Social Security kicked in the last Wednesday in September. I get just shy of $1,000/month. Means:
– I can stop asking people for money. (YAY!)
– I can put money in the offering plate at church. (YAY!)
– I have become completely self-supporting.
– I can even be generous to others, within reason.
It does NOT necessarily mean it’s time for me to leave the shelter.
The rule of thumb being that one month’s rent should not exceed one week’s income, I can not afford a room in a rooming house for about $300/month. On the one hand, I’m not eager for any more of the drama that often comes with sharing a kitchen and bath. On the other hand, I can project (pray) harmony into my future housing situation.
Or I might seek senior housing, that might have a sliding scale.
My dream has been a studio with private kitchen and bath — and cat — in a nice neighborhood. I anticipate that the place I want, in the place I want, will cost $600/month. To afford that, I must find a job that will pay $18K/year.
This is do-able.
For the past six months ago, job search prospects were hamstrung by the fact that the only computer readily available to me was a dinosaur terminal with a dinosaur browser. The browser typically crashes about once every ten minutes. Every day, as to more and more sites, it became “unsupported.” On this browser, I cannot access USAToday, LinkedIn, HuffPost comments, or GoFundMe; I cannot create or edit blog posts. It is utterly unusable for job search purposes.
Once my new income arrived, I bought an economical tablet that should enable me to go anywhere I choose online, and do job applications. However, it has a miniature keyboard, so that at this writing I am learning to type with two fingers. I’m accustomed to typing as fast as I think, so I will probably need to learn to think as slowly as I type. But once I’m accustomed to this tool, many doors will open wide.
For the moment, I will leave my GoFundMe intact, in case anyone may still choose to donate. I am grateful for every support.
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