Getting A Life

Saving money on scrapbooking?

I have been thinking about what to do with my photos. I have lots and lots of old print photos mouldering away in boxes. OK, not quite that bad, but they need something done with them. I also have lots and lots of digital photos that I worry about because one mishap with my hard drive and they’ll be wiped out. It’s my daughter’s entire childhood plus a couple photos of her with her brother when she was twelve days old, the only photos I have of my two kids together, so I kind of need to do something, and the sooner the better.

I was thinking of doing scrapbooks. The trouble is the up-front expense, and then the time expense involved in putting everything together. I don’t have a lot of space to store scrapbooking supplies, either, even if I could afford them.

Then it hit me today. For this last Christmas (which he celebrates and I don’t–I celebrate Solstice instead), I had a photo book made of my daughter’s first year at Lulu and had them send it directly to my son as a gift. He loves it and I owe him more books from her second and third years of life. (Someday soon, I hope, little man…)

So I thought today, why not make photo books instead of scrapbooks?

I wouldn’t have to keep supplies around. I wouldn’t have to reposition photos. I wouldn’t have to write in captions. (I have gotten to the point that the muscles in my hands are trained for typing, not handwriting–too much of the latter cramps my hands.) I wouldn’t have to swear loudly if I really got going in the middle of a project only to run out of photo corners or pages or page protectors. I wouldn’t have to get mad at my youngest child or my cat for getting into my supplies and wrecking them. I would never have to worry about adhesive failing and my photos falling out of their albums, either.

How perfect is that?

Above all else I think it would be cheaper in the long run. I will try to do a price comparison just to make sure, but if I factor in replacement parts for corners that fail and pages that tear, I guess I will still come out ahead. Not to mention all the extra costs of storage (I can’t just leave my supplies lying around) and organizational tools. And I wouldn’t even be into all this extraneous decorative stuff that so many scrapbookers deal with; the scrapbook just happens to be my favorite method of arranging photos.

I might not use the actual photo book format at Lulu, either, to assemble this project. I might go with their hardcover with color pages instead, just because it would give me more room to be creative. I will have to make PDFs, but that’s all right; I use OpenOffice and that has a PDF conversion function.

I will still want supplies to better store the photos I have, and I will probably want at least one print copy of each digital photo, plus a way to store them on disc. I will have to do this in babysteps because the cost is going to be prohibitive either way you look at it. But… any way I can slash costs without winding up with something shabby that will chemically eat up my photos is awesome by me. I’ll let you all know how it goes.

eBay: are you kidding me?

So I found this really awesome silk blouse at Goodwill not long ago. I mean, it’s wonderful. I think it’s made of Dupuoni silk. It’s not my size, but I thought I might be able to sell it on eBay at a profit, because who doesn’t like Dupuoni silk?

I think eBay’s new search algorithm is working against me, though. I have a whole bunch of stuff listed and only one bid–on the plus-sized jeans I have up for auction because 24Ws are too big for me anymore. (Not that I’m complaining about that.) One bid. One cent. And there are seven hours left on the listing, so even though there are four watchers on the auction, I don’t see it going anywhere.

I suspect eBay’s new search algorithm is a large part of what’s going wrong. I have only gotten one negative feedback (and to me, it’s not “only”–I’m aggravated with myself that I got it at all, and it was over a stupid misunderstanding), and that was over a year ago. If you look at my feedback it is all praise about my fast shipping and about items being as described. I have never gotten a neutral rating. Never. But because I haven’t sold enough in the past however long eBay has been doing their “detailed seller ratings,” I don’t have enough of those to move up in the algorithm.

So the gist of it is I need to sell more to get more detailed seller ratings, but I can’t get more detailed seller ratings unless I sell more, but I can’t sell more if people don’t find me in search results. WTF?

Avon did something similar when I sold for them. If you plug your zip code into their website you get all the Representatives who live in your geographical area, probably within X number of miles of and including your zip code area. Formerly you could only search by zip code. This worked out very well for me as I was the only Rep in my zip code when I began, so if a new customer found me on the website, I was the one they called. When they changed the algorithm, I became a name in a list, and as I was still a new Representative and therefore had no reputation to speak of, this worked against me. I had signed up with Avon in the first place because in theory, someone can start a business with very little money and take orders right away because of Avon’s practice of extending credit to its Representatives. I certainly didn’t have a lot of advertising money. So the search change hurt me more than helped.

I know that there are no shortcuts to wealth but I wasn’t really even looking for that. I just wanted to make income for myself and my daughter and to be able to take care of us if something happened to her dad. Granted, she qualifies as a survivor for Social Security benefits but let’s face it, everybody from the personal finance blogosphere on up to the President wants to kill Social Security, so we can’t count on that. (It would almost exactly replace what he pays us now, except we would have to go on food stamps until I could increase my income if I didn’t have any already at that point.) And I don’t need to have to crawl and crawl and crawl until I can get my income up. I want a return on my efforts sooner rather than later, because time is working against me.

