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[Xeno]

The lottery literally would not work if thousands, or possibly millions (I don't know the number of weekly players), of people weren't poor and funneling their money into it to drive up the jackpot. If only rich people played, then the jackpot would grow at a slow rate, and they would have no incentive to play. The lower and lower-middle class is what makes the lottery thrive. So really, it isn't for rich people, it is quite literally for the poor.

[IPv4]

The lottery literally would not work if thousands, or possibly millions (I don't know the number of weekly players), of people weren't poor and funneling their money into it to drive up the jackpot. If only rich people played, then the jackpot would grow at a slow rate, and they would have no incentive to play. The lower and lower-middle class is what makes the lottery thrive. So really, it isn't for rich people, it is quite literally for the poor.

Dont buy lottery tickets. Lottery tickets are for rich people with too much money. There must be other ways to earn money...

Yes, truly only rich people buy lottery tickets. That's why every lottery winner in history has been a wealthy millionaire/billionaire and not a minimum wage worker or a teacher or an elderly person.

hmm my quote says lottery tickets are for rich people, not that only rich people buy them if we have to be so serious today O__o

Well apperently to you guys I believe only millionaires buy lottery tickets, I cant add much to that.

[Xeno]

No, I believe you believe only millionaires should buy them because you said that. That is not the same as saying you think that millionaires are the only ones that do. You're not reading what we're saying correctly, or being willfully ignorant of what we're trying to say. You made a point that wasn't entirely solid, we pointed out why it wasn't (and Nate made a sarcastic post about it) and then you just decided we were saying something we weren't so your existing post would stand.

Lotto tickets are for poor people and also "rich people with too much money".

Edit: typo

[Nate]

Believing that the lottery is only for the rich doesn't make much sense anyway. The top prize on a one dollar scratch ticket is usually only around a thousand bucks. A rich person isn't going to be jumping at the chance to get a thousand dollars, because they're already rich. If a rich person is going to spend money to make money they're going to go for something with much larger returns than a scratch ticket.

Lotteries are specifically designed to appeal to the poor because for a lot of them it's literally their only chance to escape poverty. Rich people don't want/need to play the lottery because they're already set, or if they want to make 20 million dollars they can just take their already existing wealth and put it into the stock market or something, not guessing numbers on a scrap of paper at a gas station.

[IPv4]

Ok, time to defend my honour xD You do know you have a bigger chance getting hit by lightning several times before winning millions on a lottery ticket?

[Xeno]

You also have a statistically greater chance of dying in an automobile crash than in a plane crash, yet more people are afraid of riding in a plane than driving/riding in a car.

You can't win if you don't play. That said I've only bought tickets when the jackpots got around 500 million.

[Nate]

Ok, time to defend my honour xD You do know you have a bigger chance getting hit by lightning several times before winning millions on a lottery ticket?

Yes, but I'm not trying to win millions, and that's really only for the stuff like Powerball where you guess numbers. The odds are quite high for winning 20 grand on a scratch ticket too but the difference is that there is at least one winning scratch ticket out there, so eventually someone has to win whereas with the regular lottery you could theoretically never have a winner (this is pretty much statistically impossible though).

Second, unlike winning the lottery there are things you can do that greatly increase the risk of being struck by lightning, such as being in/near bodies of water, being in open fields, being near metal or tall trees, and so on.

Third, pretty much what Xeno said. Car crashes happen all the time and people haven't stopped driving cars, even though there's a great risk of being in a car crash. And while the odds are really high against winning the lottery, people still win it from time to time. Again, it's pure probability. And who's to say that luck won't fall in your favor that one time? It's happened before, and will happen as long as the lottery exists.

[agasfas]

Putting your hope and faith into things other than the Lord can be a slippery slope. I used to work as a customer service representative years ago and people would spend hundreds on lottery tickets (scratch-off's and mega million, etc) each month and only recoup a small fraction back (if they were lucky).

That aside, I can empathize with your frustrations with debt. Currently my wife and I are in over our heads with medical bills and other outstanding debts and obligations. My wife was in the hospital 6 times while pregnant with our daughter and with a lack of money, credit cards and IOU's became our only way to pay for things. However press on and put your faith in the Lord; that he will care for you even in the darkest of times. I will pray for you.

[Nate]

Putting your hope and faith into things other than the Lord can be a slippery slope.

No but see I'm putting my hope and faith into God to let me win the lottery. :B

I used to work as a customer service representative years ago and people would spend hundreds on lottery tickets (scratch-off's and mega million, etc) each month and only recoup a small fraction back (if they were lucky).

Yeah yeah I know the odds of winning are low. Like I said I only buy like one ticket a week, and it's two bucks. That's a hundred dollars a year...money that could be spent elsewhere, but not so much that it's a huge dig into my finances.

