Reality Check

Recently my fiance and I thought it would be fun to spend the evening brainstorming our impending 2013 trip to Indonesia and Australia... we had good wine, good conversation, and even better weed (Dad/future employer, if you're reading this I'm just kidding about the weed thing... and I'm also kidding about leaving indefinitely in 2013. I'm definitely 100% committed to whatever my future job may be). We were feeling loose and giddy with the excitement one can only feel when they talk about embarking on an incredible adventure when it happened. We found it, our dream home in Australia. We plan to rent an apartment when we're in Australia so we can have a home base and plenty of visitors. Take a look and tell me if your panties are still dry at the end of the photo tour (Dad, come to think of it, you really shouldn't be reading this)...

God, I love me some earthy woods. We fell hard and fast. This is our dream. A cute bungalow in Byron Bay, are you kidding me?! So we looked into the pricing... $500/week.... let's call that $2,000/month. So being the fancy college graduates that we are, we came up with a projected amount we can anticipate spending monthly. With all the new foods, new bars, new excitement, we estimate spending $4,000/month. If you'll recall, our total goal for the trip is $20,000. Meaning we could only last 5 months   NOT including airfare and the fact that we don't want to blow through all of our savings so we can, you know, get home, and survive and stuff. So... shit!

Reality has a cruel way of ruining a perfectly good plan.

But don't fret. Luckily we have backup plans to earn more money. First of all, we're getting married next year. Rather than register for teapots and dandelions, we plan to gently exploit all of our family and friends into giving us cold, hard cash. Secondly, I suppose I could technically get a job. Ugh, as in business casual attire, casual Fridays (if you're lucky), timed lunches, forced enthusiasm, cubicles, jammed up photo copiers, and overall feigned merriment. I will, of course, have to lie on my resume and say that I've been working this entire year. I think I just threw up a little.

At the end of the day, it's all worth it. I'm so grateful for my 10 months of unemployment and I'm ready to start kicking some corporate ass all in the name of quitting after a year. Except I have no idea where to start. Anyone hiring? I have a very strong resume... 

Midnight Erotica

As much as I hate this expression I have to use it. I have a violent case of the Mondays. I'm honestly crippled with depression today because A- I know I won't be jogging on the beach anytime soon B-I'm not allowed to drink pomosas before noon whilst working and C- the owner is all over me to make sales calls.

Have I mentioned I hate sales calls? Well I do. I reallllly fucking hate them. I'd rather spend a week in a jail cell alone with J-Lo, Mark McGrath, and Antoine Dodson than make 1 cold call. Just explain this to me. Why would I want to call people while they're working, interrupt their work, and try to get them to do things they don't want to do? Not my idea of a good time. In fact, it's my own personal nightmare. These days my dreams consist of incredibly-erotic-dirty-novel-status-sex-dreams OR thrashing-in-my-sleep-wake-up-with-the-sweats-because-I'm-having-a-panic-attack dreams. Guess which one I prefer? Every cold call nightmare is then in essence robbing me of a night of erotica. Fuck that. Cold calls are ruining my life. Sue (the owner of the company) is on my ass everyday to make more and more calls. She makes me send in a list of the calls I make daily. Without fail, she always has something bitchy to say back. My anxiety level is at a code red. All because of cold calls. Pitiful. Last week was my first week of calls. Here are the responses Sue sent me regarding my daily call log:

We can try and meet tomorrow for a bit. Would like to see a few more calls made. How many are you making?

Stay on top of all the ones who tell you they have another agency. Also how many actually calls today?

Many of these names are not spelled correctly so always be ACCURATE

Ouch. Maybe I am dyslexic? But did anyone notice how she said "how many actually calls today"? Yeah.... not so accurate, are we? I'm now at a point where I can't figure out if I want to get fired or not. This job is obviously instrumental in our Great Escape  and.... you know... survival. But at what cost????? My midnight erotica? Ah hell no. Universe, can you hear me? Do you read my blog? All I need is about $30K to pick up and go. PLEASE send me $30K. I promise I will do good things in this world. Perhaps I should consider cold calling random people and asking for money? Eh?

Update- THE GREAT ESCAPE

I mentioned in my very first blog post that my boyfriend and I have plans for our "Great Escape". Basically meaning that the only motivation we have for spending 40+ hours/week trapped inside a cubicle is the knowledge that we will be leaving this all behind in a few years. As soon as we hit our financial goal we're off like a prom dress. No more LA traffic, no more goddamn memos, mostly importantly no more business casual attire. I think we're both ready to stop dressing like lesbians. Florescent lighting, timed lunches, carpal-tunnel, alarm clocks are all things we deal with because we know we have something incredible and life changing ahead of us.

This is our Goal:

$20,000 in our joint savings account and NO DEBT (other than student loans).

Here's where we are today:

$3,100 in our joint savings account and about $6,000 each in debt (not including student loans).

Sooo yeahh.... with our goal to pay off debt as well as save $20K, we're about $28,900 away from our goal. As far away as that may seem, I'm staying positive. 2010 was more of a trial run... like let's put $100 aside here and there. 2011 is a whole new ball game. We have a budget and a plan to pay off a chuck of our debt, while adding more to our savings. This means I'll have to get wayyy better at using the word "No"- which is not something I'm accustomed to. When we're bored on a Friday night and all the bars are closed, it's probably no longer prudent to drive to Vegas in the middle of the night, gamble all weekend, and stay at the Venetian. I mean, I'm not a financial wizard or anything, but that's just my guess.

Our targeted departure date is sometime in the beginning of 2013. That's about 2 years to really make this happen. And believe me, when I get something in my head nothing will prevent me from going. Anyone who has ever spent an extended period of time overseas knows exactly why I'm pulled to leave again. There's a pulse, a vibration that is only fully active when you're completely immersed in a foreign culture. You feel fully alive. It's the difference between living and existing. You actually look up and around when you're walking, hell- you actually walk everywhere- you're not closed off in your car. Everything is an experience, an adventure! I'm so ready. Anyone have $28,900 I can borrow??