Getting a job is a nice idea in theory, but a job by itself wouldn’t fit the bill either. I need to make a living wage, not something that has to be supplemented by child support or Social Security or whatever. So having stumbling blocks thrown into my path that didn’t exist previously and that don’t have to exist now, that’s not very encouraging.

I mean, I can deal with obstacles. God knows I’d be dead now if I couldn’t. I just don’t get the stupid, pointless stuff designed to force people with already limited resources to have to pay more through the nose just to make a ripple. I’ve done pretty well on eBay in the past–when I was held at equal footing with every other seller. I could be doing pretty well right now. I do a good job as a seller. I would have more negatives and lots of neutrals if I didn’t! If work really leads to reward, what is going on here?

So… I’m discouraged, and I think it’s time to start listing things on Freecycle because let’s face it, this is going absolutely nowhere. There is still the possibility I could sell jewelry on Etsy and maybe do a good job there, but I’m trying not to get my hopes up.

eBay, however, is a wash. And I’m still having problems with PayPal as well, because my debit card with them no longer works and I’m getting the runaround, so I’m about ready to dump both and call it good. Sigh.

Home organizing progress

In other news, and not quite so verbosely, I busted my bootie yesterday fixing my bedroom up. It is not finished, and it’s still going to be kind of plain for a while even when it is, but I feel better just looking at it. The bed has been pulled away from the wall, I have created a sort of impromptu headboard by positioning my linens chest at the head of the bed, and the Big-Ass Heavy Dresser is now in the far corner as you stand in the doorway, which makes the room look more anchored. I also vacuumed and got rid of copious amounts of dust.

I need to eBay a bunch of stuff this week, give it another go, simply because I need more money freed up. As I manage this I will free up a lot of space.

But the room is more restful now, by a long shot.

I had photos, but I forgot to put my card into the camera so I will just have to re-shoot them tomorrow, as I have no idea where the USB cable is. Pout.

Stress and worry re: current life situation; braindump

Things are kind of a jumble right now, so I will do my best to impart what is going on in my head without coming off as a complete lunatic–but bear with me, because I might not succeed. (Sorry.)

I have this thing about going along in a fog for a while and not really paying attention to where stuff is falling down in my life. This explains how I got over fifteen grand in debt in the first place and it explains a lot of other things too. Occasionally I go through a phase where the fallout from my past screwups* is staring me in the face. This is one of those times.

So, several things are staring at me all at once.

• I have finally gotten around to doing research on German cockroaches and it turns out that is exactly what I have in my apartment, mostly in the kitchen. They are the main indoor-only roach in most of the world. Many factors seem to contribute to them being here: water leakage from the pipes, gaps around the drainpipes where they go into the wall, other holes and gaps in various walls especially in the bathroom, food bits that get left out overnight and sometimes for days because I hate doing dishes and I put it off, the kitchen wall by the stove being food-spattered but hard to clean because the paint is also blistered and I’m afraid to disturb it because this building’s over thirty years old and I don’t know if it was ever lead-abated, and lots of clutter everywhere, and various cracks and crevices elsewhere not being sealed properly. Oh, it’s a mess. I can only fix some of it, and judging by the condition this place was in when I moved here, the landlords will never do their part.
• Thus I am worried about my daughter’s health in the long run. I actually have considered staying here at least another year because the rent is cheap and when you’re low-income, you are left making these kinds of compromises. She can live with a goopy kitchen sink. She can’t live with, potentially, bugs leaving crap in the bed (I wash the sheets regularly, but still) and carrying in viruses we haven’t encountered before, and some that make people really sick.
• I need a job, even a part-time one, if we are going to get out of here. I have an idea where we can go and we only need a little more income per month to get in there and to possibly have somewhat of a rent reduction from what I’m paying now. We’re already on the Section 8 list but if I were making more money, I wouldn’t need Section 8 and they could go ahead and lease to us.
• I need shoes, I need a work wardrobe (if there won’t be uniforms or casual dress code), I need a haircut, and I need dependable transportation if I am even going to interview, much less have a job by July.
• Alternately I could try to get work from home with West At Home Agent but I hear they are buggers to work for, I would have to work late at night when my daughter is sleeping (because other people might not be reliable to watch her), and the first time a customer on the phone heard her yelling or I had to end my call early, my job would be in jeopardy. She’s three, also, and not quite to the point that she groks “stay in bed and be quiet if you wake up in the night.” To say nothing of if she gets sick.
• I am having little nagging issues here and there with my health, aside from the overweight and the apparent metabolic syndrome, that I would really like to have looked at in the next six months. This includes an issue with my lower left quadrant (abdominal area) being vaguely achy off and on for years now. It’s gotten worse since Thea was born, and seems to intensify when it’s that time of the month, which makes me think I now have adhesions as well as whatever else was going on. Whatever it is, it worries me. I also get edema in odd places at inappropriate times, such as my fingers swelling after I do a load of dishes and then food prep. I would also like to get to a dentist sometime soon, which is slightly more feasible.
• My daughter’s not potty-trained yet. I worry that if I introduce a bunch of changes at once, she will take forever to toilet-train and possibly regress in other ways. We have her in speech therapy as it is for a speech delay. She is also unaccustomed to being around other children on a regular basis. I actually don’t care as much about this as some people might think I should because I believe children should be around people of a wide range of ages, not just shut up with a bunch of children their own age all day, but I know she enjoys playing with other little ones, and I would like to see her do it more often.
• My apartment, aside from the bug and maintenance issues, is a craphole. I swear I do not use over half the items I possess in these five rooms. Stuff has got to go. I keep thinking, “oh, I’ll sell it all,” and that never happens. I need to get this stuff gone on FreeCycle Real Soon Now. And then I need to turn this place upside down with a mop, a broom, lots of rags, a bucket, and copious amounts of all-purpose cleaner. And then the vacuum, and then the shampooer, and then some spot treatments in the big bedroom, and then more shampooer. Bleh.

