Who hasn’t been affected by the current financial crisis? Personally, my family and I purchased a home in mid 2008, and before the ink was dry on the closing paperwork I was wrongfully discharged from my job as an over the road truck driver. I’ve been a truck driver and writer off and on for over 17 years. I’m also a prior service Marine, so I’m used to having to adapt to things, but this isn’t good on my family. I’ve been in contact with the lender and have tried to work out new arrangements with them, but things haven’t been going well on that end either. The week before last my unemployment benefits ran out and I had to file a new claim for emergency benefits. This required me to have to suffer through another waiting week, which is stupid in itself. How is it going to help anything if you’re trying to survive on unemployment and then have to endure another negative income waiting week?
So what I’m I doing to provide for my family? Several things, but nothing is providing any immediate help, including the government. I’ve already been actively looking for work and you might think finding a job as a truck driver would be easy, but there are times when it isn’t. The wealthy in this country are sitting on their money which is want is causing the current financial problems. The economy doesn’t function unless there is cash flow. That much is like a dam that you never release the flood gates on, at some point it becomes too full and the dam breaks. I’m been trying to submit query letters to a number of different publications hoping to sell an articles too. But most of them don’t, “pay on acceptance” which means you have to wait for your money. That’s one of the drawbacks to Helium, the waiting period for your pay. So I’m trying to work as a writer and look for work. I’ve actually managed to get a signed contract on a movie script, but there will not be any income from that for 3-5 years. The house payment isn’t going to wait that long as I’m certain you can already guess.
In addition to trying to follow my dream and write full time, I’ve also tried my hand at an online store, but that too hasn’t produced any real income. I’ve tried selling items from a catalog I have from a major supplier of crafts and decorative items which go hand in hand with the online store front. But again things have dried up in regard to selling much of anything in these difficult economic times. The only good point in all of this is that part of my family is actually working as a truck driver, but even with that income we’re falling further and further behind every day. At present we have maybe enough food in the house to last through the weekend and those are what we’ve purchased with the help of food stamps and juggling what little income there has been.
I don’t know of anything else to do, beyond what I have been trying. I’m to the point of selling everything that isn’t tied down, but then you still have to find someone to buy it. Unfortunately, I don’t know anyone interested in buying body parts because that’s about all I have left. And to add insult to injury as it were, I’ve laid out my family’s misfortunes here in hopes of making $25.00, and I doubt that this article will make it and ironically if it does, I won’t see any income from it until after the tenth of next month, oh joy!
To everyone who has bothered to read down to this point, I wish you all God’s best and ask only that you pray for my family.