I thought it was time for readers to get a taste of the reality of scraping by in a new city from a viewpoint other than Max’s.  I have two more articles in the working – one about job searching and another on eating healthily when you’re poor.  If you’re interested and if Max will surrender his site’s good name twice more, look for them in the next month.

Because of this move, I’ve been temporarily transformed from the bad-ass teacher with excellent family insurance who got hired on the first interview straight out of college to the 8 dollar an hour, no raises for a year, no insurance for 6 months, retail robot.  I mean, seriously – did you know Target times every transaction their “team members” ring up?  After each customer moves through your station, the register/computer posts your grade (pass or fail, nothing in between) based SOLELY on your speed!  This grade is large enough for literally anyone walking past you to see – can you imagine if I did that to my students?!  I don’t think we have to debate the issue of whether great service represents more than the velocity of scanner beeps.

However, I will agree with Max that the good outweighs the bad in this hot new home of ours.  As he has pointed out (see Aug 13^th post) we did our research and everywhere is hiring at every level.  There are tons of job openings within 15 minutes of our apartment.  I already have two management interviews scheduled and one second round interview which should lead to a job that will let me respect myself in the morning.  It has been quite easy to transfer my public school teaching credentials over to Texas and I’m already registered to sub at the rate of 75 dollars for each 6.5-7 hours of work.  That leaves me open for some weekend free-lance editing.

While we’re not going to starve but still semi-poor, it is a battle for me to reconcile wants with needs.  The idea that we’re going to scrimp until we can buy ALL nice, new things is coming into question.  Its not like I’m miserable, but my ass starts aching about 30 minutes after beginning to type while seated on this stolen metal folding chair – the only seating we have in the entire apartment.  I think we need an office chair.  Max disagrees.  “After our first couple paychecks”, he says.  Sit on the air mattress.  Have YOU ever tried typing with no back support while sitting on a continually deflating air mattress?

Me:  “What about that couch on Craigslist?”

Max: “I don’t want to hear the words furniture or couch until we get a couple paychecks”

Me:  “The pool chlorine is turning my hair strange colors.  I need this $8 color glaze”

Max:  “Can you wait for two more weeks?  Swim without getting your hair wet.”

In the world of coupledom, there is always a person more likely to scrimp. You could both be scrimpers, but one will seem like a spender compared to the other.  I am relatively unfazed by no television for 6 months, I like the idea of making meals at home, I love the idea of walking or biking to work as long as I can arrive in a relatively sweat free state.  However, I want products that help my hair stay the same color, I want at least one semi-comfortable piece of furniture right now (even if it does have to be from a – gasp! – yard sale).  Maybe we could select a indoor/outdoor chair that will eventually make its home on the patio.  Or, we’ll choose something used that’s small in a neutral color so it could move to the bedroom or go to goodwill when we get the furniture we really want.  For me to be happy scrimping, there has to be at least something I “treat” myself to, no matter how minor.  Last Friday we went out to eat – we split an entrée so we could avoid guilt for ordering mai tais.  It’s too bad that as I finish this article I’m cursing myself for not spending that 25 dollars on a used office chair.

Did somebody link to this site yesterday and I missed it? Traffic went through the roof …

As I mentioned before, I got me a new corporate job. It pays really well, especially in comparison to what I’m used to. It’s still an hourly gig, but it literally pays three times more than what I was making in Michigan while doing pretty much the same thing!

Another great feature of this job is that I get to do a little of everything I like: write code, collaborate with other geeks, find creative solutions to all kinds of problems, develop new and exciting spreadsheet business tools, and drink a lot of lattes. Hey, when you gotta fit in, you gotta fit in.

So what am I learning while working for The Man?

• Microsoft Excel proficiency is a must, no matter who you are or where you work. I’m seeing 40-year old project managers struggle through help topics about PivotCharts. I’m witnessing hours upon hours of expensive contract labor wasted on scrolling through menus trying to consolidate a couple of sheets or write a custom function. Knowing what your tools can do is a crucial part of the job.
• Know a few things well, but also know a little bit of everything. Chances are, you won’t be working only in Excel. One day someone will bring a bunch of delapitated Access database tables you’ll have to normalize and export as a decent-looking report. Hell, maybe you’ll have to edit an image or two in Photoshop.
• Dress for success (I know, cheesy). You’ll respect yourself more, and others will, too. If you decided to be a corporate sellout like me, might as well stand out … in a good way. No one wants to delegate anything important to an unshaven dude in jeans.