Weirdly, now that I’ve come out and dumped all of that, it doesn’t look as bad as it felt. And it should feel bad, maybe, because I’m falling so short everywhere in my life. But there is surely some path I can take that would resolve these issues in a way that I could live with. I just wish I could figure out what it was.

Procrastination is a huge part of the problem. Thea being clingy and needing my attention because I’m the only other human being here is another part of the problem.

Hm. Thinking out loud… Maybe if I were to get her enrolled in the Waldorf preschool, because I’ve already looked at the rates there, and because they wouldn’t rush her into pottytraining if she regressed… If I could get the West At Home gig… I could work during the day when she wasn’t here? On top of that, the fact that I was employed and making an income, I could show that to the apartment community I mentioned previously and say, “Look, I have a job, here’s my income now,” and they would only count the income, not what I was spending it on, and maybe they would say “Oh yeah! Sure, we’ll lease to you,” problem solved?

But I would have to bust mah bee-hind. One of the debts I owe is an old phone bill. Get that paid off, call the phone company, get the landline set up (I could probably port my old phone number back), and try to get on with West in the next month or so… then if that falls through, at least I’d be spending less per month on phone service, since I would have had to get the most basic service anyway? Yeah… that doesn’t sound too egregious. I should also be able to get childcare assistance which would be a huge help. I don’t know what it will be worth, but I’ll apply for it.

The cool part is that if I pulled this off, right? I would be living just north of where the preschool’s located–a lot closer than I am to it now. Either way we could get there by bus, but a shorter ride’s better than a longer one.

…Yeah. It feels like gambling, but in order to pull this off, I would have to do it in steps anyway, so if one step didn’t go through, then I wouldn’t have to worry about it all falling down around my head. No biggie. I still have time.

Right, then. I have the money right now to go ahead and make that debt go away. That’s the first step. There will be a delay for the second step as I figure out when my cell contract ends; I believe it is in April, but that’s not long from now. After that, who knows? I could also contact the preschool while this is all going on, to see if they will have any openings this summer.

As for the health thing, I should still qualify for Healthy Families, Ohio’s health insurance program. I have misgivings about how good the care will actually be, but maybe I might get a doctor to listen to me about the lower-abdominal thing if not about the other weirdness. One can only hope.

…Yeah. Yeah, I feel better. It’s always worse when this stuff goes swirling around in my head and I can’t catch hold of it and take a good look at it. Sheesh.

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*I’m not sure I would call them “mistakes.” A mistake is spelling someone’s name with two Ls when you are supposed to spell it with one. A screwup is when you make the wrong choice entirely and you go boom on your face as a result.

Decluttering

When it comes to housekeeping it feels like I go one step forward and ten steps back. I was raised by a clean-freak, and I suppose some of my slobbishness comes from rebelling at the way I was raised. However, some of it is surely in my genes. My mother… I won’t go there. My stepmom and my mother are like night and day. (If you’re into astrology, Mom’s a Sagittarius and Reba’s a Gemini. You do the math.) The way my stepmom raised me, I at least know what real clean looks like; I just wish the learning process hadn’t left me so neurotic.

