Welcome You Poor Unemployed Masses

This blog is for all of you who have been discarded thanks to this ridiculous economy. Middle class America has been taken for granted for far too long and it's time we banded together to survive. So let's hear from you all. What's your story of being disenfranchised, discarded, kicked to the curb and pink slipped?

So you're bored while unemployed. Now what?

The electronic age has made looking for a job so much easier and efficient. You go online and compose your resume and cover letters. You post them on every headhunter site you can find and send out about 40 job resumes a week. This usually takes you about an hour or two a day.

Well, then what?

You now have about 17 hours of consciousness to burn through without going absolutely stark raving stir crazy. You could start watching all those DVD's you haven't had time for. You could catch up on every soap opera on every channel. You could watch all those episodes of your favorite t.v. shows that you haven't been able to find time for (God Bless Tivo and the DVR). That should hold you for about a week of slobbery before your mind starts to scream for input and your weight climbs until you can't fit into your interview suits.

This is the easy trap we fall into which only feeds our depression at being let go and rejected continually by job sites while we wait for that all important new job interview (believe me you will be turned down repeatedly so be patient and remember that you have some seriously stiff competition out there with half of the country unemployed. Be patient, your time will come. What you need to do is to take advantage of the down time to do some good things for yourself.

The number one excuse we all have for not taking care of ourselves is that we just don't have time. Well, now that you have nothing but time on your hands, you can do all of those things for yourself that you couldn't get to before.

• WORK ON YOUR CAR. If you don't have any upcoming interviews, do a little work on the old jalopy. Maybe you have some gadgets you'd like to install but never had the down time. Perhaps you have a little maintenance that you've put off and can easily do yourself. Pimp your ride and pump your mind at the same time. Just remember that you still need to look civilized when you pull up to your interviews (and yes people do talk about what you drove up in after you leave).
• CHORES. You've never had time to do those little home improvement things you need to but now you have all the time in the world. Make a list of things that need to be fixed in your home and then do one thing on the list each day. Put the more expensive items at the bottom of the list to give you time to adjust to your lower income level but I'm sure there are a multitude of things that need nailing or gluing or painting or sewing.
• HOME IMPROVEMENT. Do a little redecorating now that you are not busy. You don't have to spend tons of money to spruce up the place a little. Pull up some patterns or stencils off of the internet and paint a wall here and there. If you can afford to buy some paint and plaster go for it. Redo the trim and baseboards. Add a little color to your life. Rearrange the furniture and discover your feng shui. You have all the time now to do it and can work it around your interviews.
• PAMPER YOURSELF. Soak in a long hot bath with some aromatic oils, a glass of wine and a good book. If its early in the day, switch to a great cup of coffee or hot chocolate. give yourself a facial or do a conditioning pack on your hair. You have lots of time to let the stuff set so you aren't rushed. Put a towel over your head and hold your face over a steaming hot pot of water with some mint leaves or eucalyptus in it. This will open up your pores and your sinuses and relax those worry lines you've given yourself over being canned.
• ARTS AND CRAFTS. If you have a garage full of wood scraps and tools gathering dust, make something. Look up some things on the internet that you might be able to build like a foot stool or a chest for your stuff or even some custom shelving to organize your work spaces. Put that scrap to good use and keep your physical skills sharp in the process. The trick is to do something creative that gets your mind buzzing and off of your troubles. You'd be surprised what an unoccupied mind can come up with if left to it's own devices. One has only to look at those goofy e-mails about redneck ingenuity to know that people are capable of concocting the most insane contraptions for the whackiest purposes. Do some needlepoint, knit a blanket, hang some pictures, hell whittle a piece of wood into a knick knack. Do anything you that your mind drums up. You might even be able to make some things you can sell for some extra cash.
• COOKING FOR CASH. A friend of mind bakes holiday pies for people and sells them via e-mail to her friends. If you have a penchant for cooking and some good talent, you can make some extra money taking over those little baking duties for your friends. If their kid needs a hundred cookies baked for an event, give your friend a break and cook them for her. Pick up a little cash and she'll be grateful. Go all Suzy Homemaker on yourself and you'd be surprised how grateful those still working moms will be.
• GARDENING. Plants are cheap and most successful gardens require little more than elbow grease to get going successfully. You can look on the internet and find lots of sites that can tell you what household stuff can be used as fertilizer or plant food. If there is a Starbucks near your house you can probably get the coffee grounds for your garden for free. Talk to your local store butcher about getting some fish heads or scraps for plant food. Ask your neighbors if you can have a few cuttings of their plants to start your own garden. If you see some plants at the supermarket, they usually throw lots out after a few days because they can't sell them. See if they will give them to you for free since they are trash anyway. If they aren't too trashed, you can bring them back to health with a little indoor care and they will be ready to plant in no time.
• WALK YOUR FRIENDS PETS. If you have a friend who has a dog you can borrow, take the furry little bundle of joy for a long walk. If your friend is a working stiff, he or she will probably appreciate you taking on this chore for them and the dog will certainly appreciate it.
• GO TO THE GYM. If you couldn't make it to the gym to exercise and you have a membership that you are maintaining, now is a great time to go during the day. You can take advantage of a gym that is not at all crowded because everyone is busy working. you'll have your pick of machines and the jacuzzi and sauna will be empty. The classes won't be crowded and you can try the ones that you couldn't try before because you didn't have time at night.
• WORK OUT AT HOME. If you don't have a gym membership, grab some free weights and turn on the boob tube. Give yourself two one-hour programs to watch and that should cover some serious work out time while keeping you occupied and doing something healthy. Better yet, break out those exercise DVD's or tapes or turn on some ridiculous exercise channel showing Extreme Boot Camp or some Tai Chi group on a sandy beach in Jamaica. You never did them when people were at home because you probably felt you looked ridiculous doing it or your family members would make fun of you. Everyone else should be either at work or at school so you should have the house to yourself. If you're single, your living room is your domain and you can grunt 'til you drop. Go for it!
• USE YOUR BIKE OR WALK. Unless you are on your way to an interview or an appointment, you can run your errands by walking to the store or by riding a bike. Unless you absolutely have to shop in bulk because you have family to consider, shop one day at a time. Make yourself walk to the store or bike there and only take home what you can safely carry without pulling a muscle. This will get you out of the house and into the fresh air which is fabulous for your attitude. You can make friends at the store or with people that you meet along the way.
• TAKE THE BUS OR SUBWAY. The last thing you should be doing is driving everywhere. You need to conserve money which means not using gas or inflicting excess wear and tear on your car. A friend of mine takes the bus to the library or to malls that are a distance away and walks the malls while window shopping and taking notes. She's made a lot of new friends and lost a ton of weight.

