How I Make Money Between Campaigns

I get sooo many questions about what people do to make money between campaigns and I finally just this past year have a great answer, I'm a Mary Kay consultant! If that sounds crazy or like something you would never do, me neither! But I fell into it and it wound up being a perfect fit for a campaign girl like me. So even if it seems a little nuts to you, just click below to find out more.

(Also if you'd like to order from me that's awesome too! Check out the link to my site below.) Campaign love and mine!

Intro


Flexbility


Money


Why I Love This Company



My original post when I discovered my Mary Kay YouTube videos

My Mary Kay website

Email me to find out more: Campaignsick@gmail.com

FEC Increases Spending Limits

This happens in off years to adjust for inflation.

However the significant change this year is... I'll let the Wall Street Journal tell you. "In April 2014, the Supreme Court threw out the $123,200 cap on what individuals could give to federal candidates and political committees over a two-year election cycle, saying the limits infringed on First Amendment free-speech rights. Within two weeks, the three national GOP party committees formed a joint fundraising committee allowing them to host events where they could request checks three times the size of what they could accept on their own. Previously, they were not barred from creating a joint committee, but the aggregate limit would usually block individuals from giving the joint effort more than each committee’s cap.Under the new limits, the joint committee—called Republican Victory Fund—can accept as much as $100,200 from an individual person or political entity."

Good. Because I was feeling super bad for rich people's inability to completely buy elections. Read all about it here.

Organizer Store- My Current Obsessions

You guys, I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned this, but when I was an organizer, we had to canvass in the snow uphill both ways. Alright not really, and thank God I came into the game just about the time VAN started printing dot maps, but there is a lot of really cool stuff out there (ahem, Iphones, prolific use of GPS, minivan) that I wish had been around when I was an organizer. Then there are the things I have and enjoy now that I can still enjoy now but really wish I had had access to as an organizer. Sorry campaign bros, because these are the things I’m currently into and I am who I am, the first three are just for us ladies (or you know people who wear dresses and makeup, you do you.)

Gwynnie Bee

Those of you who know me know that when it comes to fashion I have what might described as champagne taste and field organizer budget. I also really, really hate doing laundry, which is why it’s incredible that it took me so long to subscribe to Gwynnie Bee. What is Gwynnie Bee you ask? It’s a clothing subscription service for women sizes 10-32. You sign up for a subscription plan (which start at $35/month) and put as many items from their inventory as you like in your virtual closet. Then they send you clothes! You wear and keep a garment for as long as you like and when you’re finished you just send it back and they send you a new one!

As much as this sounds like one, this is not an ad for Gwynnie Bee and they have not asked me to promote their service in any way. I just think it’s a really good idea, especially if you’re on a campaign. It’s a relatively inexpensive way to be able to stress shop online all the time (because who has time to go to the store) and have an endlessly rotating wardrobe without ever doing laundry (because who has time to do anything?). Since signing up for Gwynnie Bee 2 months ago I must have saved at least $100 on dry cleaning. Anyway, I use it and I think its great. If I had had Gwynnie Bee back in my organizing days it would have spared me a lot of days of wearing yoga pants in the office. If you think this might be something you’d be into they offer a free month trial AND if you use this link you and I both get a free upgrade (so please use my link) happy shopping!

Maybelline 24 Hour Super Stay Lip Color

I warned you this was gonna get girly! I’m by no means implying that makeup is something you need to be spending your time/money/energy on out in the field, BUT if it is something you choose to wear all or some of the time this is a really good one. This sucka stays on ALL DAY LONG. It goes on like a lip gloss packs a big color punch and stays on (and comfortable) through multiple diet cokes or trips to Starbucks. It comes with a clear gloss chapstick thing so your lips never feel dry the way they can with other long lasting lipsticks. Best of all, it’s a drugstore brand so it’s readily available and cheap. One tube will cost you around $6 and it’s a perfect way to add a little glamour to your day with a less than 1 minute investment of time.

Diorskin Airflash Foundation

Sadly, Diorskin is on the opposite end of the price spectrum when it comes to cosemtics, but in my opinion it is worth the price. You simply mist it on your face in sort of a Z motion and in 20 seconds you have pretty much flawless coverage. (Warning check under your eyes or anywhere you might scrunch up your face during application because you might require a quick smoothing). Yes, it’s $60 a bottle (I have tried the Sephora knock-off and it is nowhere near as good quality) BUT if you are someone who a) wears foundation anyway b) feels self-conscious about redness or dark circles that are basically inevitable in the life of an organizer or c) is out canvassing a lot and therefore should be protecting your skin anyway, it is well worth the investment. That bottle lasts a long time and is an amazingly quick/convenient way to brighten your face without spending precious sleep, shower or organizing time “doing your makeup.”

