A tale of 2 jobs and new money moves

 Ok, so this week was a data enriched week for sure! Can't believe Monday was so long. 

So just yesterday, I had a plan to get the call center job. But this morning I feel more motivated to stick it out with current job or writing job. Namely because with call center job at $100k, my take home after maxing out my 401k is an estimated 48k!! Yikes! Now we can no longer why people can't afford their life. 

My current very modest lifestyle has expenses at $42k. 

And I live in the cheapest apartment downtown. Okay, that's not fully true. I found one for $650/mon but it's 1 mile away and near unhoused groups. But it is still always an option. 

But yeah at $48k/yr, I'm a little bit more motivated to stick it out in my current job. But that's without the manager feedback, coaching plan, or working with Ursula. Essentially, yesterday was a good day because I didn't have to interact with any of my colleagues. 

So we'll just have to wait another week to see what new data my manager brings to the table. 

But yeah running through the exercise of what my financial life would be like at a lower paying salary was a little bit of a wake up call. Yikes! Remember when $100k seemed like so much money! How do people live off anything less. I don't think I can afford my life and I'm definitely not living anywhere nice. How does my brother afford his life??

Yeah I have a new respect for the "working poor." Yeah there's no way I'd be able to save as much as I have with such a fine margin. Thank you, big salary! I can never fully appreciate you! 

But yes, with the level of job insecurity I feel with either job, I decided to super stretch my FI date to Jun 2025. Running it through an investment calculator or savings calc, I need to save 60k and have a return of around 12% to reach my FI number in 12 months. So with an achievable, albeit aggressive, goal in mind, I feel more purposeful. 

This just feels like the only answer. After quite a bit of consternation and ruminating yesterday afternoon, I identified 3 financial goals to focus on for the next 12 months:

1. Save 60k

2. Pay off my car ($25k)

3. Plan/Fund a trip to East Africa. 

I had to let Europe go and living abroad for an extended period of time. I just don't want to be working 5p to 12a at this point in my life. 

I want to focus on these items so I can feel even more financially secure in the midst of job insecurity. And it gives me something to focus on that I can control or impact by myself. While the job around feels wobbly at best these days. 

Item 1 and 2 are very achievable in my current job. With the call center job, I will have to be very creative. And it will feel a little tight, but I'm hoping it doesn't affect my social activities too much since my allowance is pretty generous. And with 1 trip and potentially East Africa to focus on, that should help. 

With the call center job, I was thinking to help pay off my car in 12 months, I'll need to pause student loan payments for 12 months. But I think even if I kept my current job, I still want to do that. It feels like free money and that makes me happy. 

So with 8k from student loans saved + 10k grant money + 5k from my old car.. it makes owning this car a bit easier to digest. I have a start date of July 15 for my new money plans because I'm thinking that is the earlies I might start call center job. And my boss will be fully on his vacation by then so I'll have an idea of where I stand with current job.

But yeah, I feel like I've kind of exhausted all my leads with trying to get an internal call center job so if this round doesn't work, I'm out of things to try at the moment. 

So those are things hanging around in my brain. 

I'm curious to figure out what credit card hacking I can do for East Africa. I'm excited to pick a date (I just went with the cheapest one on the travel site). 

So yeah, I'm a girl that loves a plan. So stick around and see how this all ends.