SO. I go to school Tuesday – Saturday 8am – 2:30pm and work most nights 6:15pmish – 11(close). although this seems easy enough, I no longer like going into work and I don’t make enough money. Minimum wage is moving to $8.00/hour (right?) Starbucks normally starts people off higher than that so they can say that have “competitive wages” and all these great perks. The only great perk about starbucks is opting for health benefits if you average 20 hours a week each quarter. I don’t need the pound of coffee a week, I get it and give them away. I don’t buy stuff there to often to utilize my 30% discount or 40% during the holiday season. And I don’t drink caffeine like an addict so I don’t really have many free beverages while i’m there. I can have free beverages from a half hour before, then through my shift and up until a half hour after my shift is over. And back to that $8.00/hour thing, I make a little more than a dollar more an hour after working for them for 3 years and 8 months. Yes we get tips, but they’re not great. You know when you go to a bar you normally tip, like, a dollar per drink? well its like $.05 a drink here at the green apron.

We worked on our budget, or lack there of last night. we have to bring home about $2500 a month for rent, utilities, groceries and bills. No fun money. Period. I bring home about $550 of that. He gets about $300 from PetCo and have run out of his student loan for the semester and he does not get paid from any theaters any time soon. He starts in Santa Rosa in May and won’t get paid from there until June. So, that leaves us up the creek without a paddle, doesn’t it.

THEREFORE I have to make a change so we can earn more money. I either have to switch from Daytime school, to night school (mon-fri from 5pm – 10pm, and i wouldn’t graduate as early, but that’s fine) and get a more fulltime/daytime/office/hotel (ACK) kind of job. Or stay at daytime school and get a different job that can be more like…4pm – 10pm/11pm (still tiring, but not starbucks – a nice change of ANY kind) Or cashiering at something like a bed bath and beyond for a few months. But something has to change. What I know I don’t want to do is clean toilets, mop the floor, make coffee, offer to warm up a pastry, or work in a restaurant of ANY kind in ANY position. No bartending, no hostessing, nothing in a restaurant. – SUGGESTIONS WELCOME

All I do is stress, have mild anxiety attacks, cry and lose sleep. Then I go to school and those feelings stay at bay. They exist but they don’t take me over. Then I leave and it overwhelms me once I get in my car.

I don’t really know what to do right now. I don’t feel at a total loss, I’m just frustrated and disappointed and need to fix stuff and don’t know how i’m going to do it.