Passed Over for a Promotion

So, here's what happened the other day at work. Background first. Every time need has arisen that I can fill, I have volunteered to do it. I am the only person on my team that has trained on all the products we service. ALL OF THEM. I've worked on three teams now and I'm the only one that has done so on the whole team. When service levels are low, they switch people around to provide coverage. I have been willing and eager. I kept thinking at some point it would be reflected in my compensation with a raise or a promotion. It's been 2.5 years and nothing. When I was offered a champ role, a pseudo-leadership role, I asked around and was told it didn't come with a bump in pay, so I declined it (later discovered this wasn't completely true). I already felt I was being asked to do more without commensurate compensation.

What I didn't think of then was I could have asked for a promotion and or raise. So young professionals out there, remember to ask! Companies apparently don't just offer you more money because YOU think you deserve it. I believe at least one of my co-workers did this because when she became champ, she was promoted to Senior and that comes with a raise. Because that wasn't the norm, I just didn't think to do it. Also, I've been trying to live a life more ordinary and just learning to adjust instead of trying to steer. It results in less heartache in the end and 80% of the time, it works just fine. This would be on time when maybe it didn't?

Read more: here and here.

Anyways, for the sake of the overshare, here's what I emailed my manager:

I am interested in the role of Senior Widgetmaker. In the event that my contributions to the team in service to the client are fragmented due to management turnover, a few are highlighted below. I copied Martin since he’s been my manager most recently for a longer stretch of time and can vouch for some of the events listed.
Some notable contributions:
*   Seamless and (quick) transition across pods and managers
*   Training on all products, including AMD (one of our products)
*   Covering all lines during periods of high volume and need
*   Weekend coverage until vacancy was filled
*   Holiday coverage
*   Pager coverage during holidays when team members asked to switch
*   Pinch hitting when supplemental evening coverage needed
*   Assistance with product recall
*   Disaster coverage for replacements during hurricane season
*   Excellent customer feedback
*   Great client feedback
*   Social committee
*   Training new team members for night and weekends (even receiving a Badge in the Performance Management System)

Please let me know if there are additional responsibilities I can take on or contributions I can make to the team or in service to the client to be considered for Senior Widgetmaker."

Her reply:

Thanks for sending below and communicating your interest in wanting to be Senior Widgetmaker. I am keeping Martin attached to this conversation, because he will doing 1:1s with you while I am out on maternity leave, and will be fully engaged in your development plan.

Please review attached job description for a Senior role from HR, as that is the first and last step with the role to be finalized. Please send me your CV as well, so I can review it...

 

Me: Really!

We literally all do the same job and people get promoted for reasons unknown.
A couple weeks later, this appeared in my inbox:

Senior Widgetmaker Promotions:
-Grant: He has been an integral part of our CV pod serving in a leadership role as a product champ, assisting the client with launch of Live Connect, training/mentoring staff, and traveling to assist our team in Mexico City.  His dedication to the team and relationship with the client...
-Christine: She quickly showcased her exceptional customer service skills and positive attitude which she continues to bring each day. Christine has been recognized on multiple occasions by the client and her calls played during client meetings. She serves as a training liaison for the CV team, is cross-trained on many products, mentors staff, and has traveled to both Mexico City and Wilmington to assist the team...
-Karina has been an integral part of the team since the initiation of the project. This year Karina has taken on the role of additional champ responsibilities which has allowed her the opportunity to work closely with different team members.  Currently, Karina serves the team as being a product champion for 3 complex products. In her role as Champ and as a member of this team since launch, Karina frequently provides suggestions on program resources or processes and is ready to provide resolutions to any issues that may arise. Karina has built strong relationships with the client over the years. She has earned their trust and they value her opinion on daily operations...
-Monica:  was one of the first product champs.  Traveling to the Widget Making Factory to learn her new role, Monica returned to RTP, sharing her expertise and best practices with the team.  Shortly thereafter, Monica helped to develop and deliver the first advanced MIR training.  More recently, Monica transitioned champ roles and quickly came up to speed to support another product.  In both of her champ roles, Monica has developed and maintained strong client relationships, and she quickly impressed the client with her knowledge and proficiency.  Monica is also a mentor and resource ...

