March 9, 2012
Balancing acts in adulthood
I’ve been enjoying the conversations over at Wandering Scientist on work life balance. As I teeter into my thirties, I’ve been examining some of the financial and professional choices I’ve made during this decade and reflecting on how effective those philosophies have been and whether they will continue to hold true for the upcoming decade. I suspect that life and money and career in my thirties will be just as interesting a trip, but beyond that? Well, so far I’ve been terrible at prognosticating so I’ll just leave it at that.
As for my twenties ….
These were absolutely the foundation years: completing the final years of undergrad, deciding to hold off on graduate school until I knew better what I wanted out of it, throwing myself into my career at full tilt while digging out of debt and then building up a nest egg. My approach to my career and my money was the same: more is better.
Philosophically, the natural, deeply ingrained, unthinking element was an intrinsic need to achieve something, a drive to have a discernable growth pattern, to do something that seemed tangible. I wanted to build a career, I wanted to have achieved something substantive.
The logical, considered, and reasoned plan was to aim for a position where my work-life balance wouldn’t be dictated by the company because I was highly placed enough where they didn’t care about niceties like when I showed up or how many hours I worked as long as the job was done well. Essentially, I wanted to achieve the ability to talk terms with the company I worked for as long as I was an employee.
***
In Oil and Garlic’s post, A Precarious Balance, she discusses the ignored constraints in finding work-life balance when your income doesn’t stretch to buying flexibility and help. She lists a number of things that one can do to earn or achieve more flexibility from her perspective as a non-manager with a mid-level salary in a HCOLA. That combination probably describes a fair number of us who simply don’t have the ability to buy out of the choices that we have to manage to run households and feed mouths, day to day.
Meanwhile, she notes: At my company, those in manager positions and above enjoy a higher autonomy. They don’t have to ask permission to work from home. They also have the money for nanny and cleaning help, something that my household has paid for but at a great sacrifice (and only temporarily). They can still enjoy many luxuries like massages, travel and dining out. True, they have greater responsibilities, too, and they’ve earned it. But their solutions often aren’t applicable to those those in lower income brackets. In other words, they can buy some balance while many people don’t have that same privilege.
I very much agreed. Having worked many years in retail and other similarly low-wage environments while going to school, I’d observed very early on the vulnerabilities of being in the middle and lower tiers of any organization. One typically has less negotiating power in terms of responsibilities, is considered more expendable or is less valued as an asset to the company, and blends in with the rest of the equivalent employees holding the same role.
In that position, an individual’s power, and the choices one would like to make for oneself tend to lie in the advocacy and kindness of an immediate superior and his or her ability to persuade at least one or more rungs above if flexibility isn’t part of the company policy.
***
In the long-term, that was far too slim a reed for me to rest my life and my family’s lives on, particularly when I had the additional concern of a chronic illness for which there were no immediate prospects for improvement.
Superficially, need and circumstance dictated that I simply earn a living but I was compelled to steer my career trajectory as steeply as I could, as early as I could, while building a strong reputation in my chosen field. My theory was that should I be derailed for any length of time, for any reason, that reputation would serve to smooth my way.
Cloud, of Wandering Scientist confirms, whatever choice you make to take a break for family reasons after you’ve established yourself, you’re usually starting from a better place:
Once you have kids, you can decide whether or not you want or need to ease up on your career, but whatever you decide, it will be easier to keep your career viable if you have a strong reputation built in your earlier years. Whether you keep working or take a break, that reputation will serve you well. I think that one reason I haven’t suffered from much “working moms are slackers” bias in my own career is that I have a sterling reputation for productivity- and have maintained it. But we are also actively recruiting someone right now who is coming back after about 5 years off with young kids. We actually sought her out and asked her if she was ready to come back, on the basis of having been impressed with her work before she took the break.
Details will differ a bit across industries but the basis makes sense to me – someone who had a solid reputation before taking a break would have a leg up on someone who hadn’t established one.
***
My personal net worth has gone from -$50,000 in family debt to around $100,000 in assets over the course of nine years in addition to paying for all living expenses for a family of four. While it’s no great shakes, it’s certainly a fair start at a real financial basis with which to start a family.
I haven’t taken a break yet, and I don’t know if and when I (or we) will decide that it’s time to, but right now, I’m in a strong building phase of my career and striving for higher earning power. It’s only partly a joke that I’m trying to outearn PiC before the end of this year. That’s partly ego, and partly practicality. If I’m the higher earner, and we start a family, there’s a stronger case for him to stay home with the kids! 😉
In the end, my choices throughout my twenties were tailored to setting the scene and creating opportunities for freedom and better choices in the future.
