Personal Finances (cuz I finally have some)

For the past four weeks I have been obsessed with reading "personal finance" books. Honey finds this alternately amusing and annoying.

But as I explained to him, I'm making more money than I ever have in my life (how sad) and so I want to "maximize my dollar" and become a "millionaire before 30" and all the other mantras endemic in the personal finance lit.

But seriously, actually, I do want to be smart with the money I'm making and the money I owe. Not "smart" as in investing in Apple stocks or whatever, but smart as in "how do I get out of student loan and credit card debt, and buy a car, and take a Mediterranean cruise, as soon as possible?" (okay the cruise actually isn't on my top 10 list... for the moment.) Also I am acutely aware that I am coming late to the game of grown-up wages and have a lot of catching up to do in terms of life stuff like: buying a house eventually, actually having savings, thinking about retirement, etc.

Did I mention that I did my taxes last weekend and owe $987 federal and $102 state on the $8109 that I earned as a third party contractor? Yeah, I don't ever want to get burned like that again (though I do still believe I "needed" to take the contracting designation to get my foot in the door).

In my skimmings from the last month I've learned a few things.

1. There's no real quick way to make money. This was a total bummer to learn.

2. There are a lot of huckster authors who tell you otherwise. (Most egregious example to date: this book which essentially counsels readers to take out as many mortgages as they need to buy a house and then flip houses and borrow against the houses and after two or three years you will be a millionaire. Right.)

4. There are lots of ways to save money, but they aren't "real" revenue streams as much as tax deductions, tweaks to insurance policies, etc.

3. All the legit books have pretty much the same advice. A) figure out your budget B) pay off debt C) set up retirement arrangements asap D) save a lot of money E) get yourself a will, power of attorney, etc.

For the past month weeks I've been tracking every dollar I spend. I knew what all my regular bills are, but I didn't have a solid handle on how much I spend at the grocery store and at restaurants. I had a ballpark figure, but I have been surprised to discover that it is a tad lower than I thought.

This tracking also revealed that I didn't really know how much I spend on "other" things. This month "other" has included several co-pays for various doctors and a large amount of home furnishing stuff. (Who knew? but seriously, it was time to unpack my moving boxes. From July.) Looking are previous bank statements and credit card statements, this "other" category seems to be my money pit. It's not that I'm extravagant--I would argue that all the clothes that I bought in the summer were necessary for my new job, and my conference trips in the fall were necessary for professional development. But it is interesting to see that each month there are (sometimes large) one-off expenses that I wasn't considering when I began figuring out my finances.

On a semi-related note, I got my year end summary from my credit card recently and was extremely (smugly, even?) validated to figure out that for all the car renting I did last year, it was still cheaper than owning a car. [I don't own a car and maintained a long distance relationship for half of last year. After Honey and I moved in together we were still doing a lot of renting for various family and friends events.]

So here are my favorite books to date. Suze Orman's Young, Fabulous and Broke book and her Women and Money book. (Caveat, do not, for the love of all things sane, actually try to watch her on Oprah or her own show. In person she is kinda obnoxious. I discovered this after I had pledged my undying love to her and started e-stalking her. It was kinda a let down.) I like the YF&B book because it is very much targeted for where I am currently. The Women and Money book is good because it has very detailed lists of how to accomplish certain objectives. The first three or four chapters of W&M are blahblah (a lot about how women are emotional with money and how they need to break free of depending on someone else to handle their money, etc.). It's really the step-by-step lists in the final chapter that I found most helpful.

Jane Bryant Quinn has a massive tome (1264 pages!) which gives the low down on pretty much everything you want to know. I gathered some good nuggets, but alot of it is general reference more than process. It explains alot of the cogs behind the process, which is great to know, but there are less "game plans" in this book. So if I want to know more about money markets, I'll probably start with Jane Bryant Quinn, but follow Suze's steps.

There are a lot of bad books out there--condescending ("Ladies, say shoo to Jimmy Choo!"), harebrained ("Clip coupons and make $30,000 this year!"), unhelpful ("Psychological Urges of Spending"). Need I go on?

I think I've come to the end of the line on "personal finances" which I'm sure makes Honey extremely relieved. But this has been an extremely valuable month--I feel like I totally "get it" and have a plan. Thank you public library.