Ugh the world! 
The Single Girl - 11 pts (I mean let's not be hyperbolic here 😀)
The World - all the points!

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I Got 99 Problems and This Job Ain't One: The End of My Side Hustle

Welcome back to My Early Retirement Journey. As you may know, my side hustle ended the first week of May 2018. Hooray! I started the side hustle because in my initial states of early retirement research, the prevailing thought was either earn more or spend less. I had few expenses I could easily cut as very early on in My Journey, I valuated each expense with the amount of soul sucking it would require and the decision not to spend was often an easy one to make. So I decided to earn more. A job I had applied for 2 years ago called me, and like a human, I thought it was kismet. It wasn't.

During the four months (Spring Semester 2018) of my side hustle, I was in a few too many near miss car crashes. Either because I was rushing to and fro; trying to avoid peak commuting hours; sweating through that poorly designed exit ramp by the college; or swerving around young drivers in the college parking lot. I filled up my gas tank more often than once every 2.5 weeks;  I would say I was at once every 10 days. I even got vertigo twice and was miserable for a sum total of 7 days because of vertigo symptoms.

I worked 50 hour weeks and was only getting paid for 43. I worked weekends and during my lunch breaks grading and planning. I had to provide more customer service after leaving my day job working in customer service. I had to respond to stupid emails from whiny students. I had to do administrative things - printing, copying, creating a classroom resource site, filling out forms. I had to complete a 3 hour training for which I was not compensated. Did I mention grading? Good. It bears mentioning again. The amount of menial tasks was life-sucking. I underestimated it even though I had taught before a decade or so ago. Class was Tuesdays and Thursdays from 5:45 pm to 7:25 pm. I usually got home around 8p or later. Even though I was tired from a long day, it took me a little longer to fall asleep because my mind would still be racing from a night of molding young minds. Ha. It was harder to shut my brain off at night because even though I hated it, I was still looking for ways to be better. Even on days when I didn't have the class, I had to work late to make up time I lost from leaving my day job early to get to class. I really don't know what kept me from quitting. I really hated the first 2 months.

But education keeps seducing me, so I persisted. Stupid, stupid woman. There is some pull teaching has on me. I am a failed public school teacher with a $300,000 student loan debt to prove it.  Teaching middle school in my twenties was one of the worst experiences of my life, and I've lived through an actual civil war. Obviously I'm being hyperbolic. It was a pretty terrible 1st world experience, but war, really?  I digress. Something about progress and improvement and self-reliance really gets me excited. So far my interest in it hasn't proven to relay well to the classroom. Before giving up the ghost, I tried classroom teaching, subbing, tutoring, academic summer camps, college prep tutoring and I never found my niche. So in 2011, at age 27, I changed fields altogether, and now I work in healthcare. Still, I keep coming back to education. I applied for the job that started this whole train wreck, didn't I?  Despite the constant #fail, there's some aspect of teaching and education that interests me and I haven't quite teased it out yet.  Perhaps, I need to dig deeper and really figure out what about this field attracts me. Is it just the joy I used to experience as a learner? If so, how can I capture that essence again without owing the US Department of Education any of my unborn children or unharvested organs? More importantly, at this point does it really matter?

The Haul:

• I think I made about $1,600 after taxes for the 4 month course.


• I saved on entertainment because I was too tired to watch much TV. I ended up cancelling cable February 1, 2018 because of this.


• It motivated me to start this blog. I don't remember how exactly but I wrote it down as a pro when I started this list 3 months ago. I remember feeling really compelled to start blogging in the midst of the side hustle struggle - maybe to air my grievances or maybe as another attempt at a side hustle that wasn't so soul-sucking.


• I realized what I likely won't do whenever I retire, early or otherwise. In my dreamer's mind, I had pictured going back to education as a side hustle/hobby. One of my favorite college professors who retired still does tutoring at the college where he taught for x years. I thought that sounded like a nice way to pass the time.

Overall, the side hustle had a negative impact on my quality of life.  But would I do it again? If I had to, yes. If I were offered both the night section and the online section, that might make it more worthwhile. As for now, the answer isn't as resounding of a no as it was during the first two months. As with most things, I adjusted. But I wouldn't want to do it again, if that makes sense.