October 25, 2011
As much work and as costly as Doggle has been in the totting up of his bills over the months, there are some pretty amazing things about this dog that makes me say it’s totally worth it. Also, I like to point out that if you really want to think about the costs, you have to think about the FULL picture, and that includes considering what kind of dog we could have gotten since we did get really lucky with the pup we brought home.
Remember, this big man was abandoned for at least a year before we brought him home, and we have no clue what his history was before that. He could have been a shivering wreck inside his head and ready to burst out with all kinds of crazy after we took him home, just hiding it behind a stoic face when we first met him. It’s not that dogs are duplicitous, it’s just that when they first meet you, all the nuances of their personality aren’t going to be evident. That was certainly true of Doggle. It took him about three months to come out from his shell entirely and show that he actually had a personality lurking underneath.
Happily, most of that livelier personality is more pleasant than not. There’re also some rather … limpet-like parts to his personality. It’s usually cute but … sometimes it’s not.
How Doggle Costs Money:
Oh Vet Bills (Medication/Supplements): Doggle has been to the vet every other month since he’s been with us. We’ve spent over a thousand dollars on his medical bills so far. *_*
Carpeting: His poor staggering legs don’t deal very well with the slippery floors so we’ve laid down new (to us) rugs. Thank you, Craigslist and Costco for relatively cost effective rugs and padded squishy mats.
Food: He just keeps on eating. And I’ve turned into a bit of a sucker about buying him a stock of treats. Yeah. I’m that dog mom. I never was before.
Car upgrade: But let’s be honest. It wasn’t like PiC hadn’t been looking for his car upgrade for several years.
How He Doesn’t Cost:
Furniture: He doesn’t mark on anything at home, thank goodness. He’s embarrassed us in places where other dogs have previously marked their territory as that lights up that little area in his brain that says “oh! I should pee here too!” But as our home has been unmarked, so it stays. Whew.
He also doesn’t chew, scratch or (mostly) climb. Occasionally he takes a freak into his head that maybe he should try to get on the sofa. Then he gets put in timeout.
Shoes/Bags/Socks/Clothes/Books/Small Items: He also doesn’t steal, chew or destroy any of these things.
People Food: He’s not allowed to have any. Not that that has diminished his interest in our cooking activities or eating at the table or anywhere else one whit. But he also doesn’t beg. He’s allowed to hang around and sniff within a certain limit.
Toys: He’s still not interested. He’s just starting to get the barest inkling of how to socially interact in play with other dogs or people. I’m trying to teach him and expose him to other big dogs because small dogs around here are frankly, brats, who mostly don’t want anything to do with him if they’re not being snappy, snippy, yappy and their owners just don’t socialize or train them out of those nasty behaviors. Bigger or younger dogs really like him, though, and that’s really nice.
Energy: 95% of the time, he has amazing indoor manners. Which is to say, he is incredibly quiet and mellow inside. If you’re hanging out, he’s hanging out. If you’re sleeping, he’s sleeping. If you’re cooking, he’s in the way. But he doesn’t bark, he doesn’t scratch, dig, growl, or generally freak out in any way.
2% of the time he has little freakouts where he goes into corners and huddles or has to be on the sofa which is a no-no. 3% of the time he is really really really happy you just got home or we’re going for a walk. That is a really manageable percentage, in my mind.
Extra Baths and Carpet Cleaning: He only gets baths on our schedule which varies between every 3-6 weeks. We can do this because he doesn’t roll in the dirt, he doesn’t rub himself in gross stuff he finds on his walks, and while he might get himself a little in his poorly-aimed, old man spatter, he lets us wipe him down after every walk and wipe his paws as well. Docile as anything.
At the end of the day ….
I’m so glad we’ve got him. We have made a lot of adjustments. We factor him into the morning and evening routines to take the time to take him out twice a day, (but that’s all we have to do – we have neighbors who walk their yappers FIVE times a day!) We either travel with him by car, one of us stays home with him, or have to make arrangements for him. We mostly do the first two, though. I’m hopelessly attached. 😉
July 19, 2011
Poor Doggle.
He’s going to have to live past 22 at this rate to amortize the amount we’ve put into him this early on. We had to take him to the vet again because he’s exhibited some joint pain and I wanted to be sure there wasn’t an injury that was readily apparent to the vet that I was missing.
