Will work for money!
 

OK, I'm really strapped for cash and right now all I have is my SSDI and the part time motel job (14 pathetic hours/week). My monthly income is so small that if I put it all in cash, I could easily stick it all up a rat's ass.

I have been to Colorado Voc Rehab, tried to get on the Ticket to Work Program, etc.,etc. Everyone is understaffed due to state budget cuts and it's next to impossible to get help from them.

So here's some of my thoughts:

1) Sign up to deliver phone books in Durango in June - temp fix - that job lasts about a week.

2) Put up notices on bulletin boards and the paper that I am available as a sort of Jill of all trades: I can care for people's gardens, pet sit, clean houses, prepare meals for the elderly, even tutor kids 1st grade through 8th to help them get their study skills up over the summer, since I have a college degree and have worked with school-age children before.

3) Take a seasonal job as a gardener or whatever up in wealthy Telluride. The average pay for seasonal work there is $13.00/hr and they give a bonus if you last out the season. They even provide a shuttle for workers who live in Cortez. But this is a temp fix, also. Gardening jobs will vanish in September, and it may adversely impact my SSDI which I would need to get through the winter.

4) Begging. Stand on a busy street corner with a sign which reads "NEED WORK BAD!" I doubt if that would get me a job, but I suppose people would give me spare change. Unfortunately/fortunately, I'd be far to embarrassed to do this.

Any other brain storming ideas?

Help!

For the last 2 months I've made kept some cash flowing in by buying and selling things from backpage and craigslist. For instance this week I spotted someone selling 2 handguns for a price lower than what I knew they'd normally go for. I bought them, cleaned them, packaged them with some ammo and sold them for a roughly 10% profit.

Obviously that doesn't always work or I would be looking for a real job, but the opportunity is there.

The same concept works using the Freesource network. People list things they want you to come take. It is free but you have to go get it. If you put in the work you can find some things others would find valuable and turn a small profit. Last month I picked up a kid's bedroom set, cleaned it, took it to the consignment store and now I have a couple hundred dollars more than I started with.

After about 1-2 hours of online training, you can be a ChaCha guide.

Chacha: people TXT any question to 242242, and within about 5 minutes, get a TXT answer back from a real human being who has researched it on the web.

As a paid guide, you can be one of the many human beings, answering questions. It's a legitimate job, not some sort of scam. These folks have worked out a whole structure for trained guides to answer questions for money.

I did it for a while, and I did manage to accumulate better than minimum wage, especially during high-volume periods late at night. You have to be an ace googler and fast typist or at least copy-pasteist. Takes a while to get used to the whole thing, and to learn the various Chacha rules. But it's one way to make extra money in the off-hours, with just a browser and a good internet connection.

I have a friend who's been having some luck gold panning. I imagine there are a lot of streams and creeks near you, and now that you have a truck and some camping gear you could make a weekend of it.

If you know a small business that needs a website, you can make a sales commission selling it to them, and taking the pictures for it.

I do this with hockey gear and skates -actually, haven't sold for a while now, but need to do that. charity resale shops here are very good for underpriced bargains.

Have you looked for jobs on craigslist?

I think they're kind of expensive and Mrs L might get mad if I got one.

I saw that advertised on Craigslist recently and assumed it was a scam

you've lost me. But I have a nosebleed right now so my mind's not wholly on it. Got one what?

Hookers advertise their services on Craigslist. I'm well aware that isn't the kind of "job" you were talking about though, just being dumb.

I've looked at craigslist for jobs and picked up a couple weeks' work roofing.

Get it in coins, so you won't be tempted to do that anymore.

I used to make good money selling on Ebay. You could pick up some Native American items and sell those. Always good money trading in those

Chacha gets advertised on Craigslist because they give people a decent referral bonus for every guide they sign up. Craigslist posters can't say it's Chacha in their posts, or people will go directly to Chacha and bypass them.

Thanks, UT! I looked at the site, and it could just possibly work for me. My friends tell me I'm a great Internet researcher, plus I'm a night owl available for any extra night work. My typing isn't great, but I do nice cuts and pastes if I do say so myself.

I wonder about my Internet connection after what my computer did to the Cellar. :eyebrow:

Anyhow, I'll sign up and let you know how it goes!

To Lookout et al - I simply don't have the money - literally - to invest in objects to re-sell. I lack the eye, too. Probably I could do it with books, but no one here has any books to speak of and the online outfits seem very well aware of the value of their volumes.

To HLJ, people pan for gold around here, too; but I've never heard of anyone finding much. Maybe there's more in your part of Colorado.

Thanks to all for your replies!

Let me know how the chacha thing goes, SIA

#3!

AND-You might be able to perv at the people in the pool too, I know our gardeners do.

Not as exciting as the chacha job but there might be a chi-huahua or two.

In all seriousness, I like the outdoors.

good luck on the chacha prospect.

Rats! I read through everything and ChaCha is not accepting new guides at this time. :(

Back to the old drawing board...

could change quickly.... online stuff often does.

Guess I'll give #3 a shot. Besides it being a temp job, the other thing I don't like about it is having to lift 50 pounds. I'd either get in shape or die!