BONUS!
I pushed this post back so much, by the time it was scheduled to publish I had the student evaluations.  I even included the negative ones for your voyeuristic browsing pleasure. No shame in this side hustle game 😉.

Just a snippet from a 3 page eval.

Only took out my name.

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Related Content:

• Financial Update | June 2018


• What The Heck Does That Mean: A Beginner's Guide to Investment Vocabulary

Financial Update | June 2018 Income and Expenses

So I've been experimenting with lots of different spreadsheets in the last week or so.  I used my June 2018 income and expenses to tryout a few more. It turns out Microsoft Excel has loads of templates to try. It's been really neat to see it visualized in so many ways.

Without further ado, here's a recap of my income and expenses for Jan to Jun 2018.  I don't currently intend to publish these monthly namely because my income and expenses don't fluctuate with any significance month-to-month, but I had so much fun with Excel that I had to share! Plus this marks six-months of my being more intentional with my finances.

Income.
Bonus monthly charts! It took me awhile to figure out how to make the graph I wanted. During those trials, I ended up creating different charts of my income sources this year (Jan to Jun 2018).

 

Click to enlarge.

Notes on income.
For the spring semester, I had a side hustle as an adjunct professor. I dove head first  into FIRE. I don't know that I'd do it again in fall. Am mildly interested in maybe some other way to earn part-time money online.

Refunds are mostly from saving receipts and making a point to return things I don't use (including food).  The lowest month was Jun ($8) and highest was Apr ($100).

Expenses.
I still haven't decided on a good spreadsheet. This data was extracted from a Google Sheets doc that lists all my expenses over way too many categories for Jan to Jun 2018, but I like it enough for now.

 

Notes on expenses.
The first sheet includes the amount I put towards savings each month, most of which is automated so I just count it as an expense. The jump in June was not due to an increase in income, but rather aggregated savings that I had no immediate plans for which was transferred to my investment accounts.

The second sheet is monthly expenses over the first half of the year. To best trend any particular data point, start from the bottom and move up.  Of note, May was a high expenditure month due to helping out a sick family member.  June was unusually low due to a break I got on my rent. Stay tuned for a future post on that! My intention is to trend around $2,500/mon or less.

Savings Rate.
A firm tenet in FIRE is recognizing and increasing your savings rate.  Tracking income minus expenses, here is what the data reveals.

Closing thoughts.
I am pretty pleased with my financial progress thus far. This is my first year of My Early Retirement Journey and the financial focus is simply creating awareness and having some sort of framework or plan for what to do with my money. So far, I believe I'm on the right track! Additionally, it really helps to visualize it all! Thanks to Four Pillar Freedom for the great visualization ideas.  Thanks for stopping by!

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Why My Credit Scored Dropped 16 Points: What NOT To Do

So I received a notice from Credit Karma that my credit score dropped 16 points. I scoured the site but found no explanation. They state that some fluctuations are normal. I doubt 16 points is a normal fluctuation. I called one of the credit reporting agencies and they stated they were unable to provide me any information over the phone. They would send me a free credit report, and I could then file a dispute if  anything on the report was inaccurate.  Fighting with organizations is my least favorite thing to do. How do you prove "nothing." As in, I did nothing to warrant this drop. The struggle is just ongoing.

 

Sometime in April 2018, I received the free credit report (with no score). It showed me everything I could already see on Credit Karma so that was a bit anti-climactic. I didn't see anything new on the report. The report showed 3 late payments from a federal student loan in 2015 that should have been under a grace period. I thought it was a mistake that would correct itself once my loans were consolidated or have minimum impact on my score in the end. It didn't correct itself and it did impact my score in the end.  I suspect these alleged late payments dropped my credit score dramatically in 2015 from being Very Good/ Excellent to Good/Fair.  But for them to drop again out of the blue down to Fair, I have no explanation and the credit report yielded nothing further.

By way of consumer education, Credit Karma provided some details into what impacts credit score.

