Having a wife, a child, and a house rental agreement to consider, I immediately registered as “unemployed” so that benefits would be available until I found more work. The benefits took a while to be processed and, because I gave Perkins no notice of leaving and therefore received a minimal final pay, we were very soon in financial trouble.
We made a fast decision that food and rent must come first, and whatever balance remained was to be directed to which debtor was making the most noise at that time. We quickly learned that the most congenial way of handling this situation was to pay all the debtors just a little on a regular basis! Their level of concern dropped considerably if something was being received regularly, so we made small payments against a number of companies until the unemployment benefits became available.
The day came when my first unemployment cheque could be picked up and so, with a “light being seen at the end of the tunnel”, I went to collect my cheque. What a surprise! The room where I had to go was not very well maintained; was gloomy, and the staff seemed totally indifferent to everybody. My cheque was given to me and, when I looked at it, I saw that the value would cover our rent … but with only a few pounds to spare. I questioned it and explained that the three of us could not eat based on those few pounds. The response was that I could buy quite a lot of food for that! That was it!
(I discovered much later that I could have been eligible for some supplementary benefits, but they were never offered. It was very much an example of knowing in advance what to ask for. If you don’t ask for it …. you don’t get it!).
Fortunately, I found out that a local bakery was looking for a delivery man to temporarily cover for a sickness situation. At that time, bread and other baked goods were delivered on a regular basis to residents. Not much earlier, it would have been done from a horse and cart but now, electric vehicles were the vehicles of choice and, after having been offered the job (and I accepted), I was given a brief driving lesson and then told to report at the bakery at 7:00am the next day.
I arrived at 7:00am and was directed to my vehicle which was being loaded with all the pre-ordered items together with many additional items which it would be my job to try and sell as I worked around my route. I was expected to be on the road by 8:00am however, turning the starting key produced no signs of any life in my vehicle. Apparently, whoever had taken it out the previous day had neglected to plug it in for charging over night!
The service people thought that they could get it charged up for me in couple of hours so I eventually left the depot at around 10:00am. This was going to be a long day!
A New Direction Perhaps? 
That would have been a very hard job for a hungry schnauzer…
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Impossible for me too buddy! The basket would be empty and I would be sleeping it off somewhere peaceful. Woof! Ray
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Life in your country at the moment is really complicated.
I know that few of my friends in the US are un-employed and one of them just told me she had just bought a mobile home because to rent an apartment is way too expensive. She still has a job, but she is willing to live cheaper than losing more than half of her expenses for a square box of concrete. She wants to keep safe her money first and applying other better jobs in between those time. She even give up her car and use her bicycle to go to work. She is really a tough lady.
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Sometimes one just has to make tough decisions. I lived in my early years, and my first year being married, in a caravan (trailer/mobile home). “Home is where your heart is”, and I enjoyed those years. Some people don’t have any place to call home.
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True.
One has many different stories and some has the luck of a long life having a good home for them and their family.
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I’ve been pretty lucky and only had to claim unemployment twice, once when I moved to a different area, and the other following redundancy. In the former, my payment was delayed for eight weeks as I had left my job without securing another (I had applied for several, getting 2 interviews but no work) and it was considered the person I was ‘living with’ would support me. It ended up with me supporting him with my meagre savings and thereafter once I was employed.
In the latter, I applied for hundreds of jobs, and my money was stopped because I hadn’t followed up on a job put forward by the job centre. Luckily, I kept copies of all letters I sent out and could prove that the company had not followed up on me (they had considered me over qualified for the job in question). I was seen by one sarcastic bitch who was covering for my usual member of staff, and reported her attitude as that week I had applied for over 15 jobs and not got a single reply.
You are right though, priorities are rent and food. Having been close to bankruptcy twice, it is best to come clean with your debtors and offer to pay regular, if small, amounts until things improve. They are usually supportive.
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There is so much that can be learned from being unemployed and, in hindsight, it was a good experience for me. The only time that I was ever without a job after leaving Perkins, was after doing the bakery delivery job … and when I first landed here in Canada.
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Likewise, even though it was soul destroying after redundancy because no-one could understand that I wanted to work. I wasn’t bothered about matching salaries, full or part time. The job I eventually landed was decided on a joke!
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… and I bet you had the best laugh from it!
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I opted for a silly one from ‘Yet Another 1000 Jokes for Kids’. Two jobs previous to that I was hired because I was divorced and had a dog (like 90% of the staff)!
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