bills bills bills

It's kind of ridiculous how my life has changed since I left NYC. I spent Friday night watching TV with my brother and my dog, and then I got up this morning to go to the gym with my mom. We spent pretty much the whole day together, and this evening (a perfectly good Saturday night), I watched the stock of Suze Orman shows I had saved on the DVR. All my friends I was chatting with online signed off on me at some point to go out. Not even close to a typical weekend in NYC, but I guess it can't be expected to be. Plus, there's my whole lack of a regular job to go back to on Monday.

I did some work for a solo practitioner this week. It was the first work I've done since leaving the firm. Basically, I organized files from a past case that were in complete disarray. Never thought I'd be making $12 an hour ever again. I got $12.50 an hour when I was 12 to do studio singing work. But I guess I shouldn't fail to mention the $17 an hour I am making to do 4 hours worth of research. Too bad the research actually took me more like 12 hours because it's a ridiculously complicated subject, and she didn't really give me enough information to find an answer efficiently. Tomorrow I will be completing a memo on the subject in the hopes that maybe it will convince her to pay me to do research for her again at some point. I am so very poor.

I am starting a temporary job as a paralegal for the state on a TennCare project. Not my favorite, but at least it means a regular paycheck. Also, there's the potential for overtime (yay time and a half!), which means even more money. Hopefully, I'll actually get assigned some college kids to tutor for my LSAT job because that too will mean extra money coming in.

As it stands now, bills are difficult.

As of April 1st, I will owe my NYC landlord $2325, and I don't even have that much money in the bank, so obviously that's not going to happen. I did exactly what the management company suggested. I vacated the apartment as soon as I could, and they offered to put it back on the market and give 2 months free rent to any new tenant that agreed to sign a new lease. I contacted them recently, and they said they also lowered the rent they will be asking a new tenant to pay. But they still haven't managed to find someone to move in, and I'm on the hook until they do. Hopefully, they'll use my security deposit (which was equivalent to 1 month's rent) for the month of April. Then I guess I will have another 4 weeks before I have to start worrying again.

My student loans are a disaster. I applied for a 3 month forbearance in January when I realized I was being laid off, and I just recently asked for another 3 months. My payments were about $2050 with all the loans added together. $250 of that is for a private loan that I haven't been able to get deferred, so I'm still paying that. Then my dad (in a miraculous moment of goodwill) paid off a large chunk a couple weeks ago. Now my payments total about $1250. I'm leaving them in forbearance for now. Can't wait to see how much the interest has piled up by the time I can actually start paying them again.

I'm also paying off some credit card debt that I acquired during law school. With the aggressive payment plan I set up, I'll be all paid up by the end of this year. I figured that was the most important debt to pay off at the moment since my credit card interest rates are ridiculously high (and according to most news reports, could get even higher).

At least, everything in Nashville is ridiculously cheap compared to NYC. My rent (sharing a house with my brother) is only $500 a month here. Also, my lack of life brings down expenses.

I've been trying to keep myself from getting the boredom blues by keeping busy, but it's hard because I really don't know that many people in town. I've got a couple of friends from high school (one of whom is leaving in the summer to start a residency in Detroit), and then I've got my family. So I guess that makes it clear as to why I'm writing a blog entry on a Saturday night. 1. I'm po'. 2. I ain't got no friends. And with that, I'm signing off.