My credit score was much higher in the mid 700s just 4 years ago when I was swimming in debt with 2 credit cards at a high balance of $15,000 (total) and a private student loan which at its highest was about $20,000. Both debts have been paid off as of Summer 2017, and their payoff honestly had no significant impact on my credit score conceivably because the student loan account closed, and I closed 2 of the 3 credit card accounts.  My score had already fallen to the mid-low 600s by then.

Although I've had some form of credit, either credit cards, car loan, or student loan since age 18 (so 16 years), CreditKarma shows my average credit age is about 4.5 years because all but 2 accounts are paid off and or closed. It doesn't explain the sudden drop, but according to this report the "young" credit age may be why my score is still so low.

Next steps. At first I did nothing about the credit score. I don't need it for anything. The hard inquiry was from March 2017 when I was getting serious about buying a house. That is on the back burner for the foreseeable future. I wanted the credit report, namely to make sure I hadn't been hacked as that was the primary reason for closing my credit card accounts. I thought keeping them open was supposed to be good for your score, and I wasn't wrong it seems, but it had a negative impact because I was a victim of identity theft.

A recent blogger shared her credit score journey and how she uses credit cards responsibly to keep her score really high. It started to motivate me a little to check this little blip off my list. I took another look at the report that was mailed to me. I considered funding my summer adventure musings with responsible credit card use but decided against it. I want to maintain my position and avoid credit card use at all costs for the foreseeable future. What I did do was file a dispute with the reporting agency explaining that my account should have been under a grace period. It costs nothing and at the very least I'll be exactly where I started. I wanted to feel like I did something while also pushing down the urge to use credit cards again. In the end, I've made up my mind not to be discouraged by the outcome of the dispute and not to get lost in the FIRE comparison game for something that didn't matter just yesterday.

Lessons learned:

• Monitor your score, if needed to catch fraudulent activities.


• Mistakes don't correct themselves. Act if you must.


• Credit card age matters. Keep your oldest one active, if you can do so responsibly. If not, don't.


• Run your own race to credit score perfection. No one's watching!

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Blog Update | June 2018: 3 Months, 0 Dollars, 5,000 Pageviews

So after publishing my pitiful 1st month blog update, I was very discouraged and decided to try a quarterly report or a report every 3 months instead. I liked Frugal Asian Finance's blog traffic report structure and it was the one I just browsed a few minutes ago so I will use that as a template. Let's jump in!

Related content:

• April 2018: 1 Month Blog Update
• How To Stay Motivated Your 1st Month Blogging

To recap, I published my first post 20Feb2018 on Blogger. Since then I have been to Bluehost and back...twice. I am now using my purchased domain on Blogger. I find the platform easier to use. There are less options so I'm not spending weekends tweaking and learning code. I still did minor tweaking when I made the final switch but it was picking colors and font sizes from a list of available choices. I have added 2 pieces of code so far when I think of little things I might like. However, on the whole either Blogger does what I want or need it to do, or it doesn't. I recognize that's a huge limitation for blogging and is not recommended but I was in such a grey fog after my first month that I couldn't deal with anymore technical difficulties. In this season of my life, I tend to lean towards the #easychoice.

Related content: 

•  Why I Came Back to BlueHost
•  101 Things You Will Encounter Your 1st Week Blogging...
•  FIRE Lies and Half-Truths: An Open Rant

Overall, I have to say I really enjoy blogging. I like writing and I like creating content. Even though it's annoying, I even like searching different ways to attract more traffic to my blog. I don't know why exactly I do that, but it's what everyone does and that seems to be the point of blogging? If you've been following along, you'll notice I don't have a clear or rather consistent idea of what I want out of this blog..yet. Obviously, the notion of it being a passive income generator has gone out the window. What's left of my original intent is the idea that there was no one else quite like me in the FIRE world and I wanted to be part of the conversation.  Enough chatting, let's get down to the details for which you came.

To Refresh Your Memory: Month 1 Blog Update (posted 02Apr2018)
STATS:
Pageviews:  418 (all time)
Followers: 0
Revenue: $0, 3 failed attempts to enroll in Adsense, reason cited: insufficient content.
Expenses: $60 for Bluehost and domain
Net income: -$60 + work hours
Notes: After a little over a month on Blogger, decided to roll blog over to Bluehost. To keep it simple, decided April 1, will be one month blog-aversary!