Whatever you do, don't sit around stuffing your face and feeling neglected. You have a unique opportunity to make the best of your downtime and give yourself a serious break while you wait for your next big job to come through.

What to do with credit & cards while unemployed

Far too many of us have credit card debt that we have let run wild while we had a steady income. Unfortunately, now that you are unemployed you have hit a big brick wall that demands you still pay your monthly bills regardless of your income. Well, all is not quite lost yet. There are some simple steps you can take to keep yourself going and safeguard your credit.

The first thing you should do is check your credit card statement to see if they have been taking out a monthly fee for credit protection. This is the easiest way to see if you have it because most of us that signed up for credit cards either enrolled and forgot about it or never even noticed it. If you do indeed have credit protection then there is a bright ray of sunshine for you. This coverage will pay your minimum monthly payments and your credit protection fees for you until you get a job. Here are some notes to help you file and what to expect when you do:

Call the insurance company listed on your statement and tell them that you need to file a claim for credit protection and ask for the claim form.

• They will no doubt ask you when you lost your job so they know when you plan to start the claim. Then they will say something dumb like "you have to be unemployed for 30 days before we can start covering your payments so call us in a month." You will then hang up and curse them loudly for about ten minutes.
• When you call them in a month they will tell you that they can't e-mail or fax you the claim form and that you have to wait for it in snail mail. In fact the only way to expedite the filing of your claim is to fax it back to them when you fill it out. It should only take about two weeks for them to mail it to you.
• Yes, this is utterly idiotic and completely cost ineffective in today's electronics day and age but they do this for a reason. the reason is that it discourages you from filing in the first place since you have to keep making your regular payments until they get around to processing the coverage. The only carrot they can offer you is that the coverage is retroactive and will reimburse you back to the 30 day point when your claim started. The risk you run is that those late payments will end up on your credit report in the meantime and will be a complete and utter bitch to remove later.
• Be prepared to make your payments for a couple of months until the protection kicks in and to get a jump on the knuckledraggers at the insurance company don't tell them that you got laid off yesterday.Tell them that you've been out of work for a month. then when you get the form to fill out, fax it to them the day before your actual 30 days is up. That should cut the time they can delay your claim by quite a bit and get your payments made quicker.
• Also be prepared to NOT USE your credit cards while the coverage is in effect. I know it will be hard and tempting but it is better to protect your credit while you are down than destroy it and not be able to get it back when you are employed again.

