Savings from Coupons

I just went through all the receipts that I have kept since I started using coupons, which was only Jan. of this year. I have saved over $150.00 with coupons alone. I haven't figured out a way to calculate the money that's been saved from watching for sales & stocking up on things then. Pretty good though for five months.

Unemployed

It has been a month, almost, that I have been unemployed. I haven't been as vigilant as I'd like on the job search. I looked at my finances & I can last another month, but I dont' want to, so the job search will be stepping up this week. I have my interview outfit pretty much down, I just need some awesome new shoes. I'm at my sister-in-laws beauty school & I'm getting free eyelash extensions, which is fun. It's funny I was on workopolis this week & I found like 5 or 6 different jobs, for other people. I'm wondering if I should charge people for finding them a job. I've been thinking of ways to make money but not all of them are even feasible, or in some cases legal. I'm not desperate yet, just getting really really bored at home. But I have found that I really like the People's Court.

Another Job Done

So I have now been unemployeed for a week. The temp agency I was working threw doesn't want to help me change my career. I mostly have customer service experience but I'm so done with being yelled at by complete strangers, I've been doing it for over ten years now. I'm looking for soemthing in the way of office work or data entry & at all my jobs I have done some form of it. I'm looking for an entry level job, but my old temp agency doesn't seem to want to go with that so I'm off to finding new temp agencey's, luckily I live in a HUGE city & there's tonnes of them, I just have to weed out the crappy ones.

My Resume

I've been working on my resume, & it's almost done. I'm at one of the parts I hate(not that there is a lot of things I do like about making a resume) I'm formatting it to look pleasing to the eye, trying to make sure it's easy to read & your eye flows through the whole thing, & that always needs a second or third set of eye's to look over it. As of right now it's in the hands of a good friend of mine, I'm waiting to here back what she thinks. To me it's only so-so, but I'm having trouble trying to figure out how to fix it without making the whole thing 50 pages.(total execration)

Some Places Just Don't Get It

I've worked for a few different places, some that understand now how to reward their employees in meaningful ways, & I have also worked in companies that do lip service to rewarding employees & some that are just clueless at how their employees feel about the company at all.

I worked at a store that clearly only cared about the manager, supervisors & their office staff. How did I know this? Well all those people got a higher discount then the regular staff, they also got better benefits then the regular staff, & after this companies Christmas party was cancelled because some teenage staff decided to show up drunk to one of the Christmas parties, the mangers supervisors & office staff still had a dinner with the owners and a nice swanky joint downtown. The place I work at currently has no clue either. Our imitate managers do us right, we get pizza parties, prizes that we like, Gift Cards for stores we'll actually go to & employee of the month things too. But when the higher ups put on a company wide contest it SUCKS CHUNKS!!! During Christmas there were a lot of contests on different floors on the building, I participated in a paper air plane flying contest (which I suck at BTW) & that was fun, I won a $25 gift card to Chapters from a draw, it was fun in Dec. So the higher ups (literally they're on the top floor of the building) decided they would have a contest, it was a contest to draw stuff (a little childish but could have been fun) the winner would get a jacket with the company logo on it, not so fun, & super cheap since those jackets are stored on my floor & there are a TONNE of them! Now they've come up with something that is just absolutely ridicules! The higher ups are having a video contest. They want the employees to make a video about a great experience here & with our customers. & the prize is a donation to a charity of our choice, we get some little plaque saying we won. I look at this & just think that 'hey free commercial for our company!'

I have also worked at a company where I was paid relatively little but I would have worked there for free because they were awesome to work for. I loved the people that worked their, our managers stood up for us, we had awesome Christmas parties & everyone was treated equally. I have also worked for a large company, one that spans the globe, I worked at Walt Disney World. I was only there for 6 months, but I did qualify for benefits while I was there, I had access to their discount employee store, I could take courses at the 'Disney Univeristy' if I wanted to. I know a lot of companies that try to emulate Disney, but the do a terrible job of it. I know part of the employee loyalty is the name, but there's more to it than that, all the stuff they give to anyone who works for the company is the biggest thing for me.

There are sooooo many companies that don't take care of their front line workers, those companies will eventually go under. Why? Because if you don't take care of the people who interact with the public they won't represent you in a positive light & they'll stop caring.

Resume Status

Today I worked on my resume for about an hr. I had taken all my previous resumes & had put them all into one word file, from that I looked over what I had written before & rewrote my resume, now I just need someone to take a look at it to make sure it's not a total fail. Next is the formatting, and then the job searching, oh the dreaded job searching! The biggest pain of changing jobs, finding stuff that you would absolutely love to do, but find out you're not qualified, or you are & you never hear back, or other lovely issues.