Hearing about people who spend hundreds on the lottery makes me sad though. I feel really bad for them and I can understand why they do it, and don't blame them in the slightest. But I'll resist going on a political rant. :V

However press on and put your faith in the Lord; that he will care for you even in the darkest of times. I will pray for you.

Well I don't really have any choice but to press on, I can't make time stop with my force of will, I'm forced to go along with its inevitable march onward. Thank you for the prayers though, much appreciated.

[ClaecElric4God]

I know this is old, but I haven't been around. Any sort of update, Nate?

[Nate]

I'm paying regular payments to the law office. That's pretty much it. I still buy scratch tickets once in a while in the desperate hope that I'll win enough money to pay it off completely, but for now the monthly payments are gonna have to do. It's 100 bucks a month minimum, so at this rate I'll have it paid off in roughly five years.

[Nate]

This is my thread and I made it and I'm gonna keep using it.

I could use some prayer. I'm in a bit of a pinch and I will be the first to admit it is 100% my fault, but I still need help nonetheless. As I'm employed by a temp agency, I don't always have steady work. It's up to whenever a business that's working with the temp agency says "Hey we need a dude." So, the last time I worked was the end of June. I haven't been working since then. Now, I was smart and good with my money and I had enough money that I could pay my bills and buy food and all that. But, the money is now running low. In fact, one might say it's run out. I've got about 30 bucks to my name right now. My toilet breaking and needing a replacement has sucked 250 bucks out of me, in fact my mom had to help me pay off the bill because it ended up being almost 400 bucks (friggin' labor charge).

So now the problem is I won't be able to pay off the law office this month. I'll probably call them and tell them even though theyr'e still gonna want the money, but I want to at least let them know I'm not blowing them off. Still, I feel really bad about not being able to pay this month, even though I paid 200 bucks last month. At any rate, if I don't get work soon, I'm gonna have to ask my mom for money, and I don't want to do that. I've tried getting money the only ways I know how, entering some contests and a couple of scratch tickets (not many, but a couple). As you can imagine, this hasn't really paid off.

And even if I get work, the work usually sucks and I hate it and it makes me depressed and miserable. So what I really need is a new job, a better job, one I don't hate and is more regular than the one I have now. One where I'm not going to be out of work for months at a time. Problem is...and I'm gonna be honest, I'm very lazy, and on top of that, I have serious problems with self-esteem. So, I'm having real difficulty focusing on actually doing a job search when it's like "Whoa hey you can just go to this other site and read about terrible webcomics and get angry at political cartoons, that's way more fun than looking for a job." And then I go yeah, I want to have fun, looking for a job sucks and I probably would screw it up anyway. Plus I'm really super nervous about new jobs and I'm scared to look for one, because it'll be new, and unfamiliar, and that scares me.

But it's what I need to do. Who knows when the temp agency is going to call me back, I'm low on money, and I need a job. Also I need money. Like, almost immediately. Even if the agency called me today and said "We need you to come in tonight" I still wouldn't get paid until next Friday. Next Friday isn't really great. I kind of need money, like, now. And I have no clue how I would accomplish that short of robbing someplace (note: I am not going to commit a crime, it's just the only thing I could think of).

I need prayer that something will turn up money-wise. But more importantly, I need prayer that I can quit being irresponsible and lazy and look for a new job so that I can hopefully not have to deal with this again. It's just...stressful.

Anyway that's pretty much it.

[ClaecElric4God]

Definitely praying, Nate.

[Sheenar]

Praying, Nate.

[Kaori]

The order of this is sort of random, but here goes:

Have anything you can sell secondhand? Games? Books?

Try looking at job classifieds listed under "ETC" in your local Craigslist. My city regularly has things listed like plasma donation (e.g. there's a place in my city that says they are giving $200 per donation to new donors the first few times they donate), paid participation in market research, drivers, customer service, and some other things that don't require any previous experience. Of course be careful of scams because it's Craigslist and the listings in that section are particularly catering to people who are desperate for cash.

I have a co-worker who gets some extra money by working at things like sporting events (concession stands or ticket sales or something?), and although I don't know how you would go about getting into that kind of work, it might be someting worth looking into, as I suspect it's the sort of thing that you don't have to go through an application process for but can be done by anyone at any time they choose to. I think that my co-worker and his wife get a pretty significant amount of money this way, by working on the weekends.

Since you seem to have an internet connection those "take surveys online for cash" offers you sometimes see around come to mind, but I've never looked into them because they always sounded like something very likely to be a scam. But some people have made some lists of things they say are legitimate ways to earn money online, so you could try some of those out I guess:

http://www.raininghotcoupons.com/hot-re ... from-home/
http://buckswithadfly.blogspot.com/2013 ... money.html
http://entrepreneurs.about.com/od/homeb ... online.htm

This is slightly more long-term than "now," but is it possible to try to get work through more than one temp agency? Elwood Staffing is a temp agency through which some people I know were placed in a company as temps but were eventually hired on as regular employees. IIRC what your home state is, it looks like they have a couple of locations there and have several jobs listed that look like they are entry-level or do not require previous experience.

