Money Money Money

Do you know how great it feels to earn money again?  Today I deposited a paycheck for the first time in four months.  An honest to gosh paycheck with taxes taken out and everything!  Since it was a bi-monthly check, it was quite a decent amount, enough to make my mortgage payment for the first time since May.  Over six hundred was taking out for Federal taxes and almost three hundred each for state taxes and social security, but you know what?  I didn't care.  I'll be getting some of that money back come tax time in April, and it feels good to be able to contribute something again.  Even if it means paying taxes.

You see, the way I look at it, we have a certain social responsibility that can not be ignored or be made to sound like too big a burden for others to bear. It's not morally right, to call for less government, when less means more distress for the less fortunate among ourselves. And who are these people calling for less government, the ones who are making all the money?  The ones in the back pockets of corporations and lobbyists and bigots and religious zealots?  The one's who have multiple homes and fly around in private jets and shop in high end boutiques?  Does that feel right to you?

I believe we ARE responsible for providing for the poor and needy and especially for other hard working Americans who have been punished by the greedy, who sent our jobs overseas in order to make a buck. I believe that excessive CEO bonuses are a crime; the stock market is nothing but legalized gambling for the elite, and that laying off workers and making one person do the job of three, while making enormous corporate profits, is a form of economic slavery.

I want to thank my family for having taught me the difference between right and wrong, between wealth and greed.  I want to thank the planets Jupiter and Saturn for being in the right alignment for my money to start flowing again. I would like to thank the House and Senate for belatedly extending unemployment benefits for the millions of long term unemployed.  I would like to thank the former employer who rescued me from amongst the ranks of the unemployed, and gave me a new and challenging assignment so that I can contribute something to the world again, be rewarded with a paycheck, and pay taxes to help those who can't work and those who are still looking for a job.

All Packed Up & No Place To Go

Another sign of the times, a producer called to see if I was available to take over a show and go on the road in two days. I was so eager to work again on a union show, that I didn't care if it was four weeks on the road, moving from location to location. In fact, I welcomed the change. I said I would drop everything and be ready to leave by Saturday. Being pro-active, I began packing.  I figured one suitcase for my office equipment & supplies, and one suitcase for clothes.

Last year, I had impulsively purchased two silver multi-directional light weight carbonite cases for my next location job. The suitcases are ultralight and perfect for packing everything I need to handle accounting on a show. I planned to carry my laptop on the plane, and pack everything else. So into the case went a printer, calculator, label printer, electronic postage scale, alphabetizers, stampers, staplers in various sizes, red pens, correction tape, a power strip, router and VOIP box and all the necessary cables for all these devices,  a three-hole puncher, a plastic tool box filled with paper clips, staples, push pins, binder clips and all the necessary tools of my trade. There was even room left for a back support for my desk chair and few boxes of computer labels and pocket file folders and my all important cash box, sans the cash of course.

I had started to go through my clothes, mending and ironing and folding them into neat piles, when the phone finally rang.  It was the producer.  There was a big storm heading toward the first location.  They hadn't forgotten me. The earliest I would leave was on Monday.  So I spent the rest of the weekend, making lists of things to do, like cancel my newspaper, suspending my Netflix, making sure all my bills came to me online.

My nephew who is staying with me, was looking forward to sleeping on a bed instead of a couch. I made a status report for the other members of the board of the homeowners association, showing where we stood on our various improvement projects.  I packed up checks for my remaining post shows, in case someone needed something while I was away. 

When I was finally packed, the phone rang again. "I am so sorry, but..." those five words I seem to keep hearing, "We had to hire someone for political reasons." Another common refrain. "We really appreciate that you were ready to jump in at a moment's notice, and we will keep you in mind for the second season, which is starting to look very likely."  I thanked her politely, saying we should meet when she gets back from location. Then I hung up and started to unpack.

They say when one door closes another door opens. I keep waiting for that to happen. It seems lately that all the doors keep closing and none of them are opening. Come on people, all of you in positions of power to make things happen and give us jobs. Stop sending our work overseas and out of state to save a few bucks. If we don't have jobs, we won't be going to the movies or even paying for cable. And who needs all the cheaply made goods from China that break and are made with dangerous chemicals?  Help your communities heal.  Open the doors again.

Birthday Wishes

Imagine it's your birthday and for most of your life you have celebrated by throwing a big party--fine food and wine shared with friends and family. Only this year, you are unemployed, have exhausted your savings and really shouldn't spend a dime on your birthday. What should you do? Throw a virtual birthday party!  Invite all your friends via email or posting to your virtual party. People will check in throughout the day.  Like my friends in Germany, are calling now while most of California is still sleeping.

