ranyart

So, with the situation in the US absolutely terrifying and the German one also looking not so great (the new government wants to get rid of a lot of things that the old one made), I'm hoping to get my citizenship application in before they scrap the thing that lets me apply now (3 years with good integration measures).

The problem is that I seriously thought the visa office guy was going to make me leave in October because I don't make enough money, and that hasn't really changed. I have a few more potential clients, but that's the biggest problem with being freelance. You can't completely predict your annual income.

So I need to a) get my income up, b) get my rent down, or (ideally) c) both. But I have a lot of factors working against me in trying to find an apartment, mostly the fact that I'm freelance and don't make a lot of money. Officially, landlords won't rent to you unless you earn 3x the total rent, which means I'm looking at 400-425 a month, and in Berlin, there's basically nothing at that price point, and what there is has a lot of people who ALSO want to live there. So I've contacted people about at least 100 apartments since December, and I've had 2 showings. One of them (the later one, weirdly) I already got a rejection from, and the first one is still pending.

I really don't want to move into another roommate situation, especially not with a stranger from the shared flats website. I have a friend (American) who would be ok with getting a place together and splitting the rent solidarisch (where I pay as much as I can and she pays the rest, because she has a real job with a real salary). But that still necessitates finding an apartment that's big enough and in a place we can both agree on and doesn't cost an obscene amount and that we actually get a showing for and so on.

So I'm begging whatever supernatural forces exist that I get the first apartment I looked at, even though I have about a 20% chance of getting it (there were 4 other people at the showing, and the state-owned companies make their selections by RNG).

I'm also looking into minijobs where I can earn up to about 500 a month; a derby friend just started at one and she's giving me the info to apply.

I've also gotten into the copyeditor pool at one of the Big 5 publishers, and I got my first editing job offer today (due April 22), though with the dollar in the shitter because the felon in chief is a literal petulant child, it's gonna be a lot less into my bank account than I would like. And there's a potential book translation in my future (me translating someone else's book into English), and of course my Kickstarter book is going to go on sale eventually, so hopefully that'll get me some income, too.

The citizenship process is extra expensive because I'm freelance. I can't just supply a bunch of pay stubs (because I don't get them), and invoices aren't exactly valid to prove that I received the money, so I have to pay a tax accountant to do a specific form that they require, which costs 500 €. Delightful! I also have to get my divorce judgment translated (115 €) and maybe my marriage license (which I don't have, and I have no idea if the register of deeds still has it, but I'm going to have to pay to get a copy and pay to get it translated, if I need to provide it). I've got an initial consultation with a lawyer next week (225 €) to talk about my chances and find out things like whether I need to give them my marriage certificate even though I'm divorced and if my assets in Germany (savings) count for anything in the process. Then there's the citizenship test (25 €), and the application fee is 255 €.

But because I can't submit the application until I have the test score and I won't have the test score until ... the future, I can put off the expensive tax thing until the future (at which point I'll have several more months of earnings and maybe a minijob), so that's definitely for the better.

But getting my own apartment is a priority; getting a different roommate situation is the alternative.

(Ugh I also have to file my American taxes, even though I'm only going to owe for the interest on my savings account. Fucking bullshit, that is.)