I QUIT!!!!! Kind of

I'm a temp agent for a larger company, I do a lot of telemarketing things, inbound, outbound, all kinds of stuff, stuff that doesn't even seem to go together. Lately though it's been getting worst & worst, I won't go into the dirty details, there's enough to fill a novel right here, but I'm done I can't take it any more. It's customer service so I get yelled at a lot, especially over the phone, people don't see you so they feel like they can say anything, the problem is that it's not only the customers. We deal with a lot of door to door agents, they're supposed to confirm their sales with us at the customers house, and they're trying to scam us by changing their voices or calling from their friends place. And there's another group who we do credit checks for & they yell at us and generally giving us attitude. See these are supposed to be co-workers, we're all trying to help out the company at large, & when we complain to our supervisor the reaction is pretty much don't let it bother you. So yeah I'm done, I'm losing my mind, & I believe I saw my brain dripping out my ear as it turns to mush. But I still need a job so I asked my agency to get another assignment, however they can't move me from the place I'm at right now, I had my contract extended until the end of July, & this extension is the 4th extension at this place, I've been there a year now, I'm done. I'm going to be looking for a new job even harder now, but now I've got a deadline. As of Aug 1st I will be unemployed if I haven't found a job. So overdrive for the whole thing now.

Coupon Info

For anyone out there that's getting coupons printed off the internet word of warning, Food Basic's Does Not Take Printed Coupons. It sucks!!!!

It's Getting Harder

I'm at work right now. I work in a call centre, it's very slow on Weds. My job is relatively easy, the stress mostly comes from getting yelled at by customers & also from when management does really stupid things. I love most of the people I work with, we're hanging outside of work so that awesome, I don't have to use a lot of brain power for this job, so I can work on other things at the same time, I can knit, draw or even bring my laptop to work, as long as I continue to answer my phone, oh yeah & I get to wear jeans. So it sounds awesome right? At first yes, now? Not so much. There's the obvious issue of losing brain cells, but then there's the pay, not that great, & a whole crap load of stuff.
So we got a new hire over Christmas, & like I said, this job doesnt' require brain power, unfortunately this new hire doesn't have enough to do the basics. All the staff here got trained in 2 maybe 3 days, she took 2 weeks. We have a whole host of ques, & while most of us are in all the ques, this new hire is not & every time the attempt to train this new hire & put them in  a new ques it all goes wrong. This new hire's calls takes twice as long as a regular call would. When we are verifying information to make sure we are speaking with the account holder, the actually gives out the information when they get it wrong. Most of the day the new hire spends time watching TV over the Internet. She's not the only one that does, but she's the one that is getting away with the most. She comes in late or on time everyday, she then turns on her computer, sets everything up like she's going to go into the ques & then promptly goes to the bathroom. She is very negative & she is getting paid the same as the rest of us. How do I know about her pay? We are all temps from the same company & the only person who has a different pay grade than the rest of us is the guy who speaks Cantonese & Mandarin.
It's so damn frustrating here!
So we're back to doing outbound, well most people, I've been off & on, currently off(thank god!) & that just breeds negativity & also disobedience. Most of the people on outbound dont' want to be doing it, for obvious reasons, & are taking more bathroom breaks, & many other things to ease the pain of outbound. I dont' hold it against them, I understand. It's just starting to make this place very noisy.
Another frustrated reason it's stressful here, we are not trained properly. We are trained on our programs & on the specifics of what we have to do, however there is no extra training. We have so many different depts in this company that it's getting ridicules!! I can't answer any questions about billing, I can't answer any questions about installs, I can't answer any other questions period!!! If I was a customer I would be annoyed with the amount of times I get transferred in a call, I've transferred people who have been transferred to me, but for the wrong reasons or they didnt' get their questions answered. Plus it seems like every other week they change their mind about how we're supposed to do our job. The contradictions are pretty bad too, one week it's defiantly do this, next week dont' do it & transfer them elsewhere!
It really is getting harder and harder for me to get out of bed in the morning and come into work, & once I'm here it's getting harder and harder to want to stay for my whole shift.

Also did I mention it FREEZING  here!!!!!!

Coupons, Flyers & a Possible New Job!

So I've been doing the coupon thing for about a month now. My Aunt & my Sister-in-Law have both gotten coupons from the same sites that I get my coupons from, but they have not been using them. My aunt is over right now & I was showing her the new deals in the flyers for this weekend & she said she was going to hire me to take care of all her couponing. So of course I said she was going to have to pay me, 10% of savings! Ok so it might only be a little bit here & there but if I get her & my sister-in-law to do it I could make some nice cash on them.

Income boost!

(every penny counts trust me)

Coupons!!!

Have I mentioned how much I love coupons? Well I do!! It's awesome when you get to the cash with a pile of stuff & it comes down by 75% or so, depending on the coupon.
The rule with the coupons in my house is that  we use them when somethings on sale, gets you more bang for your buck. Today I got Crest Pro-Health Toothpaste, Head & Sholders Shampoo & Conditioner all for $10.60, AWESOME!!! I'll leave the links for the coupon sites I use for anyone who wants them.

My New Blog

So I needed a space where I could put all my woes, insights, joys, & triumphs when it comes to finances. I work in Customer Service in a small call centre, so I'm not making a whole lot of money, which means Im' becoming somewhat of an expert at saving money(which really means not spending it). So I'll be talking about that and any tips I have.
I am also gearing up for a huge job search, this one will include big changes since I no longer want to work in Customer Service any more(& anyone who has worked in customer service I'm sure you can understand why I want to get out of it) So I'll also be talking about that.
This will mostly be a money related blog, which may at some point even include random photo's of money, just cause I like it!