Month 3 Blog Traffic and Income Report -June 2018. Accurate as of: 28May2018

Expenses (to date):
$14.99 (est) to keep my domain after leaving BlueHost

Blog Traffic (via Blogger) 
date range: 20Feb2018 to 28May2018
Pageviews (all time): 4,853 (keep in mind a nearly 3 week to 1 month sting on Bluehost that is not counted here)
Subscribers (total): 3 (up from 0)
Revenue (all time): $0.82 (via Google Adsense)

Posts published (total):  41
Posts scheduled (upcoming): 17

Top 3 Posts

1. Pilot Episode
2. Why Yes, This Is My $300,000 Student Loan Repayment Plan: REPAYE 2018
3. My Week Ending May 4, 2018: Dementia, Remote Work, Health Numbers

Posting Schedule:
I generally post at least twice a week. My goal is at least 1x/week which for now I have achieved; I have been pretty consistently posting weekly updates of the journey so far. It is not all roses and I think that's important to share.  I was most prolific in April 2018 with a whopping 17 posts; May 2018  = 11 posts (as of 28May2018); March 2018 = 7 posts; Feb 2018 = 6 posts.  I generally try to post the weekly update on Friday or Saturday, Sunday by the latest. When I have pre-planned posts, I tend to schedule them on Mondays or Tuesdays just to give readers a chance to read the post during the week. I think there are articles out there about ideal posting times but I just tend to post at 9a or 11a at the beginninng of the week both to give readers a chance to read my latest post and because I know my weekly updates are coming on the weekend so I want to space out the posts.

Social Media Engagement
Joined Twitter 20May2018: 20 Followers
Joined Facebook 19May2018:  1 Follower on My Early Retirement Journey Page
Joined Pinterest  08Apr2018: 207 monthly viewers; 6 Monthly Engaged; 25 Followers

Automated updates to social media via: IFTT (it's not perfect and I just started using that a few days ago).

I had set a soft goal of approaching social media as a summer project. I read somewhere that blogging traffic tends to wane in the summer so I thought that'd be a good time to explore social media platforms. I admittedly am not tech savvy and after my first month blogging, I knew social media engagement would require a little more than just an easy sign-up to accomplish anything of value. However, I was really pleased with the quality of content I was producing and I didn't want future readers to miss out on the goings-on at My Early Retirement Journey. So, I jumped the gun and as I predicted I still have to learn how to best optimize social media to generate traffic. I'm excited. I at least got the log-ins out of the way... my least favorite part.

Traffic Generating Ideas, thus far

1. In April 2018 I was pretty active on RockStar Forums. I subscribed to their directory as well.  This summer I may get more active. The newness died down and so did my interest.
2. I requested addition to the Women of FIRE Directory.
3. I requested addition to Women Who Money Directory (sorry can't locate link).
4. Commenting on other blogs (typically: Making Sense of Cents, Millennial - Revolution, Frugalwoods)

Screenshots from Google Analytics
Note: This is really just residual tech tidbit from when I was a "big time" blogger on Bluehost. I don't really know how to interpret this data. Full disclosure - I'm just imitating what I've seen other bloggers do. One day when I figure it out, it might be helpful. I find the Analytics console difficult to navigate, so I just use the wholly inaccurate Blogger Stats as a gauge. Again, I'm positive most of the data is self-generated because my 7 year old laptop won't save the cookie to stop tracking my own pageviews.  I included for your viewing pleasure. Please enjoy!

Next Steps:

• Incorporate some catchy titles in future posts. I saved a link to a few templates with 70 to 100 catchy title suggestions. We'll see how that goes.
• Continue to produce interesting content. Seeing the total numbers is mildly encouraging. However I know with Blogger at least half of those views are mine because I play around with posts a lot and I edit and re-edit as the mood strikes. But hey whatever amount I have is greater than zero. Prior to finishing this post, I was wondering if I would have to pander more to an unknown audience based on a few articles I read, but I enjoy what I've been creating so far, so I will stay the course.