It turned out that while the pain was quite real, the vet couldn’t be sure whether it was a joint or soft tissue injury without manipulation under sedation and x-rays. He was in far too much pain to relax for that exam, but given his slow improvement throughout the week, I decided we would opt to treat with pain meds, ice and R&R for a few weeks first before committing to $500 worth of diagnostics.
Either way, we needed a good pain medication while he recovered even if it was just a minor injury because his discomfort hadn’t faded after a couple of days, even if the symptoms had improved a little.
If he noticeably declines in the next few days, or at any point during his prescribed bed rest, then we’ll just take him in immediately.
Happily, he loves his meds and doesn’t mind the icing at all. Strange pup.
Tallying up his tab:
This visit: $106
Doggle Chariot, split w/PiC because honestly, PiC’s been considering a new-to-us car for years: $5000
Month One: Coming Home: $835
July 14, 2011
Well. Now we’ve dunnit.
The situation: After setting the date for a car purchase in 2012, and swearing up and down that nothing was going to happen on that front until we had that settled, what happens? PiC finds a potential Doggle Chariot.
I was pretty frustrated with the thwarting of my financial plans. But then I decided that was a knee-jerk reason not to buy and self-centered to boot (my finances, my decisions) so I sat down with spreadsheets and crunched the numbers until I had a clearer view of where we both stand.
Financing was never an option, period. That’s not something I’m willing to compromise on – paying interest (unnecessarily) in order to defer payments means you can’t afford that purchase.
The Analysis: Considering our cash position, I didn’t really want to spend the money. [I know, when do I ever?] But the unwillingness was based on the fact that, if our finances were merged, our net worth would not be at a place that I would feel comfortable making a major purchase. But as we’re not married yet, the monies are not merged. And even if they were, discomfort or not, this purchase would not significantly hurt our big picture goals. True, it wouldn’t do us any favors for the year, and it will be a pain to juggle around cash for property taxes but, it wouldn’t actively put us in a bad position and I’ve also always been cash heavy so we wouldn’t be breaking CDs or other funds to pull this cash out.
From that perspective, if this was the right car, and if the seller accepted our offer, the amount could be under ten thousand dollars, paid in full, in cash, therefore not a financially disastrous decision.
We also don’t intend to carry three cars on the insurance so his car would have to be sold, and that would make up some of the purchase price.
Considering the wedding plans that aren’t coming along but would still need to be paid for at some point when it does come together, I was still on the fence, but agreed that we were in a position to at least look at the car in case it happened to be a well-maintained vehicle that was worth spending on earlier than originally planned.
Of course, the car was not only in great shape with low mileage, and much of the major maintenance had already been done on it early and the work checked out.
The Outcome: I should stop poopooing PiC’s Craigslist stalking, he managed to find the nicest people to buy a new car from. Not only did they accept a really good (for us) offer, they accommodated our needs for the various bits leading up to sale since we weren’t terribly close to each other and even had purchased road trip supplies for Doggle as gifts when the sale was finalized, knowing we were buying it for Doggle.
Now we’re able to have more than two people plus 1 dog per car ride, which is helpful. Most importantly, Doggle’s much more comfortable getting in and out of the Chariot now, and has more room to move around, although now you mostly only see his big head if you look in the rearview because he likes to be Right In The Middle. This is much better for his joints. He was always a bit scrabbly trying to get into my car and you could see him visibly heaving himself up into the backseat. Now he’s still leaping but it’s much more graceful and puts far less stress on his body.
My Realization: It’s still really hard for me to talk through major or minor financial decisions with adults and trust that they are open and willing and committed and going to make the right decisions. I can talk, but I can’t trust. It’s still an emotional imperative that I must be the one to make the decisions at the end of the day or suffer the consequences. Thanks, family. And I’ve always been hands-off with PiC’s finances, outside of sharing general (or specific if asked) information. This transition is a bit tough. But it’s something I’m working on.
July 9, 2011
We’re now in Month Two of Doggledom. I’m like a proud mama who can’t stop bragging on her child, even though he’s odd and slightly bratty.
He doesn’t bark, except twice at mailmen, and one muted w–oof! at PiC the other night when he was sooo excited about … I think … getting mocked about being excited? That last was the first time I’d ever heard him bark. Excitement for all!
He hangs out with us all the time, quietly, and mostly in a silly half-needy, half-but-it’s-ok-if-you-ignore-me kind of way. Underfoot as close as you can get, but mutually ignoring.