Wouldn't  it be great if I could add a video component.  I guess I can open Skype or Gmail and chat with some of my friends that way. Already I've received four Facebook birthday wishes and two fabulous E-cards and it's only 7 AM.  Then I realized that my iPhone battery was dead. When I plugged it in, there were six voice-mail  messages with more birthday wishes.

I checked my various email in-boxes to find all sorts of birthday greetings from friends and vendors like a free cup of coffee at Borders, a $3 coupon at CVS and  a free tarot reading at tarot.com, all of which I appreciate very much. There is a book I want to get at Borders and a free coffee would be nice. I'll use the $3 coupon for eye makeup remover pads and I'll see if my Celtic Cross reading promises a better year ahead.  My discounts at Loehmann's, Macy's, White House/Black Market, will have to wait until the cash starts flowing again.

Virtual birthdays are fun, inexpensive and convenient.  I think I should setup a website to coordinate virtual birthdays. (Brother D, this could be a cool app. Let's talk.) I need to find a way to make money without being dependent on someone employing me.  It is time to be more entrepreneurial, like my hero, Oscar Micheaux, a man who made almost four dozen films, even during difficult times like the great depression. He figured out a way to make his dreams happen, and now, so should I.

My birthday wish is that I get an amazing job or that I finally get a script produced, or a third solution I haven't even thought of yet, or a combination of all of the above.  I want to keep my home, this sanctuary that I have created, and that provides sanctuary for others.

Before I blow out my virtual birthday candle, I want to thank all of my friends for being part of my virtual family, and I want to thank my family for being you.  I love you all. Thanks for celebrating my virtual birthday with me.

I Heart Goo Gone

I've always enjoyed the citrus scented smell of Goo Gone by Magic American Products in Cleveland, Ohio. I first bought it to remove a no-parking sticker that a neighbor plastered on my windshield when I parked in the visitor area to unload my car. I tried everything. I couldn't get that damn sticker off. Nothing worked until I learned about Goo Gone. The citrus oil loosens the adhesive material, so that you can scrape it off without damaging your windshield. Interestingly, I learned about the Goo Gone from the very neighbor who plastered my car, and we ended up being friends.

Later, when I started cooking more, I started saving glass bottles and jars
to use for storage instead of plastic. I found Goo Gone extremely useful in removing the sticky residue from old labels. Then I found it great for removing heal marks on wood floors.

One day after some paint touch-ups, I used it to safely and painlessly remove paint from my hands and from the places I had dripped it on the floor.

Finally, the other day, we had a little kitchen disaster, when a steamed bun turned into a burnt crisp, and the lingering smell of smoke haunted the house. We had already tried to clean it with Lysol and Windex and a 4-in-one product, but a tar-like film clung to the stainless steel surface. We disassembled the oven, and cleaned every part of it with Goo Gone. It seemed to dissolve the film with only a few strokes. Now my steam/microwave/convection oven is back to normal and the kitchen smells clean again. I Heart Goo Gone.

Clean Shower Fresh Start

I tackled the caulking in my shower on my own and it was very easy. I cleaned the area, carved out the old caulking, wiped it clean again, then cut the tip off a new tube of mildew resistant white caulking. I squeezed the tube like toothpaste along the edge of the tile, then used my finger to smooth the caulk into a straight line. I let it dry 24 hours and Voila!, now I have a clean white shower corner. I wish finding a job could be so easy.

The nice thing about a clean shower is that it is a fresh start to a new day. No nagging thoughts or feelings of guilt for not taking care of the green slime that had been growing there. Those thoughts were banished from my mind and additionally I was feeling pretty proud of myself, for tackling something I was not sure how to do. Whereas my father could figure these things out on his own, I went to the great oracle of Google to find the right steps before I started. The oracle gave me many web sites with step by step instructions for just about everything. Ehow.com, dummies.com and about.com are all very useful with step by step instructions including photos and videos. Then there are the home decorating websites like HGTV.com and DIY.com. I don't know about you, but I'd rather have Eric Stromer or Carter Oosterhouse tell me how to caulk my shower than some handyman I have to pay.

My point is, the information is out there and more accessible than ever before. The internet puts all the knowledge of man right at our fingertips. There is no excuse for lack of knowledge in the information age. Lack of interest, lack of ability, maybe, money isn't really an issue anymore, as there are computers in libraries, schools and even in our cell phones. Do your research. Figure out the steps. Break it down into manageable pieces, then check those honey do items off your list. The feeling of self satisfaction will help carry you through until the next day and another fresh new start.

