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Future Pay Bump?
Tuesday, May 21st, 2024 11:39 am |
84F and partly cloudy this morning, on it's way up to a high of 88F!
Not gonna be fun working upstairs at Cloud this afternoon, but this is the last week.
I went to make my coffee this morning and the water was off?
Did I forget to pay my bill, or were they doing repair work?
I managed to catch two guys in a city truck, wearing hard hats across the street so I asked, and they confirmed it was repair work.
Lucky for me, my water bottle from yesterday, sitting on the kitchen table, had just enough to make a thermos full of coffee.
The lease is still not ready to sign.
But it is payday and garbage day.
I found one last crucifix in the house last night, looking through the boxes that Tim had packed, back after Dad died.
So, that's a total of eight, going out to the curb.
And nobody took the rocker, so a sticker's gonna go on that.
The rolly chair, however, is gone.
Okay, garbage & recycling are at the curb, and stickers are on the three chairs.
I also started a checking account with 5/3 bank, which has a location downtown, a couple blocks from the tower.
The plan is to redirect my paycheck to this bank, to prevent any trouble with PNC, if I need to restructure, bankrupt out of, or simply duck, that monthly $780.00 payment.
For now, I'm just waiting for the deposit to show up.
I guess I'm also getting a debit card in the mail.
Getting ready for work, I peeked into the music room and noticed a basket under a desk, full of little old keepsake boxes!
I went through them quickly and flushed out FOUR MORE crucifixes!.. one larger stand alone, and three on rosaries!
They too went into the garbage on the curb.
Bernice called in today and was covered by Ronnie, so it was nice to see him in there when I clocked in.
Ronnie was around the first day I started at Cloud, and for a few weeks after that.
And he's been in to cover for other people now and again, which is how he and I figured out, last November, that we both went to the same Catholic grade school, only two years apart.
At any rate, it was a nice, Ronnie Reprise, here in my last week at Cloud.
But there was a woman in our shop, who he introduced me to as the head electrician working under Don... my new boss.
And she turns out to be very active in the union, and was giving us the low down on the big negotiation in August.
Right now, both custodial, and maintenance are in the same union... and she was saying that if maintenance doesn't get what they're asking for, they're splitting off and joining a different union.
She said they're going to encourage both departments to go on strike, August 31st if we don't get what we're asking for.
But if the custodial department wimps out of the strike like they did four years ago, maintenance will switch unions and strike by themselves.
She was all full of fire about it too!
That's what I've been waiting to hear!
And this reminded me of something Don had said after hiring me last week... where he told me I'd be making $21.00 per hour... at least until the end of August, and it could go up after that.
They also implied that the other applicants they'd interviewed were pretty sour on the low starting wage of $21.00.
And this woman today was throwing out numbers like $30.00!
So...
There's reason to believe, come September, I may be making mid to high 20's per hour!
And that would put me right back to, or above what I was making at the hospital before I left!
So let's say I'm bumped up to 25.
25 X 8 hours = 200 dollars a day.
200 X 23 work days in a calendar month is 4,600, gross.
We'll overestimate taxes and say I bring home $4,000.00 per month.
Could I continue to just pay PNC their money?
Rent will be 985 plus the 780 to PNC, which makes, 1,765 a month.
4000 - 1765 = 2,235 a month to live on... which is about what I'm making right now!
So... right now... if I had no mortgage, no PNC, no electric or water bill, and no home insurance... YEAH!.. I could live off the 2,235 just fine!
So, this doesn't save the house or anything.
But if I could survive until September, and if I really did wind up making $25 per hour, then I could slowly pay back my debts and get my credit score back up over the next couple years.
It'd still be four years until PNC was paid off, but after that, I'd have a ton more disposeable cash!
So maybe it makes sense to have my paycheck continue to direct deposit to PNC... but just move rent money over to 5/3rd Bank.
That way, if I do have to be late on the PNC payment, or can't pay it in full, then I know the rent money's always gonna be there.
This is still gonna be hard to pull off, because over the span of June, I have to come up with, essentially three months rent!
However, I will be making 5 more bucks an hour, and it's possible that selling my shit will put a big dent in that.
Then, if I get into the Tower on July 1st... I still have to scrape by through July, August, and some of September, before our proposed bigger raise kicks in.
But if I can survive until October without playing the bankruptcy card, then I should be fine.
Then through 2025 and 2026, I should have the card balances back down to nothing.
And then by the end of 2028, I should be virtually debt free.
That's a long game, but I'll play it if I have to, to keep the credit score decent, because I'll need that to trade in my car at some point.
How many times, since the start of this blog in June of 2022, have I come up with a long term financial plan that seemed perfectly workable, and then collapsed because of shitty luck and unforeseen disasters?
So maybe take this all with a grain of salt.
But almost ALL of the BS that's been tanking my plans has been directly linked to;
- Dad's health.
- Dad's dog.
- Dad's house.
- Dad's debts.
And Dad and his dog are gone now.
And I'm about to throw off his house too... either to a buyer, or straight to the goddam bank.
So let's pray, that without all that cursed baggage, I do financially recover by the age of 60!
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