Work? What work? - The social safety net and you..

 I will not detail what is happening in the background, but I will say this; I will be able to complete my mission with a combination of public assistance, unorthodox income stream, passive income and draconian cuts in spending.

 I could argue having a regular job may allow you to have more resources (money) but less time.  Doing it my way allows you to have more time and slightly less money. One problem with being near the bottom of the middle class, you are usually unable to save money. That is if you want to live a typical life. 

 The Los Angeles area is one of the more expensive places to live (but has one of the highest min wage). A recent study found that it takes just under $30,000 a year to have a comfortable life with the usual trappings. If you're earning less than that, then you're simply doing without. For some its a car, for others its living at home and for other still its no social interaction; You simply can't afford it.

 For the last few years I had not earned more than $25,000 and not gotten anywhere. So when I got fired from my last job, instead of jumping right back into the job market making about the same amount of money, I opted to do everything differently. As the financial crisis deepen it became clear that hurrying back into the job market or waiting a year or two will not make much difference. Of course there's a risk, especially if you're my age (41) but I think the risk is minimal. There has been all sort of tactics used by companies to hire workers from other companies or younger, desperate workers who will take just about any job to start paying down student debt (currently at 1.2 Trillion Nationally). This is openly discriminating against the long term unemployed.

 In the face of that reality, I decided I wanted to train for IT. But a secondary plan was hatched a bit later.

 I started thinking as I was waiting for the bus one evening; I had just finished donating plasma which I started at the suggestion of a classmate. I figured, if I could earn between $280-$320 dollars a month, I could parlay that into something useful like a trip or a car. I decided buying a car was fruitless. $300 a month is barely enough to run any car, but its possible. You'll need to find a cheap, reliable car of course....  But that is so secondary at this point, that I can make do without.

 One of the first things I did after becoming unemployed was apply for Unemployment, for which I was denied. Funny, I just had UI supplemental income after my hours had been cut at old job and now I can't get full insurance? I could have applied for an appeal but I said screw it and screw them. 

 I also applied for food stamps. I got those but something funny happen here. I was offered food stamps and medicaid, but not general assistance (cash). I assumed that was just the way it went since I lived at home with my parents and paid no rent. But recently (yesterday in fact) I was applying for something else that I will talk about in the near future, I was informed at the location for where I applied for social services does not offer general assistance (cash). I was told where I needed to go to get it. Imagine, I had been working on this plan for the better part of the year and could have gotten cash from the county (its provided by LA County) to stack for this.

 Oh well, better late than never right?

 I am just at the start of my public assistance aspect of this journey but I will leave this post with a sort of earnings report from donating plasma this year as of July 2012.

 Plasma Donation Log