Most importantly, though, the most fabulous set of skills one can develop is a nice set of communication skills.

As cliche as that sounds, I’m finding out it’s true. Good communicators present their ideas in clear, concise ways so that everyone can understand and relate. Because such people are pleasant to listen to, they are more persuasive. They are thusly more respected and better compensated. I immediately singled out a couple of people I work with – I am going to learn from them.

As a little grasshopper caught in the corporate combine, I have yet much to learn. However, so far the experience has been great. Except for the creepy mail guy … Now I understand that Dane Cook comedy bit …

This is kind of an overused topic, but it finally hit me how useful an old laptop can be if you do a little research.

I have this old Compaq Armada, AMD-K6 433 MHz, 64Mb of RAM, PCMCIA LAN card. I looked it up on eBay, and I’d get $60, maybe $70 for it. However, because 1) it looks brand new since it came out of a classroom, and 2) it has such a beautiful, bright screen, I decided not to sell it, but reincarnate it as a Linux machine.

Linux is a free operating system. Proponents and analysts attribute its success to its security, reliability, and low cost. It’s installed on anything that needs to be reliable – cellphones, TV sets, Sony Playstation 3′s.

So what would I do with a Linux machine? Surf the Internet, at least. I threw mine in a corner, turned it on, and it’s been sitting there for days, running as stable as the day I booted it up.

I tried two flavors of Linux – DSL (Damn Small Linux), and Ubuntu. Ubuntu pissed me off by not working and being gigantic. DSL pretty much blew me away.

All I had to do was download a 50 Mb *.iso image, burn it on a CD, stick it into the old laptop, and reboot. DSL did the rest – installed all programs, devices, drivers, etc. It comes with … yay! … Firefox, so you can continue adding those RSS feeds and such. Among other programs you’ll find a Paintbrush-like app, a word processor, a spreadsheet, some games, file utilities … basically everything you’ll need to make use for a perfectly good, but outdated, laptop or a workstation.

DSL link.

A quick update: I just did an interview with Scott from moneybloggerpodcast.blogspot.com. He previously interviewed Cap from Stop Buying Crap, Dawn from Frugal for Life, Jane Dough from Boston Gal’s Open Wallet, and Jonathan from My Money Blog, so I’m in good company. If you are tired of my anonymity and at least would like to know what I sound like, be sure to check in with his site to catch the podcast with me in it.

So yeah, second week in Texas, and hotter than hell. We like it, though. Not like “fooling-ourselves, pretending-to-like-it“, but actually liking it. We can hang by the pool a lot, which is something we couldn’t have done in the ole State of Michigan. We’re pretty happy we’ll never see 2 feet of snow EVER AGAIN.

I mentioned $8/hr jobs my wife and I applied for. They are not going to work out because we found $20/hr jobs, so the choice is clear.

Onto the topic now. While in Michigan, we spent the following on the transportation:

• Wife’s car payment – $203/mo.
• Wife’s gasoline – $120/mo.
• My car payment – $0.
• My diesel – $150/mo.
• Insurance (both) – $137/mo.
• Wife’s maintenance (avg) – $30/mo.
• My maintenance (avg) – $15/mo.

Total – an unavoidable $655 per month, no matter how we spun it. The maintenance for wife’s car is higher because of a fender-bender and a few maintenance issues (shocks, struts, etc). My maintenance was cheap, well, because I drive the best car ever created by human beings in the history of mankind.

Here’s the situation now – we live 0.9 miles from my job and 1.2 miles from wife’s job. I wonder if we can ride a bike to work …

• Two bikes on Craigslist – $300.
• Inconveniences to shower and get ready at work – we’ll just deal with those.
• Crazy Texas heat – definitely a sweaty issue.

What do you think?

This is a little montage of stuff I saw in Ukraine.