That said…

That said, I would like better control over my life, obviously. Or, at least I like to think I do. And one of the areas in which I need to exert greater control is how I organize my home. The “shell” of my home, the building itself and the neighborhood surrounding it, are not much to speak of–and I can’t make them any better, this is a rental and making the neighborhood better would require mastery of mind control. Not gonna happen. But I can make what’s inside my apartment (what belongs to me, anyway) work out better.

I am trying to come to terms with just how much has to go. I just have so much crap lying around that I originally meant to use, and usually did use, but then left idle for far too long. If I’m not going to use it then it needs to go. No amount of “but this is useful! but I could make money with this!” is going to help. If I was gonna, I would have by now. I haven’t, so it’s got to go, better luck next time.

I’ve been thinking about this and, I love crafts. I love making stuff, I just don’t get around to it anymore because most of what interests me is not fit for my daughter to play with yet and I don’t want to get it out with her awake because she would get upset. It is simply not worth it. So I thought about this, and I guess the one craft I could focus on right now and not make a big mess of it, nor endanger my child’s safety, would be scrapbooking. I don’t mean that elaborate stuff like my best friend Dawn gets up to, but simply organizing my photos and doing something nice with them.

You don’t want to know how many used rolls of film I have knocking around here that desperately need developing. Realistically, I know I’m not going to get much out of them. I’ll be lucky to have saved any images at all, frankly. But I found a cheap developer I can work with, and little by little I’ll get this done.

Meanwhile all the other craft stuff needs to go. I haven’t done anything with it in months, I don’t have proper storage for it and it’s just taking up space.

I’m thinking about letting my art supplies go too. I hate to say it. I just… I have some sketchy technical skill (ha ha, pardon the pun) but no real creativity to speak of. At least, I don’t think I have any. Well, let’s put it this way, if I was going to do something meaningful with it I would have by now. I’m tired of hoarding art supplies and doing nothing with them. Even if I’ve got the talent, I don’t have to be an artist. I am allowed not to be. I can even, hey, guess what, put it off for now and go be an artist later. It’s all good.

Old baby clothes have to go. Also my old clothes that I don’t want or that don’t fit me.

Books have to go. I hear some of my audience gasping in outrage. You know what? Too bad. I’ll never read half the ones on my shelves. I can go to the library for the rest. There’s valuing the printed word, and there’s hoarding. I hoard too much. I need to get out of the habit. Like, yesterday.

I’m debating how much of this I should unload on Freecycle and how much I should try to get money back out of. Sorry for the dangling whatever-part-of-speech-that-is. The jewelry supplies ought to sell for a good little bit. The art supplies too, I would imagine. The rest… I just don’t know.

The one thing I’ve done consistently all this time and stuck with was writing. Second-most consistent was photography. I think if I stick with those a while and see where they lead me, I might be OK. But I can’t go scattering my energy to the four winds and expect to come out the other side as an effective person. It just doesn’t work.

When I get the extraneous stuff out of the way, then we can talk about organizing the rest. God, I hope this doesn’t take me another five years.

A helping hand for YMOYL Step 1?

The first step in Your Money or Your Life: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence is to determine your net worth, not only by going over your assets and liabilities but also by valuating everything you own. This step has stymied me for two reasons. One, I own a lot of stuff, and a lot of the individual items are small, which makes valuating them time-consuming. The very thought of it makes my brain tired. Two, the reason it would be time-consuming is that none of these items will be valued at their original cost, which means I have to look them up on places like eBay and then guesstimate. To be fair, Joe and Vicki aren’t as exacting about this step as they are about Steps Two and Three, but I have a perfectionist streak a mile wide that would guilt-trip me because I was fudging numbers.

I wonder how many other YMOYL participants have stumbled over this particular roadblock? Having read quite a bit of Marla Cilley I know that many people who are disorganized also tend to be very perfectionist, which paralyzes them from doing anything at all to stay organized. Their logic is that if they can’t do it right, they’ll do it later, or they won’t do it at all. Well, people who are disorganized in their housekeeping are also often disorganized in their personal finances. So I would be very surprised if there aren’t a lot of YMOYLers out there who have never completed Step 1 because it just felt too overwhelming. Or they completed it, but their consciences are nagging at them because they only valuated the easy things and neglected everything else. And you don’t have to complete the steps in order, but leaving steps out means you’re not going to get the full experience.

Happily, I found a tool that may help. I was WILFing* around on my laptop a few minutes ago and I could not tell you how I found this site, but MyThings.com is a site that has been set up to allow users to inventory their valuables. The way it was presented to me I first thought, “Wow, obsessive much?” but as I poked around, I realized that this was an answer to my problem of how to complete Step 1 and not wind up a candidate for the nearest mental health facility.

I haven’t started entering items into it yet and even when I do, I’ll have to do it in babysteps. Nevertheless, I’ll let you all know how it goes.

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*WILF = What was I Looking For? or, mindless or almost-mindless web-surfing.