You could find a sugar-daddy!

rly? 50lb is not really a lot -and I bet you'd never have to do it -it's a fitness "benchmark" ...but most things come in smaller packages - 10 and 25

Are you offering? :D

Uh,oh. Sundae Vs SamIam death-match in 5 ... 4 ... 3 ...

This.
We may still have that in the job descriptions we use, because occasionally you will need to move a box of copy paper. They weigh about 50 pounds. But this isn't a warehouse, and we're not slinging boxes around all day long. It's a desk job.

Update on my continued job search. Apparently, I don't qualify to pull weeds, since I've heard nothing back from that job. Probably some idiot with a Master's in the Removal of Exotic and Unwanted Botanical Species got THAT job.

Cortez remains flat line on the jobs scene. However I got a job offer in Durango, 50 miles away, for a job that sounds perfect for me. It's as a horticultural technician, caring for indoor plants and atriums like you see in posh hotels, banks, etc. I have done this before, and I loved the job. I have a BA in botany and adore plants of all kinds. The company would start me part-time and then if they like me, I'd move to full time.

But there's a catch (ain't there always?) They won't hire me unless I live in Durango - it's just too far to commute through the mountains between the two towns. So, I have to find a rental in Durango. Rents in Durango tend to be strastospheric since its a student/tourist town.

The good news is that college is letting out for the summer, so more lower priced rentals are becoming available. The bad news is that I have to drive 100 miles round trip to check places out and with the price of gas, that means $25/trip. I try to line up as many places as possible to look at in one trip, but the really good deals are snapped up within a day, so sometimes I am faced with deciding if what looks great on paper is actually worth that $25.00 trip.

I can afford one more apt hunting trip, but then I'm going to be grounded for at least 10 days. This is extremely frustrating and if I can't make it to Durango in a reasonable amount of time that job will go to someone else, GRRRR!! :mad::(:mad:

I misread "horizontal technician"...

No commute necessary for that. ;)

I wonder why they won't let you live wherever during the part time phase?

I don't understand why it's any of their business where you live. You're going to want to move for yourself, sure, but the normal order of things is you get a job offer and then you relocate.

If you're really sure about the job, why not just pack up now and drive one-way? Sleep in the truck one or two nights until you've found your place.

$25 in gas to go 100 miles? Are you including depreciation and other costs of ownership?

I'm including the cost of gas. :eyebrow: My truck gets between 15 - 20 mpg, depending on driving conditions. I base my estimate on the lower number (15), so as not to be taken by surprise by something and run out of gas. Currently, gas around here is averaging $3.92/gal.

100 miles/15 miles per gallon = 6.06 gallons

6.06 gallons x $3.92/gallon = $23.76 or $1.24 less than $25.00. Please excuse my gross over-exaggeration.

I think the requirement that I live in town is rather odd, too. I could see it in the winter when the road through the mountains between Durango and Cortez can become very nasty and cause delays getting to work. No problem in the summer, though.

I probably will take Clod's advise and go up next week and spend a few nights sleeping in the truck and apartment hunt.

That's amazing - 15 miles per gallon.

Sam, go check moderately priced hotels. Many will charge cheaper rates for monthly renters. And you get free maid service to boot! I did that when I moved to Dallas. I rented a room at the Super 8 nearby and paid about $400 a month for three months until I got better accommodations.

Thanks, Brian. That would be great advise if this was the off season, but the tourists are starting to show up and rooms by the week or month are impossible to find. Durango is surrounded by Nat'l Forest Campgrounds. I'll just hit one of those and sleep under the camper shell of the truck.

As a random side note, you could also get paid to donate plasma. You can get as much as $300 per month if you go frequently.

if you don't work don't eat

I have this thing about selling blood. If there's a blood drive or something, I donate mine free. I'm just weird that way.

Plasma's different than plain blood. It takes a lot longer to donate, about an hour, it hurts a little more, and the donor screening is more rigorous. They prefer steady, routine donors, rather than a bunch of random volunteers. And, they test you for specific uncommon antibodies, and if you have those, you are even more desirable because they can extract those for certain immune therapies.

Sure that's what they use plasma for. Do you think we're stupid?

did this for years. apheresis donation

So, here's an update on my continuing quest to find gainful employment. Unfortunately, it's not good news.

Remember how I listed one possibility as working up in Telluride at the Mountain Village Resort as a gardener? Well, I applied, but never heard back from them. I figured they had hired an illegal alien in my place, since an obscene number of gardening/landscaping jobs in Colorado's resort towns are carried out by Juan and his amigos - none of whom can speak English.

I have been out of town for a few days and when I got back late Friday, there was a call from Mountain village wanting me to come interview for the gardening job. Alas, the time period they gave for the interviews is already past. :(

I'm going to call them Tuesday to see if the positions (they need several dedicated weed pullers and plant pruners) have all been filled yet. I'll explain that I didn't get the message until Friday and that I'd be happy to drive up and interview at their convenience - even if they would just consider me as a back-up in case someone doesn't show or quits.

I'm not very optimistic, though. This is typical of the luck I've been having in my quest for work. I also just got a job announcement written in Spanish for gardening work up in Aspen. WTF? Maybe I should head down to Juarez and cross back over to the States with all the illegals. Maybe THEN someone would give me work? :mad:

awwww....that sucks, Sam. Hopefully they'll see you anyways. And maybe you should get that job annoucement in Aspen translated. :D