Mint.com

Unlike the aforementioned items on this list, mint.com is gender expression neutral and absolutely free. You simply link your debit and credit cards to a secure account and Mint tracks where you spend your money. It allows you to set budgets (so you don’t go over your bar or coffee allotment for the month), flag items for reimbursement so you always know what you should be getting paid back, and dings you when you’re about to go over your spending. This is an extremely helpful tool for those of us who never seem to be able to save the money we intend to, and instead let it get eaten away by a Pumpkin Spice Latte here and a drunken plate of nachos there. It’s not that I condemn thccese occasional treats (quite the contrary! You need to indulge yourself in the little moments you can) but Mint does make you more aware of where your money goes so that when the urge strikes you can make an informed cost benefit analysis. (By the way for money saving on the campaign trail tips, check out this post from my friend Ed Espinoza here.)

Spotify

Okay if you’re not using Spotify who even are you? Sometimes headphones are the only escape you have from your coworkers and when my headphones are in, my Spotify is on. Think of Spotify as if Itunes and Pandora had a baby, and that baby was free. Spotify hosts a huge library of songs (I‘d say 95% of anything I ever search for) that you can listen to, save to playlists, or create radio stations from. Spotify is also home to your official CampaignSick collaborative GOTV, Field, Finance and Data playlists. This means that if you have a Spotify account you can subscribe to these lists and had share songs for other campaign nerds across the country to enjoy! For a little more a month you can enjoy these same features on your phone, including the ability to download songs, which I find well worth my while as a frequent airplane/Amtrak passenger and pedestrian commuter, but not necessarily an investment I would have made when I basically lived life in a 20 mile radius of my office. So your call on that one.

Until next time! What are your organizing must haves? Don’t forget to use my Gwynnie Bee link if you’re interested and as always…

Campaign Love and Mine,

Nancy

Help Crowdfund CampaignSick!

I am VERY EXCITED to announce crowdfunding for CampaignSick!!! Please watch the video or click the link to find out more!

Text of the video pasted below.

Thank you for all that you do!

Nancy

http://www.patreon.com/campaignsick

Patreon is like Kickstarter but rather than working toward one big project allows me to fund an ongoing project, like CampaignSick. You can pledge any monthly amount you want. Could be as low as $1. Could be more.

CampaignSick is absolutely a labor of love, but it is a labor. I view CampaignSick as a community project and that’s why I’m asking for your support.

CampaignSick readers always write in: “I wish I could buy you a beer.” So think of it like that. If everyone who reads this blog gave $8 a month, which is the cost of a beer in New York, I could quit my job, travel the country visiting campaigns and do this full time. Now I don’t expect that, but the more people who give, the more time I can spend supporting the campaign community, which is what I love.

Now that I’m working full time instead of in grad school it is hard to prioritize blogging and fostering this community that we all love. Patreon will allow me to create content on a more regular basis, answer more of your questions, involve more collaborators and maybe even do things like this, shoot videos.

I want you to know how much I appreciate you reading and also how much it would mean to me if you could give.

So, can I count on you to help crowdfund CampaignSick?

Thank you for all that you do.

Campaign Love and Mine,

Nancy

More than Half of Congress Members Are Now Millionaires

"The milestone comes as Congress is having difficulty approving benefits for people who have less, such as extending expanded unemployment benefits, funding for food stamps and increasing the minimum wage."

This story has been written about a lot over the past week so I will just say it is INSANE and highlights so much about what's wrong with our system. You know, but let's not have campaign finance reform.

Ask An Election Nerd: Taxes

Hey Nancy so this is my first time filing taxes after being a field organizer. What's the deal with deductions and all that stuff?
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Wonderful question! Sadly, I have no idea. I put this question out to my tumblr audience and received the response below. I don't know the person who responded so please bear that in mind taking his/her advice. That said, thank you so much anonymous tax knight in shining armour!
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Taxes. I’m not a tax attorney, but I do handle taxes as a legislative issue on the Hill. Sooooo … I probably don’t know what I’m talking about. :)

For your campaigner asking for help with campaign related expenses, first off, I’m assuming they were paid as an employee, not an independent contractor. I hate hate hate campaigns that pay people as contractors. It makes paying taxes hell for young campaigners. Oh, and it’s what Republicans do.

You can deduct Employee Business Expenses (mileage) AND Moving Expenses, but this would be an Itemized Deduction. Most people just take the Standard Deduction ($5,950 for a single taxpayer). In its infinite wisdom, our government has decided that Itemized Deductions are hella confusing, so they just hand out a standard deduction that says “We’re sure you did some shit that earned this, we trust you.”

So it doesn’t make sense to take the Itemized Deduction UNLESS your cost of moving PLUS the mileage are more than the Standard Deduction. You can also itemize a lot of other things, like medical expenses, state and local taxes, mortgage payments, etc. Hopefully you didn’t get medical expenses on the campaign, but those dog bites can happen.