DO NOT CANCEL OR PAY OFF YOUR CARDS FOR ANY REASON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The reason I say this is that in this economy credit companies are extremely skittish and afraid of carrying any more bad debt than they have to. Losing one more unemployed creditor makes it easier for them and harder for you. If you close your accounts or cancel your cards, chances are great that you won't get them back for a few years. No one is extending credit to anyone these days. Even homeowners with perfect credit are being denied new loans against their equity because the banks are scared and 2009 is supposed to be a worse financial year than this one. Don't risk your credit no matter how tempted you are to live off of those cards. It isn't worth it, especially since prospective employers check your credit nowadays as part of your background information.

The best thing to do is to make this burden as easy to handle as possible and keep you in the best light creditwise. If you have enough in your severence pay or savings, I suggest that you pay down your cards so that there is a substantial distance between your established credit limit and your actual balance. It gives you a better cushion against mistakes or missed payments. If you have low limit credit cards or can afford to do it, pay them down to about a $100.00 balance. This is especially good to do if you do not have credit protection insurance. Should anything happen to you that is even worse than losing your job, you should still be able to handle them.

If you are okay with your credit card debt or if you have not filed for credit protection useage, you can call the credit card company and tell them that you want a better rate. If you handle it properly, AND YOU HAVE A GOOD TRACK RECORD WITH THEM UNTIL NOW, they will bargain with you and you could get a much lower APR which will also help you in these tough times. I wouldn't try this if you have filed for credit protection unless you haven't filed it yet and are still in your 30 day waiting period.

Check all of your outstanding credit agreements for this kind of coverage. Most loans and credit contracts offer this protection and most of us agreed to it and have completely forgotten about it. Enact every one of these claims that you possibly can on every credit account you have. They can be your lifeline in these tough times and you will come through the hard times with your credit in tact.

For All of You Who've Been Kicked to the Curb!

Welcome to the one place on earth where we all feel your pain. Basically that's because we are all wearing the same size 12 shoe prints on our asses placed there by that most vile and despicable of entities - the Boss!

I salute you Middle Class America because you are the only socio-economic class in this country that wears foot to ass prints with supreme dignity and pride. So used to being kicked by various influences in our lives that it has become second nature. In fact, many of us have had it done to us so many times that we have developed it to an art form. I would like to take this moment to invite those stawart individuals who I like to call the most financially successful professional bums on earth to share their survival tips state by state to those hapless new brothers in arms that the economy has placed on our doorsteps.

We need to all stick together because, regardless of whom the Federal Government bails out, we are the only things standing between remaining the greatest country on Earth and being an economic shopping mall for the rest of the planet. The rich and affluent aren't going to help us and the poor can't even help themselves. So we need to band together in this time of utter contempt for the American Worker since we are the only thing holding this country together.

This is our website where we can band together to survive the economic crisis we are in and basically just keep each others heads above water. No one is going to do it for us so here is your chance to share what will undoubtedly be the best advice available. Feel free to share what works and what doesn't wherever you are. Talk to us and tell us your story and how it made you feel. Share with us your success story and what put you Back in Black because the rest of us poor underappreciated schmucks don't have a clue what to do next and taking advice from Mr. Jubak really isn't cutting it. And if you are still unemployed and underappreciated, know that you are one of us and your sharing is welcome here anytime (Unless you are a pampered UAW worker sitting on 97% of your income. Get your own damn blog!).

Please remember to keep your methods and recommendations legal. We don't want anyone breaking the law to survive even though it seems to be rising as an industry faster than a .com in the 80's. And while we all feel the intense need to vent and pour out our deepest bad feelings in such moments, please keep the invictives to a minimum.

So tell me you poor unfortunate souls..who did this to you, what excuse did they give you, and what are you going to do about it?

p.s. construction industry cast offs have a special place in my heart because...I am one.