known for ten years, asked the delivery guy, me, to mop the sidewalks. Yes, the sidewalks. I know what you are thinking and yes I did do it. I am not sure what the point of this was as there was no bodily fluid from the previous night bar hoppers engrained into the concrete. I swept the cigarette butts up and then proceeded to mop with bleach water. One of the guys was kind enough to snap a few pictures with his cell phone unbeknownst to me while I mopped. It was humorous and we all got a good laugh out of it.

This week of deliveries, 05/03 (yes I am a week behind as today is 05/11), was my best delivery tip day yet. I made a total of $35.00 and change. Not because I delivered more pizzas than any week before, no it was because of my final delivery of the day. This week it wasn’t a debacle like the other previous delivery attempts at the end of my shift. Dropping a sheet pizza and getting lost. I delivered four sheet pizzas to the local bowling alley to the brother of the guy who was making pizzas. Consequently you get a REALLY good deal if you know the person making your pizza. His brother paid $30 for pizza that would have cost close to $80 with the toppings he had. I am not complaining because I received a generous tip of $10 to conclude the night.

Total miles driven 24.7.

Total tips, $35.19 with 11 deliveries. Tip amount averaged higher this week at $3.20.

Every day goes by and I think to myself, I really need to post on what is going on and then of course life happens. I have time right now and let me start with the big one. The never ending saga of selling our SUV. Where did I leave off? I got the title, let the guy know, and I thought we would do the exchange this past weekend. It turned out that he would be leaving for training on Saturday morning for his work and would be back on Monday night. Today is Thursday, correct? I haven’t heard from him. I called on Monday and left a message on his phone that immediately went to voicemail, no biggie I thought, he probably has it off. We have had great communication thus far and he will give me a call back….won’t he? Tuesday rolls on by and I tried a follow up call that evening, but again straight to voicemail. I didn’t leave a message this time. Wednesday, again I wait. I call in the afternoon and straight to voicemail so I fired off an email to him with no response.

Maybe he is out on training and forgot his charger and the phone went dead or even forgot his phone and then it went dead? Training went long? Walking back from his training? Taken hostage? There could be any number of valid reasons and at this point with how long this deal has gone on it needs to end.

I guess at this point I am beginning to panic that I am about to lose this sale. I cannot fathom as to why I would, the guy gave me $500 of his money to hold the vehicle and to take care of a few things with that money, namely the cracked windshield. He is invested in the purchase of the SUV so I am not really sure why he would just let $500 be tied up in a complete stranger. It’s $500, that is a lot of money. I can think of one thing and one thing only to do with that money, pay down debt. Let me tell you it is burning a hole in my pocket to do so. Ugh….

Finally got offered a second job at a pizza shop. I detailed my plight on how hard it was to find a job delivery pizzas, but patience finally paid off, pun intended. I go in tomorrow to the place I worked in college to meet with the current manager. I have to be honest and say this is going to be weird. I am grateful for the opportunity to finally generate more income and get this snowball really moving. However, I am extremely nervous plus scared with really know reason to be other than it is a humbling experience to be doing this again. From the quick phone call about an hour ago it looks like I will start on Sunday from 10am to 5pm with more part time work available. I want to work as much as physically possible, the downside is that I don’t want to give up my family time. The idea of missing my kids emotionally hurts and as much as I would rather not have to do this I can’t also worry about paying bills, barely scraping by and only slowly moving the plasectomy. Our finances only cover the bare minimums and although the past few months have been great with the debt reductions it hasn’t been because of my paycheck. It was taxes, selling some stuff, and the hopefully selling of Ford Explorer, which I have made a debacle of so far.

I guess tonight will be a budgeted celebration of relaxation and downtime before I begin to work more and more. Wish me luck.

I have detailed in the past about finding a second job and still nothing. I am now confirmed as a backup driver if someone calls in and that is the best offer I have received. I’ll keep my fingers crossed on getting a call from the numerous pizza shops I have applied at.

On the brightside based on TaxAct.com’s e-file status says we should receive our federal refund on February 20th, however Where’s My Refund states we should receive it on February 24th. The idea was to separate the entire refund into a baby emergency fund of $1,000 and the rest would be applied to wiping out a handful of credit cards. Given the amount of time between pay cycles I think we may need to pull just a small amount from the refund to apply to other miscellaneous things that need to be taken care of. I need that second job and I am thankful for my first job.

Let me preface stating that I was extremely financially responsible until my last year in college where I naively thought that I was about to graduate and I would earn a great income as I had a college education. During that senior year I went credit crazy, enjoyed new clothes, a spring break trip and random dining out indulges. This continued after graduation even when that great job came as well as the mentality of paying just the minimum payments. Generally this is how I arrived at where I am today.

Like many other companies and employees in the work force her company has begun to lay off employees. She has seen around 75 people let go from the company she works for and everyone is on edge there. From what she has told me from the office gossip is that they are not done. The company has asked for voluntary early retirement and voluntary layoffs, so what does she do? She goes out and buys a laptop and then pays the computer service technicians at a large big box retailer to service it for her. Now, I have come to expect or assume that she is in financial dire straits. I consistently hear about how she borrows from her 401k to pay her bills, does random deals to borrow from Paul to pay Peter, and she is juggling which bills to pay that month. What do I say to her about this decision? From my understanding the parents willingness for advice from their children is generally not welcomed and I have experienced this before with her. I have expressed to her our plan for our plasectomy and to get out of debt, stop spending, and work more for a short amount of time. It’s not forever and it is needed, but nothing helps. It is extremely frustrating to watch the bad financial decisions made time and time again knowing as a single mother how hard it was. I wish for her to be setup well and not to struggle. Ugh…

I would say the idea of doing this again is humbling, romantic, depressing, and encouraging all wrapped into one. Humbling knowing that I will probably be one of the few besides the owner that would be above college age. Romantic, well maybe more nostalgic than anything reliving those days gone by as I did really enjoy the job. Depressing knowing that we dug ourselves into this and now have to get out. Which means I miss the standard 9-5 monday through friday schedule with weekends off, having family dinners, tucking the kids into bed, and spending time with my wife. Encouraging as we are FINALLY going to do this, finally going to kick Sallie Mae, EdFinancial, Mastercard, Visa, and Discover out of the house. 

It will be a journey that will not be forgotten and to hopefully never be repeated.

How about you? What are you doing?