Honey Do List

When I was growing up, my mother kept a Honey Do list for my father. Paint the shutters, clean the gutters, plant the roses, you name it, Dad could do it. Over the years his honey do list included adding on a family room, screening in the patio, even sewing curtains and quilts. Whatever needed to be done, my father could always figure out how to do it. He had a logical, inquisitive mind and he liked the challenge of finding a solution. He would talk to himself, asking and answering his own questions, breaking things down step by step. Each step by itself was simple. When added up together he was able to accomplish the task, no matter how large or difficult.

I need to take the same approach with finding work. I need to break it down into little steps that I can accomplish, so I don't feel like I am failing all the time. I am creating my own Honey Do list for me to follow. Job Search/Income Creation being the highest priority, but also using this time to repair things that I haven't been paying attention to, like the green ribbon of mildew growing in the corner of my shower.

Today's Honey Do List

1) Set up my Linked-In page.

2) Update my profile.

3) Reach out to former business contacts.

4) Make recommendations in order to get recommendations.

5) Re-caulk my shower.

My sister turned me on to Linked-In, a social networking sight designed for business contacts. Setting up a profile is pretty easy. Mine was up in no time. You can add as much (or as little) of your resume as you want.

It is extremely easy to import your contacts from Gmail, AOL, Outlook and other email lists. You select which email list you want to add to your contacts. Click or unclick the suggested names in the list and connection emails are automatically sent to anyone you select asking to be linked in. Once they accept, you can see their contacts and if you want to meet someone in their contact list, you ask your contact to make the introduction. There is also a feature called recommendations. If you recommend someone, a little quote and picture of you appears on their web page. The way I look at it, this is a pretty good way to get your name out to people you don't even know. Plus by giving someone a good recommendation, it's easier to ask for one in return.

So today I am getting "out there" networking with friends and business contacts, all within the comfort of my home. And later today I will also tackle that moldy shower. I have the tools and the mildew resistant caulk. There is no point in putting it off any longer.

Do You Feel Like Dancing?

Another joy of underemployment is finally having the time to pursue your passion.  For my sister, Donna, that has always been dancing. We were both dancers as children, and she continued on through college. She was Disco Donna back in the Seventies, dancing at Studio 54 and the Electric Circus when she wasn't rehearsing for a new Broadway show and understudying for A Chorus Line. Donna is the one who got me hooked on the TV series Dancing with the Stars and So You Think You Can Dance?  Two years ago she started taking ballroom dance lessons at the Arthur Murray studio in Sherman Oaks. Now she is dancing in ballroom competitions like the one held last weekend in Los Angeles.

I've seen the changes in my sister since she started dancing again. She is much happier and thinner and looks so much younger than she did a few years ago. Dancing is great exercise, one because it is aerobic, and two, because it is fun... a lot more fun than running on a treadmill.  Dancing involves human interaction, a chance to meet and dance with all kinds of people.  My sister has built a network of lovely new friends from people she has met while dancing. 

Last weekend I joined her at the studio where she and other dancers demonstrated the solo numbers they would be competing with on Sunday.  She soared through her Bolero, graceful and sultry at the same time. Other dancers performed a Viennese Waltz, Samba, Cha Cha and Swing.  There were varying degrees of ability on display, but the one thing they all had in common was the way their faces lit up as their colleagues and teachers applauded them through their dance.

Studio owner Mario Vitucci urged me to join them again on Wednesdays or Fridays when it feels more of a party atmosphere than a class. He promised next time to save me a dance. Group and private instruction is also available for all types of ballroom & Latin dancing.  For more info click here: Arthur Murray Sherman Oaks

Watch Donna's Bolero 

Amy's Tip:  Dance your booty off and/or dance your time away. Another fun activity for the underemployed.

Go for the Gold

One of the benefits of our current depression is that the price of gold hovers around one thousand dollars an ounce. You've seen those ads on TV and in your newspaper.  Friends of mine have reported selling their gold to jewelers and at private Tupperware-like parties. I sought out gold in all the nooks and crannies of my home. After a thorough search I turned up at least 10 items that appeared to be gold.  How can you tell if it is real?