At the IRS’s reimbursement rate of 55.5 Cents Per Mile for driving, and 23 Cents Per Mile for moving, let’s say you moved from DC to Jackson, Mississippi (Hey, I did once) for a total of 978 miles (ish). That’s $224.94. You’d have to have driven around 10,409 miles on the campaign in order to have a reason to itemize the deduction instead of taking a standard deduction. That’s a lot of driving. And that’s for the campaign. That’s not going from your apartment to the office. That’s going from one field office to another field office, or to an event, and back again. Or driving beloved yard signs to a county party in the middle of no where …

Hope this helps!

Fusion Voting: I've been meaning to talk to you about that.

Start this video at 1:32

Did you know that New York has Fusion Voting? Okay, back up. Do you know what Fusion Voting is? It's cool. I didn't either until I applied for a job with The Working Families Party in 2009. I've been meaning to write about Fusion Voting (also called Electoral Fusion) since I started this blog. Talking with colleagues this week about the rules we create when setting up electoral systems resparked my interest.

Here's how it works: WFP, or another third party, endorses a candidate already in the race. For WFP it is usually, but not always, a Democrat. Voters can vote for the candidate on either the Democratic or the Working Families Party line, and the votes for the candidate from both lines are tallied together. For example, if candidate X receives 30% of the total votes cast on the Democratic Party line and 20% of the total votes on the WFP line, while candidate Y receives 45% of the total votes on the Republican line, candidate X still wins!

In a country where we have first past the post, as opposed to party list proportional representation, critics argue that Fusion Voting doesn't make much of a difference. Voters who would have voted for the candidate on one line vote for her on the other, but ultimately the result is the same. But Fusion Voting allows voters to voice discontent with the two big political parties without "spoiling" the election ala Ralph Nader in 2000. It also allows a party like WFP to put its resources (particularly its spectacular paid canvass) behind candidates that actually have a chance of winning. Because WFP does not endorse in every election, a WFP endorsement does hold some weight in and of itself, signifying to educated voters that the endorsed candidate is someone who will take working class issues seriously. At the same time it holds elected officials accountable to these voters and their interests. A large percentage of the winner's vote on the WFP line sends the message "you were elected to fight for minimum wage, health care, affordable housing, etc and you better do it or next time you may not be so lucky."

Watch the video from 1:32 to 4:52 for a great explanation of Fusion Voting as well as the reason it is now only legal in 8 states (hint: special interests). Fusion Voting does not solve all the problems inherit in our electoral system, but it does ameliorate some. I think most Americans who pay attention would agree that we've created a system so entangled in special interests and money that it's hard to see how to pull ourselves up out the rabbit hole. So while Fusion Voting might not solve everything, at this point in our electoral history, are we in a position to turn a good idea down?

10 Rules for Savvy Campaign Staffers

A former boss/wonderful advice giver of mine sent these to me a couple of years ago. So far this is best selection I have received on making the campaign lifestyle sustainable. Enjoy!

1.Choose your candidates carefully. Do your research, make sure you’'re taking a job that you can live with on key issues and staff personality. Also make sure the campaign is funded well-enough to actually pay you.

2.Build your personal budget. You can’t accurately gauge what you can
live on if you don’t know how you’'re actually living.

3.Get your offers in writing. Best way to do this is to confirm the offer, start date and salary in an email. Gives you something to fall back on in case you get suckered into an unscrupulous campaign.

4.Negotiate. You won’t get rich, but you needn’t always negotiate only for money. Ask about healthcare, mileage, cell phone reimbursements, housing or even just a couple of weekends off during the course of the campaign. The most effective negotiation is done before you start with the campaign.

5.Find a suitable living situation. The campaign should help.

6.Keep every receipt. Many expenses are tax deductible when you live on the road. Easiest thing to do is to keep them all and let your accountant figure it out at the end of the year.

7. You cannot afford to eat every meal out or drink every night at a bar. Eat breakfast, pack a lunch. You will save $450-$500/month by trimming how much you eat out. And while grabbing a beer after work is a staple in the campaign lifestyle, it doesn’t need to be every night and it needn’t always be a bar.Grab your friends and a sixer and go to someone’'s house. Savings here are is closer to $200/month.

8. You cannot afford to buy every coffee by the cup. Get a French press and make your own, or convince your office to get a coffee maker. You'’ll save close to $150-$200 per month.

9. A good campaign office will have three basic appliances: a refrigerator, a microwave and a water cooler. A great office will have a coffee maker.

10. The three NEVER's: Never pass up an opportunity to get a good night’'s
sleep, never pass up an opportunity to eat a free meal and never, ever put anything campaign related on your credit card!

Rule number 10 should be etched in stone.

40 Days Until Election Day!

-Nancy