He loves to follow an inch behind you when you’re trying to Swiffer; double points if he manages to predict the direction you were going to turn and gets in the way. He’s really good at this game.
We discovered there are actually two treats he really enjoys, out of all the treats that we’ve offered, so much so that he’s now showing emotion beyond the staid ear perks and ear-downing of happy. He also gets very very conflicted when offered the choice between a walk and the treat.
Doggle’s thought process (Lots of running around involved): Treat? Walk? Treat? Walk? Treat ON walk? No? Finish treat, then walk? No? Walk now? Treat ON walk? No again? Walk now now? *drops treat* Auuughhhh nooooo don’t leave me I’m coo-mm–in–gg!!
Unfortunately, he’s not just camera-shy, he’s kind of camera-angry. Camera-resentful? Takes after his mom that way. If he sees the camera come out, he walks away from you with an eye pip cocked.
How dare you? his gait says. He hears a click that might be a camera? Head snaps up, eyes gleam with a balefulness that makes you apologize before you’ve even hidden the evidence. Because you want to hide the evidence.But at the same time, he’s the gentlest, most tolerant soul I’ve seen for an older dog with a hidden past.Children of all ages and sizes don’t faze him, car rides of any length don’t either, any multiplicity of other dogs make him cheerful. Strangers will use him as a training tool for their puppies. Seriously. We’ll be eating outdoors somewhere, and someone will use the fact that he’s completely calm and unmoved to train their yapping, flippy-outty, over-excited baby dogs to “calm,” “sit,” “it’s ok,” right in front of him.
You know he doesn’t actually necessarily love it when I bear-hug him, but he lets me anyway. (He would prefer it if I’d stop, probably. Not gonna happen.) He’s definitely got some Happy Place in his head and he’s a perma-resident.
After regaling my oldest friends with stories of his depression during our weekend without PiC, his clear designation of PiC as the alpha or his favorite, doesn’t like my walks so will go to PiC if I hold the leash, one of them asked: How does it feel to be rejected by your own dog? *snicker*
Better ask PiC how it feels to be Doggle’s BESTEST FRIEND EVAR. He didn’t think there was a possibility that the Doggle would choose him!
He’s a love, though, and comes to me for quiet company.
Word to the wise: The dental chews from Costco reek to high heaven. But Doggle, who again, barely showed registered emotion on a normal scale for the past year and then some about anything was ecstatic about them. He’s even now voluntarily sitting at random times, possibly hoping for a treat. Or a walk. We can’t tell, but it’s pretty funny. There’s hope this old dog is learning us new tricks yet. 😉
Ed Note: I forgot to mention, you know how I know he likes me? Even if PiC is his favorite? He lets me alligator face him. 🙂 You know. Put my hands under his chin and push up so he has the fattest-looking alligatorey, beestung face ever. He just squidges his eyes shut and goes with it. Love. This. Guy!
June 11, 2011
I feel like we’ve had our Doggle for ages. In reality, it’s only been a few weeks so it’s a good time to see for the best to start counting up the first month costs to see the damages in stark bleeding red. Just in case anyone was under any illusions about how “fun” and “exciting” and “easy” it would be to adopt a pet. 😉
Our tab started at $290 from the gate, and that was before any creature comforts for our new beloved beastie.
With that in mind, and my off the cuff refusal to spend $500 in the first month of dog ownership, my (insane) quest was to gather all the most needed things on the list for under $100 since we still had to visit the vet, he had some meds to continue, and a license to obtain.
We were lucky that he’s generally so low maintenance in the daily-occupation department. He hasn’t been a toy-loving pup, he’s uniformly ignored them at his foster mum’s for the past several months and other dog companionship isn’t terribly important to him either. I don’t have to feel guilty that he’s not getting a sibling any time soon! Turns out, dog stuff has gotten much more expensive since I last shopped for it.
The list of Stuff:
1. A bed: he squished the life out of a gifted bed with all his huffy-puffy flopping (see below) so he needed a secondary.