Reaching out into the universe of assembled knowledge, I consulted the oracle of Google and various posts told me that if it sticks to a magnet it is not gold (but just so you know, not everything that doesn't stick to a  magnet is gold. Or the suggestion that if you scratch gold against a piece of unglazed ceramic it leaves a gold mark; if it is not gold, it will leave a black mark. But then you have to damage the item to prove that it is good, which doesn't make much sense to me. And you've heard of gold paint, right? Other more accurate tests involve nitric acid and displacement measurements in a test tube.  The commonly used phrase, "to pass the acid test" comes from the nitric acid test for real gold.

There are varying degrees of gold that buyers will accept, ranging from 10k up to 24k. 10 karat is commonly used in dental fillings. Jewelry over 10K usually bears a karat mark, but sometimes there is no karat sign. The fact that there is no karat mark does not mean that the item is not gold. Gold prices are based on 24 karat or pure gold. Lesser karats are discounted proportionately. 18k is 75% pure gold. 14K is 58.3%, and so on. When you sell your gold the buyer will further discount the price by adding fees to assay and refine it. These fees usually range from 10-20%.

I looked at the little pile of gold I had assembled on my desk. I used to have a lot more gold jewelry, most of which was stolen during a 1980's home invasion in New York. What little I still have holds more sentimental value than anything else. The calendar charm Nana wore on her bracelet with a tiny ruby on my date of birth, an oval pin with my initials that I received at my bat mitzvah, a pair of Dad's cuff links, a vintage gold or gold plated cigarette lighter that had belonged to my Papa, various chains, knotted and broken, a lump of gold with a diamond mounted on it-- a piece of art made from my mother's engagement ring, and my great grandmother's pink gold ring that still I wear to this day.  I struggled with the thought of selling my memories.  Maybe I could part with the broken chains and the lump of gold that was once a ring, but the other items still held too much emotional value and I wasn't ready to part with them for money... yet.

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Keeping in Contact

One of the first things you should do when you are unemployed or underemployed is update your address book. Now depending on which generation you are from, your address book is either on your phone, your email program, Outlook, Access or some other sales or marketing database. For my mother and grandmother it was an actual address book with a torn cover and worn pages and everything written out in longhand. Once a year my Nana would go through the book and cross out the names of the people who had died. Yes, there were babies to be added, and husbands, and wives, and sometimes a brief story to accompany the name.

I realized that it was time to update my electronic address book and my Nana's telephone number was no longer needed, unless they have figured out how to do call forwarding to heaven. She's been gone for ten years but I hesitated a moment before pressing the delete key. I deleted almost all of my great aunts and uncles, and many of my friends. Along the way I found a few contacts who I hadn't spoken to in years, and decided to give them a call. I spent the day catching up with old friends and putting the word out.

When was the last time you updated your contacts? How often do you back them up? Do you even know how to backup your Outlook file? These are a few questions you can ask yourself while you cull your contacts for new leads.

Last year, when I bought my iPhone, I discovered Apple's MobileMe. At first, I was in love. MobileMe updates my contact files on all my devices automatically, so that if I add a number to my iPhone contacts or an appointment to my Calendar, it is automatically updated in Outlook on both my computers, and vice versa. It is a great time saver. The only downside is that MobileMe charges a yearly license fee of $99. Now that I am underemployed, I decided to explore if there are other options that can do the same thing for free.

It appears that Google, is developing a product called Google Sync, a free application in the beta test stage. It works with Google Apps to synchronize email and databases. I haven't figured out a way to make it work without Google Apps, which is definitely more program than I need at the moment.  If any of my readers have another solution that they can suggest, please let me know.

Next Post:  Go for the Gold

More Ways to Make Money Cleaning Your Home

We live in an age of downloadable content. Apple's iTunes has replaced the need to store and maintain large collections of CDs and albums. Devices exist to convert your LPs and cassettes to iTunes as well. Once you have downloaded all your media to iTunes, and made at least one iTunes library backup, do you really need all those pieces of vinyl and plastic? I have several cabinets of albums dating back to the seventies, cassettes from the eighties, and CDs from the nineties. Call me sentimental, the only format I have been able to toss were my 8-track cassettes. About three years ago I started downloading all my music. I haven't made the transition to downloading movies yet, because of speed and storage limitations, but the technology is improving every day, so it is only a matter of time.

So what am I doing holding on to all my vinyl and CDs? Apart from the obvious advantage regarding album cover artwork and lyrics, there is no need to keep hard copies anymore when your entire music collection can fit on a drive the size of a pack of playing cards. There are second hand vinyl and CD shops in every major city like Second Spin and Amoeba in Los Angeles. At Second Spin, gently used CDs go from $1 -$2, while a Michael Jackson CD can fetch up to $6. It all depends on what the store already has in stock, and what is in demand. If they already have ten Kenny G CDs they probably won't need another one, so don't hesitate to split your collection amongst several stores. Extremely rare items can be sold on EBay or other web-based sites. Having a yard sale is another way to dispose of CDs, albums and tapes. Even if you only sell them for fifty cents or a dollar, this can add up to a nice chunk of money for sizable collections.