Kudos!
Again kudos to bloggers who publish monthly update reports on a wide variety of subjects (e.g. traffic, income, expenses). These take a lot of time to compile, I have to say. Of all my posts so far I think these have probably been my least favorite and this is only the 2nd time I've tried to do comprehensive updates. More to come (expenses and/or investment update) as my first quarter of My Early Retirement Journey is just about done. Stay tuned!

Announcing The Crowd-Pleasing Catchy Title Challenge for Summer 2018

I read somewhere that blogging traffic generally slows down in the summer months. Admittedly since the weather has warmed up there have been 2 or 3 weekends where I was not so active on the blogging sites. That being said, along with my summer of listicles to lighten things up and provide a quick read for readers I'm adding an additional challenge: The Catchy Title Challenge for Summer 2018.  The goal here is just to add that fluffy flourish to your blog and keep readers engaged. Also, if successful it can increase traffic. Who doesn't want that!

Remember when you first signed up for this blogging adventure after reading your favorite bloggers' "How To Start a Blog" page. Many recommend titles that are How To or x Ways to Do This or That. In short, people search the internet for solutions. That's a nugget I recently realized after blogging. That's why they use Pinterest top... didn't know that either. Pinterest is apparently a visual search engine. What!

So to help kick off this challenge, here are some templates for catchy blog titles. I would encourage you to step outside the regular How To X or  X Ways... that's amateur ish. I am challenging myself to push the envelope a little and hit 10 outrageous titles this summer (Jun to mid-Aug 2018). I find just reading some of the templates act as sentence starters for future posts.  So not only is it a great way to add some flash it can help generate ideas. Read on!

End of Summer Update (Aug 2018)
In case you missed it, here are a few of mine ...

• 10 Overdone Things I Wish They'd Stop Showing on TV
• Review | 5 Quick Things to Know Before Signing Up For DirectTV Now
• Review | 5 Reasons Sling Was Stupid and 1 Reason It Wasn't
• A Bajillion Tiny Little Indisputable Facts About Life In Your 30s
• Review | That Time I Tried Blue Apron And 9 Light-Hearted Reasons You Should Too

Top Three Sources for Catchy Titles 👈 see what I did there 😄.

74 Compelling Fill-in-the Blank Blog Post Titles

130 Blog Post Headlines

190+ Catchy Headlines + Blog Post Titles To Get More Attention

100+ Attention- Grabbing Blog Post Title Templates That Work

No graphic but does provide some interesting adjectives to name a view....

Unbelievable / Beautiful / Terrible / Controversial / Shocking / Fluffy / Tasty / Seductive / Fantastic / Brilliant / Top / Powerful / Attention-Grabbing / Delicious / Mouthwatering / Gorgeous / Successful / Valuable 

End of Summer Update (Aug 2018)
In case you missed it, here are a few more ...

• Why I Love My Roku So Much! (Cable - whathat?)
• 7 Easy Meals When You Need A Break: A Listicle
• Seven Spectacular Reasons I Still Shop at Walmart - Like It or Not! (Who Target??)
• 7 FIRE-UNFriendly Things I Still Do on My Early Retirement Journey: A Listicle
• Best Tip Ever: Run your car's a/c to save money this summer!

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What No One Tells You About Managing Your Aging Parents' Finances

So I'm feeling pretty good. My mind is a buzz, and I got a lot done at work today (Wed, 30May2018). It was a busy day but I still managed to get some personal stuff done as well during downtime and breaks. Namely, I was able to tackle some errands for my aunt. If you're just joining us, she was staying with me for awhile and is slowly losing her mind. I've taken over managing her finances and what was overwhelming 3 weeks ago has been chopped down to bite-sized tasks that I've slowly tackled. Today was another mammoth task-ticking day and I thought I'd celebrate this mini-milestone with My Journey readers...all 3 of you 👀! In fact almost every day in the the last week or so has generated some new idea for a blog post. So before I draft them all into incomplete draft obscurity,  here's a quick listicle of what I learned just today from managing my aging aunt's finances!

What no one tells you about managing your aging parents' finances

• They will be auto-enrolled by someone in lots of things for which they no longer remember the email address or password.


• You will spend lots of time getting to know customer service agents via phone no less... during your work day (for those of us not FIRE'd).


