What Does “Survival Mode” Look Like?

Good news and bad news all around. Got up this morning and changed the sheets on my bed, rebooted the laundry, and made breakfast. Dropped the kids off at Vacation Bible School and then started on my “recovery errands list.”

• First stop was the bank, to deposit the money from the curriculum fair.
• Then to Kinko’s to copy the paperwork from the curriculum fair before sending it. I ran out of the credit on my Kinko’s Express Pay card just as I ran the last copy. So no money spent there.
• Next stop, the garden shop, to return the $55 worth of seeds I bought a few weeks ago and haven’t had time to plant.
• Then the gas station. I told the car she’s gonna have to run on green for a while (regular’s $2 a gallon) instead of silver. She’ll make it, but she’s used to steak, not hamburger.
• Then the post office, where I sent off the minimum payments to the bills that are due in the next few weeks, the paperwork from the curriculum fair, and the two dresses that I ordered a few weeks ago. That was hard, because I really liked one of the dresses, which I had bought to wear to my brother’s wedding. I will have to wear one of my suit-dresses instead. But that’s almost $200 back.
• Next I stopped by the place I used to work and told them I would have to uninstall the programs that I had bought and “loaned” to them. That took about half an hour.
• Finally, I returned home, where I started making phone calls.
• First the medical insurance company, to cancel my policy and ask for a return of my third quarter premium payment. That’ll be another $725 for us to live on when the check comes back.
• Then the swimming teacher to tell her we’d have to cancel.
• Then the gyne’s office to ask if it would be possible to get samples of the BCP I take to control my severe PMDD/PMS.
• And the allergist to request samples of the two meds I take for my year-round allergies.
• Called one of the magazines I subscribe to and asked to cancel my subscription; I e-mailed the other one and should hear back soon.
• On the way to pick up the kids, I took my resume by the office of a person who sings in the choir at church with me. He said he would circulate it around to anyone he could.

By this time it was noon, so I picked up the kids and took them to my mother’s for lunch and their naps. While they napped, I took up the “recovery list” again:

• Went down to apply for unemployment compensation. Got a really nasty shock when I found out that the place I worked for doesn’t participate in the unemployment program. Churches and synagogues are exempt. So I’m plain out of luck on that one.
• Went back home and looked up the local free legal counseling clinic. I was just about to call one of them when….
• The financial counselor I e-mailed on Saturday morning (early) called me. Spent a couple of hours on the phone with him, going over my debts and expenses and telling him what I was already doing. He gave me a couple of additional things to do, one of which I was already planning: to call my credit card companies.
• Next I called all six credit card companies and explained my predicament and asked them to please reduce my interest rate if possible. Two of them did, two of them said I was already at the lowest possible level, and two of them were nasty. Guess which ones I will not be keeping? Seriously, though, I am only keeping one card — I got in trouble when I got more than two cards. And I really need only the one — my Discover. It’s fine for emergencies and online needs (which are few at the moment and for the next several months), and my mom can use it when she picks up groceries and prescriptions for me.
• Then I called the local public assistance office to find out how I go about applying for food stamps, welfare payments, AFDC, and whatever other assistance I can get to keep food on the table until I get a new job. I’ll have to go there to apply, so that’s #1 task in the morning.
• Finally, I went online and went through today’s want ads for anything new. I have a stack of places to apply to now, and I am setting some “rules for evaluating my next job” which I will post tomorrow.

By this time, I needed to go get the kids from Mom’s house, so I toodled over there and told my mom what was going on. Then we got interested in the LOTR:ROTK movie, so I vegged for about two hours.

Now that we are home again, I’m fixing dinner and getting the kids in bed. Then I am going to spend an hour writing cover letters and preparing applications for the jobs I pulled out of the online pile. Then it’s to bed, and up at 5:30 so I can get to the Welfare office by 7:30 tomorrow.

And I’m guessing that’s what my “Survival Mode” is going to look like for a while.

Tags: chores, errands, job search, movies, unemployment, welfare