Having gone through a Stateside job search somewhat recently, I have to say that websites like Monster were not very helpful to me. IMHO you would probably get better results by randomly driving around your city/town looking for "now hiring" signs than by applying for jobs on websites like Monster, because those job postings online get so many people applying for them that they simply cannot bother to reply to most applicants. Finding a job through someone you know can be extremely useful as a foot in the door.

If you are really down to your last $30, have you considered going to a soup kitchen or food pantry for your meals? It's probably a huge blow to one's pride, but it would allow you to cut your expenses and use that money for other things.

Actually, there is a whole range of other things that you can do in between "earn money from an official on-the-books job" and "steal," so I don't know why people's minds immediately jump to "steal" as the only other way to get things besides a regular job. Some of these are just food-related, not cash-related, but these are some other options:

call 2-1-1 ("for help with food, housing, employment, health care, counseling and more")
soup kitchen
food pantry
ask to do odd jobs for people you know (e.g. mowing grass or any sort of handyman work that you know how to do)
ask for money from people you know
ask for assistance from a church or from another nonprofit (assistance finding a job, assistance with immediate needs)
sell plasma
sell things
pawn things
dumpster dive
beg

Some of these things are things I would never want to do, and I'm sure you would never want to do them either. I'm certainly not suggesting that you beg or dumpster dive. But the point I'm trying to make is that there are choices out there besides "have an official job," "steal," or "starve."

An additional note about going to a church to ask for help: I know my own church has an alms fund specifically designated for people with legitimate needs, and your financial needs (payments to the law office, money for lodging, gas, etc.) while you are out of work would probably be exactly the sort of thing for which this fund exists.

Lastly, I will certainly pray your needs would be provided for.

[Nate]

Have anything you can sell secondhand? Games? Books?

I have a lot of games but most of them are pretty old, I can't imagine getting more than maybe 50 bucks for them at a pawn shop, even if I sold them all. Especially considering a lot of them don't have a case, manual, etc.

This is slightly more long-term than "now," but is it possible to try to get work through more than one temp agency?

Nope, the temp agency I'm with made me sign a thing saying that while I was working for them, I am prohibited from working for any other temp agencies, and in addition, I am prohibited from working for any other temp agencies for six months after I quit working for them.

If you are really down to your last $30, have you considered going to a soup kitchen or food pantry for your meals? It's probably a huge blow to one's pride, but it would allow you to cut your expenses and use that money for other things.

Oh I live with my mom, and I'm sure she'll help me out with food, although I'd rather not go that route but I might not have much of a choice soon.

Lastly, I will certainly pray your needs would be provided for.

Thanks, there's a lot of good ideas in your post and I'll see if any of them will work for me.

[Mr. SmartyPants]

Nope, the temp agency I'm with made me sign a thing saying that while I was working for them, I am prohibited from working for any other temp agencies, and in addition, I am prohibited from working for any other temp agencies for six months after I quit working for them.

Yeah? So? What if you did it anyway? You need the work! Also how they gonna stop you from working at another temp agency for six months? That's stupid.

[Nate]

What if you did it anyway?

I'm pretty sure their legal team would bring me to court for a breach of contract. And maybe I could even fight it and win, but you know what? Lawyers are expensive even if you win the case, so I'm not going to go that route.

[Peanut]

I'll be praying Nate. Someone mentioned online survey's for money so let me toss out Mechanical Turk as well. It runs through Amazon Payments but you can transfer the money into your bank account. I wouldn't rely on it as a primary source of income since a lot of the tasks only pay a couple of cents per thing, but as a supplement to other sources of income it's ok.

[Xeno]

Re: non-compete clause

Take a look at that contract they had you sign. Some companies have it set where you can't work for another, competing, company only if you were terminated. I previously worked for a company like that.

[shooraijin]

Some of those non-compete clauses actually turn out to be unenforceable, but yeah, lawyers.

[Nate]

I suck and everything is awful and what is even the point of anything.

[mdmrn]

I suck and everything is awful and what is even the point of anything.

Praying the Lord provides you the comfort you need at this moment. May you be reminded of His love, mercy, and grace as you are filled with the joy of the Spirit.

[ClaecElric4God]

I wish I had words for you, Nate. Dunno how much it means to you right now, but I wanna let you know I'm still praying for you.

[Midori]

I'm not sure how much this counts for, but I do think you're a valuable member of CAA, and we'd be worse off without you around. I'm not just saying that to sound nice; I actually have good reasons to believe it. Your presence reduces our collective suck factor, believe it or not.

In any case, I'm praying. I hope something really good will happen.