I need to make approximately seven grand above and beyond what my wife and I make from our regular full-time jobs, in order to move half way across the country, to a place where our $70k/yr combined income is above the regional average instead of far below it. We suck at saving money, and truth be told, even if we rocked at it, we don't have enough discretionary income to not have to lower our standard of living from moderately shitty to really, really shitty. We can create some additional discretionary income by turning off the cable TV, but she occasionally works from home (saves gas money) and needs the cable internet connection.
We already eat on a pretty strict budget. We've stopped going out to eat almost entirely. Once every two or three months we may go out for sushi, and we keep the bill below $50. Usually what we'll do is buy a couple of big, cheap, cost effective cuts of meat that I cook on Sunday and dole out into various soups/stews/salads/sandwiches throughout the week. This has cut our monthly food budget in half, down to about $200 (there's only so much you can scrimp on veggies when they make up the bulk of your nutrient intake).
Gas is the biggest issue. She works about 19 miles from home, and can only work from home once a week. I work about 30 miles from home, and cannot work from home. I've started working 10-6 instead of any earlier shifts because traffic is lighter and I waste less gas sitting in one spot on the freeway, but even that's starting to be less effective as more and more other people start to do the same. Combined, we pay about $400/month on gas. Her office isn't on a public transit route, and while mine is, it would take twice as long for me to get to and from work, each direction (making it a total of 4 hours round trip) and cost $15.50 per day, or about $50 more per month than I pay in gas.
We both have WoW subs, which comes to $33 a month, which would offer a little more in savings, but when you can't afford to get out of the house and do anything else fun, it's hard to rationalize cutting off a good fun diversion in order to save less than $40 a month. Our total discretionary income right now is less than $500/mo and that's not really "discretionary" in that we keep having to pay off collections accounts from when we were both unemployed. We're nowhere near done paying off those bills (most of which are medical bills), but they're too small to actually declare bankruptcy and I've managed to get my credit score up to just under 700, so I'm not about to blow it now.
Part-time jobs likely wouldn't pay what we need in the time frame we have, and with my commuting schedule would be hard as hell to get anyway. So, all of this being said, does anyone here have any experience with Freelancer.com or other, similar sites?
We already eat on a pretty strict budget. We've stopped going out to eat almost entirely. Once every two or three months we may go out for sushi, and we keep the bill below $50. Usually what we'll do is buy a couple of big, cheap, cost effective cuts of meat that I cook on Sunday and dole out into various soups/stews/salads/sandwiches throughout the week. This has cut our monthly food budget in half, down to about $200 (there's only so much you can scrimp on veggies when they make up the bulk of your nutrient intake).
Gas is the biggest issue. She works about 19 miles from home, and can only work from home once a week. I work about 30 miles from home, and cannot work from home. I've started working 10-6 instead of any earlier shifts because traffic is lighter and I waste less gas sitting in one spot on the freeway, but even that's starting to be less effective as more and more other people start to do the same. Combined, we pay about $400/month on gas. Her office isn't on a public transit route, and while mine is, it would take twice as long for me to get to and from work, each direction (making it a total of 4 hours round trip) and cost $15.50 per day, or about $50 more per month than I pay in gas.
We both have WoW subs, which comes to $33 a month, which would offer a little more in savings, but when you can't afford to get out of the house and do anything else fun, it's hard to rationalize cutting off a good fun diversion in order to save less than $40 a month. Our total discretionary income right now is less than $500/mo and that's not really "discretionary" in that we keep having to pay off collections accounts from when we were both unemployed. We're nowhere near done paying off those bills (most of which are medical bills), but they're too small to actually declare bankruptcy and I've managed to get my credit score up to just under 700, so I'm not about to blow it now.
Part-time jobs likely wouldn't pay what we need in the time frame we have, and with my commuting schedule would be hard as hell to get anyway. So, all of this being said, does anyone here have any experience with Freelancer.com or other, similar sites?