• They will likely have been swindled by some automatic withdrawals for fees or services they don't utilize or of which the are unaware.


• There will be late fees.


• They will have overpaid for something or many things.


• They will have purchased something for which they have no need (e.g. loss of income insurance, international calls, and unlimited texting).


• The medical bills are plentiful and outrageous. Donut hole...what that? Medicare Part what now?


• You will have to navigate life as caretaker and child (care-receiver).


• It is difficult establishing your independence while they assert theirs.


• They have two to six cell phones for some reason. None of which they know how to adequately use.


• They bought DVDs for you to watch the next time you come visit and for you to take home with you. You don't have a  DVD player.


• They're happy to see everyone... all the time. It's as though they can feel their life slipping away from them even if little else registers.


• So many unanswered questions that will remain that way.
  
  
  
  • Why are you using $150 worth of electricity/month for just you? In your country, you used to fetch kerosene.
  
  
  • You're really paying $100 for just cable? For what again?
  
  
  • Why do you need so much car insurance?
  
  
  
  


•  They've forgotten how to bargain shop or can't be bothered. Why do you have chips that cost $7? Where did you even get those?
  
  
  
  • This is a woman who used to split an extra value meal among 3 kids instead of getting each a Happy Meal. #thrifty
  
  
  • We used to get Blizzards only when they were free at Dairy Queen when the temperature was below zero.
  
  
  
  


• Some companies (no affiliates) are really helpful when you share your experience and even when you don't.
  
  
  
  • Amazon Prime refunded monthly charges for 7 months where my oldie had signed up and not used the service.
  
  
  
  


• 
  
  
  
  • Credit One removed late charges when asked.
  
  
  
  


• 
  
  
  
  • Bank of America credit card (worst bank based on previous experiences) refunds security deposits. Apparently if your credit is bad enough, they require a security deposit.
  
  
  •  Bank of America in branch customer service was helpful when trying to re-establish online access.
  
  
  •  Spectrum (internet/cable provider) stops charging late fees on balances after the internet/cable account is deactivated for non-payment.
  
  
  • Meals on Wheels didn't charge late fees for a past due balance.
  
  
  
  


• Some companies are not really helpful.
  
  
  
  • SANTANDER is the worst. The literal worst. They will break usury laws and get away with it because they don't offer car loans...they offer "retail installment contracts."
  
  
  • Said installment contract for my oldie's car has now tallied up 30% of simple interest and counting. The limit for her state is 18%.
  
  
  
  


• After you stop being annoyed with all the additional responsibilities of caring for your favorite oldie, you'll learn to enjoy their company once again. Cheers!

Comment below and share your story. How have your parents changed as they've gotten older? Did they get more lax or less bothered about anything? What about between siblings?

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How Design-Thinking Can Inspire Your Early Retirement Journey

Possible titles for this post.
How to Design Your Life
How to Design Your Life in Early Retirement
30 things to do in your 30s
How to Design Your Life Along your Early Retirement Journey
How to Design your Life: Visions of Life in Early Retirement 
How to Design your Life: Visions of Life Along Your Early Retirement Journey
How to Design your Life: Visions Along My Early Retirement Journey
How to Design Your Life: My Early Retirement Journey x - List 

Introduction.

I've been writing this post for a while now. As you can see above, I was getting stuck even on the title. It is something I have journaled about before I started My Early Retirement Journey. After reading Michelle's bucket list on Making Sense of Cents, I was motivated to at least post some draft of what's been circling in my thoughts because it was powerful to me what she had essentially spoken and written into existence. It was her bucket list from 2011, and it is remarkable how much of it she has achieved already as of 2018.  Her list was not just the typical adventure travel list; it included financial and personal goals. I found it really inspiring and felt compelled to get something drafted and published sooner rather than later. Thus, I purposed to get this post up by this weekend Memorial Day Weekend 2018 as opposed to putting it off any longer or scheduling it during peak blogging season.