Happy Birthday On the Hunt!

Happy birthday to On the Hunt!

This blog has been kicking it for 364 days. And the only reason I won't be posting on the real anniversary date is because I have a work event tomorrow evening and will be utterly exhausted by the time I get home. Whodathunk I'd be whining about work dinners a year ago? (insert happy dance)

Here's a quick list of highlights from the last year:

4 fields researched: Academic administration, entrepreneur, federal employee, private sector

3 jobs applied for: short term folklorist gig, research policy center, PMF.

2 different interviews types experienced: informational interview, job interview.

1 job landed: research policy center.

3 different statuses within same workplace: part time contractor, part time employee, full time employee.

0 raises.

2 Guest blogs: KSAs and networking.

7 book reviews of job hunting, professionalization, personal finance books.

1 new set of skills learned.

2 “hello real world” money moments: student loans, retirement.

What's on deck for this coming year? I have a feeling a lot more about feeling my way through the workplace. How much "take home" work is too much? Raise conversation redux. How do I financially become an upstanding adult? Hopefully there will be no entries on workplace conflict, unemployment, or involuntary job hunting from scratch.

Happy hunting my friends, and keep reading!

Hello Full Time, I've Heard So Much About You

Oh dear, it has happened again--a lapsed blog.

Well, to catch you up. Remember back in mid-January when I mentioned the departure of a colleague and a verbal offer to go full time? It's a done deal. Actually, it has been since February 1st.

Woohoo! As exciting this is, I must admit, full time is draining. Maybe my exhaustion is exacerbated by this lovely midwestern weather we've been getting lately (but no blizzards yet where I live [sad face]), but I got to tell say, full time wipes me out. Before I was working about 3.5 days a week, with the other time spent "revising" my dissertation and doing life stuff. Losing my day home shouldn't be a big deal, but man.

Anyway, my job gets cooler and cooler by the day. In the conversations leading up to my Letter of Agreement for FT, Boss and I had several very productive chats about what I wanted to be doing, what she was thinking for me, etc.

* I have found one of the major differences between working as a graduate employee/student and a "real person" is that I am expected to take initiative. Especially when it comes to charting my place in the workplace. I am still struggling with "stepping up" and not just waiting for Boss to give me assignments.

For example, from our conversations re: FT, my boss told me about some ideas she had for me. But these were big ideas, like "we should be doing more in local communities." What does that mean in real, implementable terms? This has been my job to figure out. So after a bunch of conversations with co-workers and some work at home (cringe), I am now developing a brand new direction for my workplace which I will be in charge of--writing the grants, developing the programs, etc. It's totally scary, because if this doesn't work, it's on me. But if this does pan out, it will be majorly cool.

So with my transition to full time and leading this new direction, I now have a new title! "Director of Outreach." Cha ching!

The one thing that did not come with the transition is a raise. I pushed, but not very hard. I did get Boss to commit to reopening the raise conversation in 3 months (I even said, "okay, I'll put it on the calendar." She did not like that). I didn't pursue the raise too much because I'm taking on a lot of new duties and ending a lot of former ones. I felt that I didn't have much of a basis to ask for more money on work I hadn't even started. In 3-6 months I will have lots of new work documented (all of it demonstrating my superior abilities, of course) and then I feel like I'll be in a better position to negotiate several things--a raise, the workplace paying my phone bill, the ability to work at home as desired.

So for now I'm making $37,500, before taxes, plus paying 15% of my medical, eye, dental and life insurance. No retirement plan, but I am now salaried which means I get a consistent paycheck every two weeks (no more of this tracking my hours nonsense, yay!).

I put my salary and benefits out there because I think it is important for novice workers, especially women, to know what kinds of salaries/wages we're making. One of the books I read this summer makes a compelling argument that the decorum around not talking earnings consistently leads to women being underpaid. FYI: I am totally underpaid right now considering my level of education, my job duties, and my workplace performance so far. Based on the salaries similarly positioned employees at the nearby University earn, a fairer income for me would be more like $45,000. And this is low. In five years, I think it should be more like $60,000. But I realize this is all going to take time.

So hello new job! The money thing will always be a sticking point, but besides that, everything is awesome!