I still love my part time job. It’s mindless and I’m pretty good at it. And my bosses treat me like a rock star because I show up and do my job. It’s a low bar for sure and I’m nailing it.
Unfortunately, the place/worksite of my part-time job is undergoing significant renovations so the work has been scaled back a bit. While previously I could count on being on site between two and three hours a night ($20.00-$30.00), the renovation means that I am often only on site for between 45 minutes and an hour. However, the company I work for guarantees a two hour minimum, so even when I am only on site for 45 minutes, I still earn $20.00. Not a bad hourly rate. Unfortunately, consistently earning this minimum would result in an overall decrease in my paycheck when compared to what I was earning when I was putting in two and a half to three hours an evening, which is why when the company asked me if I would cover someone else’s shift at another site, for $15.00/hour and a guaranteed three hour minimum ($45.00), I agreed. Because all I could think about was the few extra bucks I could hastily put into my emergency fund so that I could return to paying off debt.
But there were things I didn’t think about, like the extra half hour of commute time in traffic. While my usual gig (worksite) is only nine minutes from home, this second gig (worksite) is about a half-hour a way with traffic. (Not to mention the associated increase in fuel costs). I also didn’t think about how much those extra hours, in addition to the first gig and my full time job, would cost me in terms of scheduling anxiety. My role at University B often results in evening obligations and I have been juggling like a mad-woman all week. It also just makes for a pretty long day/week. I am…tired.
I agreed to cover the second site through next Friday so I am just going to tough-it-out until then. However, this has reminded me that I need to think about the total cost of earning more.
Note: In many ways, this blog serves as an outlet for me as I go about my debt repayment journey. However, I also realize that at some point in the future, some other person, perhaps on a similar journey, may read it. For the sake of that person, and anyone else who might read it, I want to be honest about how I feel at different moments along the journey. Yes, there is the elation of pay days and huge debt repayments. But there are also moments where you are just a bit tired, sad, and wish you had made different financial choices. I think it’s important to be honest about those moments too.
Ms. Afro Penny 
yeah, I totally agree that part-time work has to be “worth it,” and the definition of that may change over time. I had a phase where I was doing usertesting.com and — ugh, now I forget the name of the site, but it paid for surveys and small tasks. And it was great for a while, and then the balance of how much work I was doing versus how much money I was making changed, and I stopped.
Now that I think of it, have you looked at usertesting? It paid pretty well when I was doing it, and the best part was that you could just have it running in the background while you did other things, and when it “dinged” you could switch over and do the test for fifteen minutes or whatever, and then switch back. So it didn’t feel like you were wasting time commuting, etc.
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I remember your warnings from when I first announced I had picked up a part-time job and they remain in my ear. I have not heard of usertesting but will have to look into it.
I will definitely stay with the current gig until I find something better but will definitely not be picking up any shifts that aren’t at my site.
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