Greetings Friends,
Long time reader, first time poster, as the saying (sort of) goes. I'm quite sure that I am on the very bottom of the income scales not just among the demographics of you fine readers, but uh... of all of America. I have a college degree, I work 4 (yes, 4!) jobs in Health Care and I make ~15-20k per year, net. Curious? Read on.
I'm a Paramedic in the beautiful state of Oregon and in the incredible city of Portland. This may sound idyllic, but if you're in EMS and from the area your stomach either filled with knots, or pity. Finding a Paramedic job in Portland is like finding that winning lotto ticket... A solid decade of community colleges pumping out 30-60 Paramedics per year has completely flooded the market. Jobs here are VERY few and far between. :-/
My main job (the one with regular hours and benefits) is part time, graveyard shift. This bad boy provides mandatory healthcare benefits, so out of my 19k gross annual income I net about 10k. I work three days a week here at Hospital One, with extra shifts sporadic at best. I am under no circumstances allowed to exceed 40 hours a week even if there were enough shifts to get me that far. On that salary alone, my family would likely be the healthiest and best insured homeless people around.
My second job is at Hospital Two. It's flex-time, which means no benefits and it's essentially an on-call as needed. This one grabs me about $5k net per year.
Jobs 3 and 4 are each 120 miles away in two different directions with Fire/EMS agencies where I pick up some pretty OK summer work and the occasional odd 911 shift. I have a small and efficient car, but with gas prices hovering around the $4.25 mark it costs me ~$50 just to get to the job, which cuts out a 1/3 of the shift. Between the two of these, I'll take home about another 5k per year if I'm pro-active during the summer.
And there you have it. The college educated life saving Paramedic who has 4 jobs and NO money. I've Mustached the hell out of my life, long before I even started reading about it. (I've been grocery shopping with my middle fingers for years!) I love Portland, I love what I do and I'm not complaining - just explaining my situation so that maybe, just maybe one of you genius types will come up with something that I have ever so carelessly overlooked.
A few more details: Currently taking college courses working toward that next degree. (Student debt. It's ugly. Fortunately I get some tuition reimbursement...) If you're wondering if I ever sleep between work and school, the answer is a resounding no. :-)
I am pretty dang good - but not epic with computers. I fancy myself good at writing, good with computers... Before I became a medic I was a photographer/web designer. I was good, but hated it.
Recently considered money making schemes:
Hack iPhone games and sell the cheats. I enjoy doing this for myself, but it seems too unethical.
Set up a WiFi hot-spot in my apartment for my neighbors and charge everyone who wants to use it $20 a month instead of paying ComCast. Against ComCast's rules, but I don't have any ethical issue sticking to them. I'm not a real big fan of playing ISP for a dozen people relying on MY modem and bandwidth.
Teach CPR/First Aid classes or EMT classes. (In the works.)
Write for hubpages.com
Start my own blog
Get a 5th job...
MOVE!!! My wife and I agreed that if by December I don't have one job that can support us (I can have more if I want, but not because I would need to) we find a city that has spots for Paramedics.
So if any of you know any way I can combine my computer/writing/medical skills to make money... I'm open to all sorts of ideas!
...because living like this seems like a terrible waste of my time. Thanks for reading and replying!!!