Another Update, More Income Stream News and Income Report

Well, its Memorial Day (Federally) and I thought while listen to Dr. Gary Null on one of my various rides on the bus I would update the blog.

 The Podcast is sort of coming along. I have come to the conclusion that I need a co-cost but that does not mean I will not do any solo shows. Indeed there's plenty I have to say and rather than talk to (and sometimes answer...) myself, I believe some people would like what I have to say. So development is coming rather slowly but compared to when I first had the idea for a radio show back in 2007-2008, I have made some progress.

 It has been suggested that you give your potential podcast subscribers plenty of content when first starting out, so that has slowed its debut. I have interviews lined up, the problem is getting schedules to match so we can conduct Skype calls.

 Once that is sorted out a bit more, I will make the investment in the other parts of the podcast to make it work.

 My nine months on General Relief has ended. Ideally, it would have ended with a job and it sort of did. Given my desire to develop my blogs so they will generate income, I wanted much of my time to remain open. I decided not to pursue any IT related work, I may revisit that, but right now its too late in the planning stages for my trip.

 But as I said, I actually do have a job, working for a merchandising company, part-time. The problem is while I have been hired, the job I was originally hired to do was cancelled, so there's no work for me at this time. I hope it changes soon, but until then all I have is reduced GR and my previous income stream.

 GR has been reduced to $111 to cover transportation cost. 

 I am having problems with Citi's web site so I can produce an actual income report, so I'll just give my totals.

 As of May 27, 2013 -

•  General Relief Balance (last payment on May 3rd) - $245
•  Plasma Donation Balance (missed two donations) - $44

That gives me a total of $289. I will add $80 by the end of the week bringing my total to $369

 Ah, but I spent $524 on a recent trip to Mexico City 

 That cost included $322 round trip ticket from LAX to Mexico City. I spent $16 to get to the airport, $21(4.5 days) for a great hostel which included breakfast every morning and WiFi. Also Metro was $4 and I spent too much money on the initial taxi from the airport (because I couldn't find the metro station) for $21.

 I could have easily gone under my $500 self-imposed budget if I had to do it again. This includes loads of sight seeing I might add and the rave I went too, which I didn't pay for by the way :)

 Next post I will go into my detail about my major trip and what going to Mexico City had to do with it.

  

Income Report

 From this point forward, I will be adding an income report to my blog. I think its important to share my financial status with those who are in a similar position.

 If you always thought traveling was only for the rich or upper-middle class, you are sadly mistaken. Armed with the proper tools and information, traveling abroad is in reach of the average person.

 You just need to prioritize, its really that simple.

 I currently have two income streams; General Relief which last for nine months and Plasma donations which I do twice a week.

 Gross earnings for a month average to $450. I try and net $400 savings per month.

 My other income stream that isn't cash based is EBT or Food Stamps. Yes I am one of 46 million Americans on the SNAP program, sue me.

 This allows me to save the majority of money I earn from my activities.

 Current GA balance - $487.54 (3/9/2013
 Current Plasma Debt Card balance - $233.53 (3/9/2013)

 I am lucky enough to not have any additional cost since I live with my parents.

 My goal is to hit $2,000 by May with some additional income from getting rid of stuff. I'll talk more about that in the coming weeks.

2013 is here!

 Its amazing how we move from one year to the next. The news since Obama's first term has been coming fast and furious as we continue the "he said, she said" nonsense that has become normal in American political discourse.

 I recommend that you pick up the book (or audio book) Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein. This book will explain what the term "Disaster Capitalism" means. I also highly suggest you watch Chris Martenson's "Crash Course" video that is available legally from various sources from torrent to You Tube.

 *I have linked to the condensed version above

 Both of those pieces of information will clear away any fog left to explain why we are in the situation we're in.

 From now on I will view any planning like businesses do. Currently we are in the 2nd quarter of 2013 which started January 1st. Meaning the 1st quarter of 2013 started Oct 1st 2012 and ended December 31st 2012.