2. 2 1 leashes (I normally keep a backup and he’s still learning leash manners so we may eventually own 2. Will just buy one for now). $20, plus tax
3. A secondary collar for training, $21, plus tax
4. Food, $30
5. A car hammock, the interim solution instead of a new car. $40, plus tax
6. Food and water bowls. $30, elevated bowls as he’s an older, taller dog
7. Shampoo
8. Comb & Brush. $19
9. A tie down $18
Total: $250
That’s a pretty spectacular fail on the budgeting front. Economizing on the really little things, we don’t actually need a second leash – he’s a puller but not out of control. He had a grooming right before we picked him up so I opted out of buying shampoo, I’ll be brushing him out regularly and since PiC really doesn’t want his fur stopping up the drains (he’s got some mega-thick fur that clumps) and we don’t have a yard, we’ll be bathing him at the local Pet Food Expresses. Oh. Yes.
Baths: $45 for 4.
By the by, my pricematching reveals that Amazon is failing spectacularly where it was once brilliant at undercutting the B&M retailers on many of these items.
His visit to the vet included an exam, baseline bloodwork because of some previous history, medications, vaccinations, treatment and came out to: $250.
Three weeks in, and we’ve clocked $835 on the dog cost meter. We still have licensing to go but that won’t be more than $36. If PiC was unconvinced before about my setting the emergency and maintenance fund at a $5,000 minimum, he’s come over now. I’m about to kick that up to $10,000 at this rate!
Because this guy is older, and has had at least one questionable bit of medical history, he’s more prone to the age-related illnesses. The visit was only up about $80 due to the medical history and not really an age thing, though, any dog with Of course, we are already ridiculously attached to him, and it makes sense to set aside a huge e-fund for him. I’m not willing to make serious medical decisions based solely on finances.
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As to the Doggle himself, he’s been a hoot. He’s been with us visiting family and friends, north and south, and he’s been coming out of his shell with each step. The lucky fella was gifted a bed and bag of goodies on his first day home by our fellow dog loving blogger friends and he’s slowly deciding that chewies are good times. But already he’s getting curfewed – no chewies after 10 pm.
He’s trying to train us, particularly his Alpha human, that packs must always travel together and therefore bedtime is the same for everyone. Safety issue, perhaps?
He’ll go stare at PiC, wagging his tail slowly, a grin on his face, turn and pace to bed, whoomp into his bed. Wait fifteen seconds to see if it worked. PiC doesn’t appear? Repeat. Over and over and over … and over. Night after night, he tries to wheedle PiC to conformity. This tactic literally smooshes the stuffing out of his beds. (And does not work as PiC is not trainable.)
It’s entertaining because he doesn’t whine, bark, growl or otherwise vocalize frustration. Just whoomps wherever he’s making his stand. He’s pretty great all around, truth be told, mostly quiet, though almost puppy-like on occasion when he catches a scent or sees a smaller dog he’d really like to meet. Good with strangers, people or canine, he’s like a cat during the day, hanging out while we work and morphs back to a goofy dog, loping over pleased as punch to see us when we come home at night. He was definitely not a fan of the air dryer when we bathed him and probably not so much of being washed in loads of soapy water for fifteen minutes either but he still let us do our thing without making any real fuss.
I’ve been evil ear lady since he came home, and though he almost matches me pound for pound, I can basically – under protest – clean and medicate his ear solo. We wrassle, but I still get the job done between an iron grip and a strategically broken up Pupperoni stick.
It’s been a huge change working our lives around his needs. His routine is our new routine, he has to go out twice a day because we have no yard, and we are learning how to live with a new family member whose needs we have to plan around. But to be perfectly honest, he’s been well worth it. Even if we do Swiffer three times a day now. 😉
March 28, 2011
Last year, I’d started a couple SmartyPig Goals mostly to take advantage of their slightly higher than ING/Citi interest rates, and because I wanted to give their cash out options a whirl.
They offer the following withdrawal options:
A: redeem all the cash, transferring principal and interest, directly into your bank account;
B: redeem your entire goal into a gift card retailer that has partnered with SmartyPig which gives you between 2-11% cash back to your account
C: loading the cash on a SmartyPig Cash Rewards Card
D: Combination of the above.
When time came to smash open the Travel piggy bank, I did so with great aplomb recently to fund our upcoming Thailand trip.
At first, I only intended to go with Option A, but got greedy and decided to do a combination of A and B. Knowing that I may well need a new business suit in the next year or so, I “stole” $200 for Banana Republic gift cards which nets 10% cash back, and another $200 for Amazon gift cards which earned 3% cash back. Neither set of gift cards may be spent anytime soon; locking hard-earned cash into store currency is only a smart move if that currency is then combined with stellar deals when the purchase is an actual need, not just a want.
In the meantime, the cash will be paid back to the travel fund from the expense fund since we maintain a strict separation of fun and seriousity around here.