Fear The Walking Zombie Debt.

Any Ohio licensed JD's able to help out with something?  

I'm dealing with Zombie Debt & the creditor handling the summary judgement, National Check Bureau c/o David Bader, is draining my bank account slowly and sporadically, allowing interest and whatever fees he can dream up, to accumulate.

In 2010, this creditor(person who bought my debt) started taking money out of my bank account.  I was able to talk to them and explain that I was in a pretty bad shape, financially, and asked if they could  give some breathing room. I may have agreed to make payments, which never happened, either because I didn't have it or because it slipped my mind completely.

Obviously, I bare some responsibility here, much in the same way that the guy trying to talk the meter maid into 'letting it slide' failed to get back to his car on time. Except, I will say that this firm bought bad debt, they weren't trying to collect money they lent me personally. Inherently, there is a touch of douchebaggery baked into their business model, that is, to exploit the financial shortcomings of others while charging interest and fees.

They probably bought my debt for a few hundred dollars at most, but attempted to collect the full amount of the original debt. I guess, it's lucrative work if you lack all empathy and soul.

In early June(5 years later, I checked my bank account and discovered that $102.55 had been withdrawn by this lawyer and National Check Bureau. It was his bank garnishment in June that led me to leave my apartment. I no longer had the rent.  I'm starting a new job and will be saving to get a place to live, and I'm afraid that he'll swoop in just when I have enough money saved and drain my account. Every time he does this, the court charges $50, which gets added to the 'fees' I have to pay.  I barely have the gas money I need to commute until I get my first check. Imagine if the gas/food money I sorely need is stripped away?

If anyone can, please donate. That money is safe in my PayPal until I need to withdraw it.  If anyone is or knows a lawyer licensed in Ohio that is willing to contact these guys on my behalf and get them to back off or set up some other arrangements, it would be greatly appreciated.

PayPal link: http://paypal.me/poorblog

Dead.

Good news: I have a job offer for the Columbus call center job and I'm supposed to sign paperwork Thursday.

Bad News: I think the starter in my 2001 Hyundai Sonata finally died today and the car won't start.

I don't really have enough gas $ to get back and forth to the new job until I get my 1st paycheck, let alone $ to get a new starter put in.

If I can't get this car started, I can't get up to Columbus, and even if I get up there somehow, I have no reliable transportation to get to the new job.

I really need money to get a starter put in that rusty car. This isn't some scheme. I assure you the damn car is dead at the moment. My dad said to try jump starting it, and maybe then I can get it up to Columbus, but I have no idea if that's gonna work.

This is the reality of poverty. No savings and any small setback can derail an opportunity.

I really need help & I'm running out of ppl to ask.

Wins & Losses.

This has been a good week that has had a couple of downturns.

1 of my 3 job leads died with a rejection email 2 days before I was to attend that company's open house hiring event. 

I went anyway, and had a pretty good in person interview this afternoon. So maybe that counts as a save.

I thought my interview for the technical writer position went pretty well, but the guy was pleasant enough that he was a little hard to read. I'm supposed to hear back on all 3 jobs by Monday.

I came home tonight to discover the people I'm staying with have grown tired of my presence. My best friend's girlfriend really laid into me about doing more chores. As mad as she was, I was equally confused when I pressed her for specifics and she came up with only a couple anecdotes. It probably didn't help that she was drunk. 

This was a pretty big low and just happened. I feel trapped. I wanted to defend myself, but how? They rent this house and I'm the guest, so I'm obligated to do whatever they say(within reason, of course).  But she didn't give specifics. She just said, 'going forward, just try to help more.'

'With what? What specifically have you asked me to do, that I refused? What specific things do you want me to do that I don't do already?'

Just do more to show appreciation, she basically said.  I need to guess what they want done and do it.  Apparently, trash, dishes, feeding the cats, and vacuuming the small bit of carpet in the living room wasn't it, because I already do that.

I feel so trapped. They can ask me to leave at any time and I really have nowhere to go. I could stay at my sister's house, but not my cat... not most of my possessions that I have here.

I wasn't expecting this, although I did sense a distance between us. I do empathize to a certain extent.  They work all day, come home, and there I sit.  It's not like I'm protesting... I have no job... no money to go out and do things.

I really need something to happen for me with 1 of these 3 jobs. I want the technical writer position the most, but that's here in Cincinnati, which means more awkward evenings at my friend's home until I have a place of my own.  It would almost be better to get one of the Columbus jobs so I can be out of this house.  It's the most terrible feeling to be unwanted, especially when you can't just fuck off and go to your own apartment.

I need more money, regardless of the job I get.  All 3 opportunities start 2 weeks from now. Even if they pay weekly, I wouldn't see my 1st check for 2 weeks after I start. That means, even if I get 1 of those 3 jobs, I won't get paid until October.  I don't have enough money to last until then.  I'll need more than I currently have for gas alone.  So if anyone can donate, I'd really appreciate it.  

Hopefully, this week will end on a positive note.

New normal.

My last post featured this pic and it really got no attention. I was demonstrating how little food I had left in my refrigerator, obviously, and I guess readers grew tired of me complaining about being poor.

Of course, my suggestion would be to not read or reply to these posts if that is the case... I mean, it is Poor Blog after all. What did you expect?