 You'll notice that 1st quarter earnings contain Black Friday/Cyber Monday and Christmas earnings by retailers and other companies. So I will say that I had a income "glitch" from Oct 1st till just after the first of the year. For some reason my GA was cut off starting with the final payment Sept 3rd. I was never told it would be cut. So when I didn't get a check (electronically) Oct 3rd, I was concerned. When I didn't get a check Nov 3rd, panic mode started and I contacted DPSS (Los Angeles Dept of Social Services) and asked what was happening. It turns out my claim was stopped because of some form I didn't fill out, but I'm positive I never got. In any event, I had to re-apply. So I did that Nov 10th. I was paid for Jan, Dec and part of Nov.

 I ended 2012 with the cash amount of $389. I should mention that I paid for a Sony PS3 Super Slim during Black Friday. I have wanted a PS3 for awhile and was waiting for a price drop to $199. This happen around holiday time in 2011, but this time I figured no price drop will happen until the announcement of PS4. So I went ahead and pulled the trigger. I also tried to upgrade my current laptop with an SSD. That failed as I bricked the laptop. After returning the SSD and spending almost a month trying to un-brick my laptop, I decided to purchase another one. I will eventually fix that one, plus the other one I have from my father's estate, maybe when I return from my trip.

 By the end of 2nd quarter I should have at least $1700. That's if I do nothing else but what I have been doing. If you didn't know I have been working on a podcast version of this blog since the end of summer 2012. Well that podcast is about to start. Stay tuned for some changes to the blog's layout to make it easy to download the podcast, read show notes and visit the links provided to what I am talking about.

 To make my trip work and give myself maximum possibilities I need at least $2,000. If you noticed $1,700 is not $2,000. I would be $300 short or about a month's worth of donations. So the second part of my plan in 2013 is to launch my Sell It All campaign. I had previously thought about this but had put it to work. As a debt reduction tactic its been used by many followers of the blog Man Vs Debt. So I will be using Ebay, Craigslist and Amazon Marketplace to sell items I no longer need or frankly have been saving up to this point. I think its more important to get my media empire off the ground that to keep various anime related items and other stuff I have laying around here. My goal is to earn $1,000. I may earn more, but that's the target.

 Before I started donating plasma as regular income stream, I had sold a few things on Ebay totaling about $105. So I know with the rest of the stuff I got, I can make at least $500, but I though why stop there? $1,000 seems like a reasonable target.

 Next blog post, I will show you my earnings from donating Plasma in 2012, which is my first full year of donations. I will also show you how to link all this to Mint to keep track of all your spending.

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

First Post and Some Information

I have spent the last decade looking for a woman suitable to be my wife. Now before the feminist attack me, I am not basing that strictly on physical beauty. I do have standards that are deal breakers, however they are not out of line with mainstream western thinking.

That is not what this blog is about however, it’s about proving that under even extreme economic circumstances you can find an attractive woman to marry and have a family with.

What you have to do is diffuse the importance of money to a relationship. That goes for even the richest men reading this blog, if you don’t diffuse the importance of money, you’ll find yourself in divorce court sooner rather than later. This is especially important in the United States and part of the reason why I no longer consider women here suitable for long term relationships.

Why? Because too many women are looking to upgrade. If she’s poor, she wants to reach the middle class and the easiest way to do that is to marry some schmuck which automatically will double her income. 

70% of American households women control the money supply. I should also mention though the stat is a bit hard to find, 92% of formerly married women gained their wealth via divorce court.

In a depressed economic environment with a sometimes generous but hard to access social safety net (I'll talk about this in the next post), this restricts a man's options for marriage and relationships. If you don’t fully understand that last sentence, read this article by Dr. Harriet Fraad or if you’re not the type to read very much, you can listen to this podcast.

This blog will cover the ups, the downs, the major failures, triumphs and success.

Stay Tuned More To Come....