I just wish it was easy

[gemfyre]

I never realised how exhausting house hunting could be. And the main reason is just frustration and annoyance at the stupid "system".

In their incessant effort to foster hate and resentment in the unemployed/unemployable community, they want to slug you a fee for being a couple. Once Matt and I move in together and declare ourselves as a couple (which in Centerlinks pigeonhole is a "de-facto relationship", we'll suddenly start using less resources. A couple doesn't have to eat as much as two people, or take up as much space. Yaknow, cuz the two people merge into this bizarre entity... or something. We'll lose over $100 a week. At a time where we're desperately requiring more money to be able to move in to a house together, preferably on our own.

So, after seething about this a while as I was driving home I slapped myself about and said, "It's really quite simple. YOU have to get off your lazy arse and GET A JOB!" Any job, start low, aim high, work your way up. Even if you are afraid of phones and people and all that shit. Be a waitress, be a checkout chick, be a receptionist, I draw the line at telemarketing, and although washing dogs would be okay, my skin protests too much. Preferably something week days, so I have evenings and weekends to socialise and be with people (yeah, even though I'm afraid of them). I must e-mail Michael Coote and ask him how I get a shoe in the door at CALM. Millions of other people manage to raise enough money to live comfortably. Many didn't waste about 10 years of their life piss-farting around and were actually saving money. So when they met someone and decided to live together there were plenty of resources to buy or build a comfortable home. Unfortunately it's not the situation with Matt and me, but hell, I can't just keep seething about it because that makes no progress at all. No time like the present they say.

Comments

[lotus79.livejournal.com]

Funny how I'm terrified of phones, and here I am working in a call center. I find it's pretty much fine as long as you have a sort of a script to follow.

That said, no matter how desperate you get, never take a telemarketing job. It will eat your soul.

And as for Centerlink, tell them you are living together as friends, they can't stick a camera in your bedroom to check (Yet. Grr.)

[purrdence.livejournal.com]

yay! my soul is being eaten!

[jakie-em.livejournal.com]

I had a soul... oh no... I have been in call centres so long I cannot even remember what it was like to have one

[redmalice.livejournal.com]

Ric and i were a de-facto couple with Centrelink. Its actually good because you get your payments which are a little less and then you get rent assistance on top of that and your payments are not that bad really.

Also i personally would not lie about my couple status as i hear they do random checks to see if you are lieing or not.

:)

[gemfyre.livejournal.com]

One thing I want to know is how they prove it. So many people have sex with random people these days that that no longer constitutes a relationship.

A male and female friend can also live together and not be in a marriage like relationship.

For a while I quipped that Matt and Warwick could declare they were a couple because gay couples aren't recognised.

Real people don't fit into Centerlink's pigeonholes.

[firvulag.livejournal.com]

i think the inability to afford to be a couple could also be a cause behind teh problems with the unemployed in being able to maintain steady couple-like things too

[gemfyre.livejournal.com]

*giggles*

ya know, that didn't really make any sense.

Sentence structure.

[redmalice.livejournal.com]

I was always under the impression that if the girl is in a seperate room to the guy for one. And then does the girl have her set of pots/pans/kitchen stuff and the guy have his own set of it all. Things like that to show that they don't live as one.

[jakie-em.livejournal.com]

I hink 2 years is tthe borderline for Centrelink for de fato status... one of my freidsn abused that years ago, here and her partner broke up just before 2 years and she went back and lived with her mum for a few months, then she got back with him and got a job before the next 2 years were up

[firvulag.livejournal.com]

do you both get the rent assistance?

and rent assistance is only and improvement if you aren't already getting it... as a couple the top level is about $40/fn higher in rent, and it's $6/fn less in assistance, so if we can't both get it we'll be out more there too

yeah, they do do random checks, but if she has her own room, and we say we aren't a de-facto, then there is nothing they can really do

[redmalice.livejournal.com]

I was only on the payments at the time and Ric was just in a part time job. I got something like $90 in rent assistance as well as my lowered payments (by about $50 or something) soo with rent assistance i -think- i ended up ahead. But it was a while ago soo yeah. I could be a bit off.

Well yeah i guess it could work, with us we share all our cooking gear and have one set of most things soo we don't look like seperate entities at all. I personally just like a clear conscience with regards to lieing soo i know i got probably the rougher end of the stick by being honest in the end (with Rics income increasing and my payments thus decreasing) i feel good about it at the end of the day.

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

You and me both in the unemployed camp, though I do occasional data entry - if you can type relatively fast, with okay accuracy, you might want to look at that too.

Hmm... I'm trying to think of other 'low-stress' jobs (one of the main reasons I'm not working at the moment either), but at the moment they all seem pretty daunting to me. :/

[gemfyre.livejournal.com]

I don't neccessarily need a "low stress" job. I just need a job I can do that pays well and I need it yesterday.

[purrdence.livejournal.com]

Define "pays well".

[gemfyre.livejournal.com]

More than I'm getting now?

[purrdence.livejournal.com]

there'll be a job opening at the place where I work mid-January.....

[gemfyre.livejournal.com]

What as...?

[purrdence.livejournal.com]

*mumbles* telemarketer

[jakie-em.livejournal.com]

better than her last job... which is about anything

[shadowshifter.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't be as fun if it were easy, but yeh, that thing with cutting pay is just stupid. I think they just assume you'll have more overall combining your income which doesn't quite work if they're cutting it. Obviously someone who designed the system failed miserably at maths ;)

[annyka.livejournal.com]

Even when I WAS living with my partner as a seperate entity, because we had been living in the same house (I was actually living in a granny flat, he was in the main house) for over 4 years, and then when he moved house and I decided I wanted to move with him (We were seeing each other, but there was no way we could have been classed as living as a couple) Centerlink decided it looked too sus and said if I was to move in with him then I had to include his earnings.

So my choice was - declare his earnings (which were so high that I got $0), move back in with my mum (Who had 2 little kids - about 3 & 1 and I was studying - thus the reason I move in with Shaun) or be out on the streets.

I tried to explain this but they said I had no other choices. So Shaun decided that it was probably time we moved in together and live as a couple. I moved all my stuff into his room and we sold all the doubles of stuff we had (ie fridge, pots/pans, iron etc) and had enough to last until I finished my degree (if you include his credit card - we actually got $2500 in debt after the whole lot - but the pay I got after finishing my degree has cut that down a lot).

The thing is, I had just lost my job at the time (because the company lost the contract for the hospital I attended for them) and there was no point getting another job because 4 weeks later I would have to quit in order to do my 11 week teaching prac - in which I would be working full time with no pay. Shaun had to support me for almost 20 weeks if you include the time it took to get decent work after my prac.

I was earning $75 a week from a part time job throughout all that - try living on that - paying bills/eating/rent grrrr - stupid system.

[stawberi.livejournal.com]

Just keep to bedrooms set up, if you can. But good on you for the start-low work-up attitude. Go working girl!

[annyka.livejournal.com]

As I said before- that doesn't always work (having 2 bedrooms) especially if you have lived with the same person at a prior residence at all. They think it is sus and interigate you so much it's not worth the hassel. They make you feel like a criminal. I'd hate to see what would happen if it actually WAS a friend I was moving with!

[scribblette.livejournal.com]

avoid data entry and telemarketing. Draining horribly. Sharra far prefers working fast food to her previous filing office work actually. It's more 'constructive' to the community at large too than getting paper cuts and it keeps you moving.