Just remember to back up your music library. And then make a backup of the backup. I recently learned this lesson after my last computer crashed. Fortunately, I had most of the collection backed up onto an external hard drive. I ended up losing two recent music downloads, Viva la Vida by Coldplay (not one of their best) and Epiphany by Chrisette Michel (OMG. She is amazing.)

The Apple Store's policy is that it is the customer's responsibility to create a backup of anything purchased from their site. If you need to download it again, you pay again. I hope they will rethink this policy, as many software developers did to accommodate users with computer and hard drive crashes, and owners who migrated from older to newer technologies. I also hope that Apple creates a better way of transferring music back and forth between devices. My entire music collection may fit on my computer, but it won’t fit on my iPhone. It would be great of there were a better way to select which songs or artists or even formats are stored on what device because you know the devices are going to change again and again.

New software and services are springing up to assist you with storing your digital media. Online Storage Solutions is just one of the latest services making it easier to store and transfer your music. Soon, I expect to see large capacity wireless storage drives with the ability to stream music & video to every PC, flat screen and cell phone in the home. For those of you who have already made the transition from hard copy newspapers to reading multiple newspapers online, and for those who have already transferred all your CDs to iTunes, the transition to video storage devices won't be a difficult one. The hard part is letting go of all your stuff. If you are able to do so, you might be able to get some money for all that media stuff filling your home. At least enough to buy groceries for a week or two. In today’s world, that can be very helpful.

Upcoming: Go for the Gold

Check out Chrisette Michel's song I'm Leaving on You Tube.
Check out Online Storage Solutions for $19 a year. 
Enjoy!

Pay it Foward

I don't know about the rest of you, but I have been underemployed for over one year now. I choose to use the word underemployed instead of unemployed because I continue to work part time in the film & TV industry. Part time work is better than nothing and usually more lucrative than unemployment. Our industry was hard hit before the recession due to runaway production to states and foreign countries that offer tax credits and rebates. Resourceful state governments in hard hit areas like Michigan, New Mexico and Louisiana enacted tax credit legislation to lure production away from California and they've done a damn good job of it. California's legislature has been incapable of protecting jobs that employ over a quarter of a million workers and suppliers in Los Angeles alone. This week Panavision announced it was having financial difficulties. It's a sorry sign of the state of our industry when the leading camera supplier almost goes belly up. Next thing you know we'll be shooting TV series on our iPhones.

I've adapted to the current situation by working for several employers, a day here a day there, Saturdays, Sundays, whenever work is available. Whereas before I was a full time employee with union benefits and federal and state taxes paid by my employer, now I am a freelance worker with no benefits (my insurance is running out soon) and it is up to me to pay my own taxes. Unfortunately I am not earning enough to make my monthly commitments and pay taxes unless I give up the important things like a roof over my head, my car, medical care or food.

During this past year of underemployment I have learned some survival techniques that have helped me keep my sanity. Over the next month, I'd like to share them with you. Not all of my ideas are money makers, but at least they give me something to do with my time. There are a lot of things that you can do to make the most of your unemployment/underemployment. Cleaning out your closets is one of them. I started with my bedroom closet. I had no idea how many items I had in my closet, clothing that I hadn't worn in years, jewelry, shoes, handbags that I had spent good hard earned money on and rarely used.

I made myself try on every item in my closet. Over the past few years I have lost a considerable amount of weight, so over half the items were way too large for me to wear. I tried having a few pieces taken in, but the tailor charged me nearly as much as the items original cost and a few weeks later they were too large again. I sorted them by sizes and then into piles for each of my friends and family. They were struggling, too. Why should they waste money on new clothes? I outfitted a few friends with suitable business attire and then asked them to clean out their closets and pass on the results to someone else. This pay it forward closet cleaning is something all of us can do. Of course you can donate your used clothes to charity, and some of my rejects ended up as donations, but I enjoyed seeing the smiles on my friends' faces as they tried on my barely used items.

Now some of you are thinking, maybe I should take the tax deduction or sell my stuff on EBay and make some cash. There are people out there who have created rental services for evening wear and high end handbags. Be creative, there are a lot of ways to benefit yourself and others with the items you already have.

Tomorrow: More Ways to Make Money Cleaning Your Home