The end of the first week without a full-time job (and some grocery shopping)
When I started this week, I whipped out a variety of paper planners: my monthly Silk & Sonder and my daily planner I received through the Amazon Vine program (their product reviewing service). My Silk & Sonder contains my appointments and my weekly plans, whereas I fill out the daily planner to give myself realistic expectations of what a person can achieve in a day.
I had hoped– in addition to the job hunt, freelance projects, getting caught up on phone calls (schedule the furnace maintenance, research cheaper car insurance) and cleaning my house– to embark on a strict schedule of blog posting: Monday, Wednesday and Friday for the business (Parisian Phoenix Publishing) and Tuesday, Thursday, Friday for my personal blog. Then on Sunday, I would send out my Substack.
I went to a variety of job interviews, made $165 in freelance work, and even had a professional forgive my outstanding bill in exchange for a couple hours of my time giving editorial and marketing feedback. Today I received my last paycheck and I hope I have planned everything as well as I can for upcoming lean times.
But this morning, I had the opportunity to visit with middle grade author Jess Rinker at the ever-so-lovely Plants and Coffee Easton where we talked about our experiences in the publishing industry and she revealed some of her future plans.
And I treated myself to The Popper, a jalapeno popper themed bagel with chive cream cheese, cheddar, jalapenos and potato chips.
When The Teenager got home from her college classes and work, we visited Joe Swarctz, the creative mind and illustrator behind Echo City Capers. He will be appearing on Channel 69 WFMZ Morning News Weekend Edition tomorrow and he and partner Ralph Greco Jr. will be participating in The End: A Bookstore‘s local author night in the evening. I had to deliver the copies of the Christmas book that had arrived at my house for the event.
Then, the Teenager and I headed to Grocery Outlet where we each had a $5 off a $25 purchase coupon only good for this weekend. I told her– the trick is to spend NO MORE than $26 so that the coupon works, and you only spend about $20. She was up to about $35 in minutes and even with me taking some of “her” groceries I only had $15. So I took some of hers and bought some crab cakes. In the end, she spent $23.58 and saved $24.50 and I spent $26.43 and saved $40.02.
What did we buy?
The Teenager:
Dental Cat Treats, $6.99Dental Dog Treats, $12.99A Caramel Apple, $1.99Pepperoni, $2.49Antiperspirant, $2.99Me:
Gourmet French Caramel Chocolate Cookies, picked by The Teen, $0.97 Four pineapple muffins, picked by The Teen, $3.50 (she insisted they were $3)A slim jim with cheese stick, picked by The Teen, $0.99Snickers popcorn, $1.50Rueditas Chili Lime Pretzels, $0.97Waffle Crisp Cereal, picked by The Teen, $1.99Ground Turkey, $2.99Spicy Vegetarian Chicken Nuggets, $1.994 Frozen Crab Cakes, $4.99Minute Maid Watermelon Cooler, $1.49Half Gallon of 2% Milk, $2.08Teriyaki Tempeh, 2 containers, 2 servings each, $1.99 eachOld Bay Sausage, $3.99
After that, we went to The Dollar Tree. The Teenager spent about $15. She needed batteries and wanted to buy someone stickers.
The Teenager did not get a receipt, so based on what I saw in the kitchen and these photos:
BatteriesStickersChef Boyardee RavioliCanned spaghettiDog food2 varieties of Asian Instant Noodles (which will go great with peas and the teriyaki tempeh!)white breadJalapeno ricejalapeno corn muffinshoney corn muffins
The Teenager did not have lunch and Little Dog’s Mom always loves her Diet Cokes from McDonald’s so I opened my app. I used $5 from my Apple Cash to get three large soft drinks and a free six piece Chicken McNuggets, and Little Dog’s Mom paid me back when I delivered her soda.