That pic was taken on the 6th of June, and by the following Saturday, I had moved out of my apartment.

No longer able to afford rent, I was forced to vacate my apartment.  A friend of mine offered to let me stay with him and his girlfriend at a house they were renting on the West side.

Many of my possessions, I threw away.  What little I decided to keep, is now in a storage unit I'm renting.  The idea is that I can save some of the rent money I would have been paying, so it would be easier to move to wherever I could find appropriate work.

For the time being, this is the new normal.  My job outlook hasn't improved much despite getting help from an executive in the industry.

My connection may have helped me get a phone interview for a position I was really interested in, only to find out in the interview that the job was actually an internship, despite having no mention of an internship in the job description. I was completely humiliated.

I've had a couple other interviews that just evaporated into nothing, even though I thought the interview itself went well.

I hope this doesn't turn into a long term living arrangement. I feel like a third wheel staying with my friend and his girlfriend. They eat out a lot and that cuts into the money I'm saving, but to be fair, it's not like I'm electing to stay behind.

Every crumble beneath my feet in this slow and steady backslide into hopeless poverty has had a dramatic cooling effect on what I used to feel were perfectly reasonable hopes and expectations.

It doesn't seem at all far fetched that someone with my training could get an entry-level job in the food industry in either a marketing capacity or in R&D, but I have had embarrassingly little luck getting past the online application. 

It's not like I'm applying to be some Sr. VP in those departments. My goals seem very reasonable. Yet, every tiny morsel of hope gets stomped out unceremoniously.  I really need to land something I can build on and not another job out of desperation. I need a job I know I can move up in and make a career of, not a job to take until something better comes along. 

I've had too many of those jobs, and the volume of short term employment has only hurt me.  Even the employers of desperation are unwilling to hire me for fear that I'll just leave in a few months.

So that's my update so far. So much has happened, yet so little. I can only hope my next update has better news, but it would be hard to bet on it.

If you have a few bucks and want to donate to the poor(me, I'm the poor), just click on the PayPal button on this blog.  If you just want to leave a comment berating me for my short comings and depress me even further... then you must be a real asshole. Please don't do that. If you still want to help but can't spare a dollar, then post the link to my blog; other people might read it and be able to help.

Thanks,

Sam.

Drought.

Well, the drought continues....

Last I left off, I had no unemployment and $64 to my name. Obviously, things changed, since I'm not yet homeless.  I made a 2nd appeal to unemployment and was approved, giving me a whopping $191/wk while I seek work.

There's a couple things I really need to be honest with myself about... First, is that I can't, in good faith, seek jobs requiring manual labor.  My feet and back are shot and I can't stay standing for more than 15 minutes without being in terrible pain.  I don't know if I'm just carrying too much weight, or I'm just really out of shape, or if I have legit back issues.  Regardless, my feet bruise easily and my lower back is wrecked, which makes manual labor impossible.

I grew up on a farm, so I'm no stranger to manual labor.  I don't think I was any better at it then, I just had a capacity to endure it better.  When I lost my Customer Service job in 2013, I was on unemployment for a few months and fell behind on rent. I tried to work at an Amazon Fulfillment center and lasted about 3 days. The 4th day, I couldn't even walk and had to call in.  My back was so sore at work that I spent every five minutes bent over, trying to stretch my lower back out.  

When I left that job after a week, I lost my unemployment, since you have to be let go to qualify.  That event touched off this blog and the fundraising as I ran out of money and into the very real possibility of being homeless. So if I get a McJob out of my guilt for being unemployed, it too may end the same way, so I have to be smart about what I pursue; this really only leaves me with creative work or call center jobs.

I also realized - being completely honest with myself - that some people really don't like me.  I first noticed this at an early age when we were doing square dancing in gym class and the girl that was paired up with me went to the  principal's office crying because she didn't want to do-si-do with me.  I wonder if this happens in job interviews with professional people who are much better at masking their disdain. I've done fairly well at networking on Twitter, but despite having a good rapport with several influential people, no doors were opened for me.

So I've figured that after next week's unemployment payment, I'll have enough to pay the rent a week late, and really not enough for anything else.  My internet is overdue, and I really need that to apply for jobs.  Hopefully, I can talk them into giving me another week, then the week after that is paid, my auto insurance comes out... then the next week my rent is due again, and I still need food and gas throughout the month.

I'm just barely avoiding homelessness.  I pay bills late, utilities get paid just before disconnection, and even then, just the minimum amount.  A $10 an hour job just isn't going to cut it.  I need a career position, a salary where my take home is more than rent and groceries after taxes every week.  I need to be able to pay on student loans, get healthcare and put money away.

Everything is an emergency right now and it sucks.

I know I'm smart and creative, I just need a good career start with a company willing to take a chance on me.  All I see coming my way are multi-level marketing schemes or manual labor that I literally don't have the ability or the back to stand doing,  I really need some people responding to my applications.  I'd love to do work at an ad firm, maybe copy writing, but those jobs seem sealed shut to anyone who doesn't have a marketing degree and agency related unpaid internships.

I'll keep digging, but for now, it seems the drought will continue.

See that PayPal Donate button? If you have a spare few bucks, I'd really appreciate anything you can give.  If Bill Gates is reading this, I can get an Uber car if I had $10,000 or so...