Ahhh, the hard work has begun. From what I've been reading, been told and found out in terms of flights and what not I'm looking at having to save AT LEAST $4000 between here and the end of the year... and I have a sneaking suspicion that might be Australian dollars.
To be fair, it's not helping that they've changed the dates from mid to early January. By the looks of it this is going to add $200-500 to my outgoing airfare, which is a pain in the butt. I think the next biggest cost is going to be insurance but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.
I would really love to be able to get everything paid for independently, but its going to be tough. Since May 2009 I've been working at Borders in Auckland as a casual employee. If you're from Australia or NZ you can probably determine why that has caused all kinds of stress lately, and I was even more unsure about what was going to happen because the people that bought out Whitcoulls and Borders in New Zealand have a policy of not employing casual staff members. Luckily, I'd already been trying to get more permanent shifts so I could basically live without the help of my parents, which so far this year I've managed pretty well, thanks to my Summer job and the shifts I have managed to get. Tomorrow I do my first official permanent shift at Borders, which is all very well but despite the fact that I've been working there for two years I'm still on minimum wage (which has risen twice since I started, but that's beside the point.
When I was uncertain about what was going to happen I started keeping an eye on job sites, particularly www.sjs.co.nz which has been pretty good, in my opinion. Even once I knew I was going to be keeping my job at Borders I followed through with the other jobs I'd been pursuing and I started as an Admin Assistant two weeks ago, earning much better pay.
But what this does mean is that from now I'm going to be doing two jobs, amounting to 31 hours a week of time that's just going be gone, excluding the time it takes to walk there and back. That's fine for now, since exams are finished and I don't have classes and coursework to deal with and it means that I can save a lot. My new job is going straight into my 'Disney' Account which is a savings account that will charge me $5 if I use it more than once a month, while I continue to use my other account at a different bank (yeah, I'm a bank slut) for my day to day stuff.
How is this going to hold up once uni is up and running again? Bloody good question and as of yet I have no idea. My schedule at the moment has 14 contact hours. Even if I don't get extra lab times and what not... that's a 45 hour week before the course work. tib, my new work, is pretty flexible about when I will eventually do my shifts during uni, so the schedule below is sort of non-confirmed but I think I'll keep Monday, Wednesday and Saturday mornings off if I can. But who knows how that will work out.
Do you think I'm nuts? Feel free to say so in the comments, I WON'T BLAME YOU.
And yes I AM in Glee Club and proud of it to. Our show this year is going to be fun to work around with this, I can tell already >_>
Anyway, on a different note I've been working on designs for hoodies/t-shirts for the Aussies and Kiwis going over in January. Not sure if how they'll end up, lots of people liking them but not being too vocal... although this is probably one of the LAST things we need to sort out.
Complete prototypes of course, New Zealand is so small that it gets kind of lost compared to Australia. BUT THEY DON'T HAVE THE AWESOME GREEN COLOUR. Hehhe...
Right, this has been LOOOOONG. Far more than I expected and its not like much has happened, haha. Oh well, time to shower and head off to bed, work in the morning.
Ciao readers!
I think you are becoming Mum, you are working far to hard...
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