In keeping any hints of envy at bay, I want to take a moment to celebrate what I have crossed off a short bucket list I once kept and a de facto one acquired along the way:

• See Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in person


• Visit California


• See a Broadway show in NYC


• Visit the Redwood Forest


• Ride the PCH


• Water-ski


• Learn to surf


• Sail the Intercostal Waterway


• Visit Mexico


• Take a roadtrip or two


• Visit more states (seen 40 of the 50)


• Visit all seven continents (4 so far)


• Go to Eastern Europe


• Be Independent


• Get my own place, no roommates


• Graduate college (3 times over)


• Get an advanced degree


• Get a passport


• Get passport stamps


• Go snow skiing... the list goes on.

Design your life.
So in accumulating my monstrous student loan debt and having an adventure here and there, I did graduate from a fancy school or two. One of which published some webinars on how to design your life. It was awhile ago now, but from what I remember the lecturer applied basic principles of engineering and design-thinking to the concept of achieving your optimal life flow.  In the Design Your Life Lecture Series, there are questions posed that must be answered and exercises to further aid your life design. I would encourage you, readers, to spend a little time getting to recognize your flow.

General Synopsis and Tips:

• Your optimal life happens at the intersection of skill set and challenge.


• Identify engagements (e.g. work, meetings, instrumental activities of daily living) that leave you with more energy (positive) rather than less energy (negative).


• For optimal flow, as your skills move from low to high, so must your challenge otherwise you risk anxiety (too challenging) or boredom (not challenging enough).


• Lastly, passion is not something you find, it's something that comes into focus along the way. So you're not necessarily seeking your passion but optimizing your flow.

The FIRE community has re-framed some of these concepts as happiness quotients derived from line items in your time/expense graph (i.e. spend money on things that make you happy or afford you the time for things that do; eliminate expenses that don't). Many are heard to describe spending more time with family; raising their children; or traveling as desirable objectives in the FIRE journey.  I had a brief travel bucket list in my late teens to early 20s and am grateful to have had the opportunity to cross off a few places stateside and abroad. Having been to everywhere I care to see the list soon ended.  I never made another one. In my current season of life, travel for the adventure of it isn't really a high priority.  For the record, neither are children and creating a family. I think what takes the challenge of out of adventure travel for me and thus the interest, is that it is fairly achievable. If you want go to go the Redwood Forest, save your money, buy a ticket and go. Granted the save the money part didn't always happen first, but the idea is- there wasn't really anything to work towards.

Now in My Early Retirement Journey, I want my life engagements and life events to be more purposeful, more intentional (not unlike my saving). As referenced in the Design Your Life lecture series, I want a positive energy outcome. Right now, I am very grateful to be employed at a fairly technical and straightforward job, but it is not providing my optimal flow. I'm happy to seek that outside of work and have pointed my compass towards My Early Retirement Journey.  It's been 3 years since I've graduated professional school and been seeking some sort of direction. It's been 1.5 years since I first watched the Design Your Life webinar. My thoughts circle around the same or similar life events I want to happen, but I have been unable to commit to anything. I vacillate betwixt the events being too small, insignificant, or without impact; to not really wanting to expend the energy to commit to something for which I can't reliably anticipate a desirable outcome;  to not wanting to push my luck and ask for anything more in life. I largely feel as though I've been given enough and that perhaps I'm being greedy. With that mindset, I find myself stuck and still not moving my life forward or in any direction really.

Then last night when I again tried to write this post, I stumbled upon Physician on FIRE's list of things to do in early retirement, and it got me thinking again. With this most recent post, my recall of the Design Your Life webinars and Michelle's impressive bucket list, I decided to just go for it.

Without committing to anything, or self editing, I am going to free associate what I see, saw, and have seen when envisioning My Early Retirement Journey (i.e. life in general). Achievable or not; significant or not; wish-list or bucket-list or goal-list or dream-list; desirable or not; superfluous or insignificant; worthwhile or without impact; work towards or magically happen; passively or actively seek; classified or not; categorized or not; contradiction or not; hypocritical or not; off-brand or not; these are my visions, as is.

 

My x list.
Here goes...in no particular order.
(revision date: 25 May 2018)

1. Experience life in another language.


2. Have my student loan debt cancelled before 25 years.


3. Raise awareness for the student loan debt crisis. Let the campaign make national news and be really successful.


4. Find a place I can call home.


5. Answer key question from the DYL series and life in general: Where do I belong?


6. Reach FIRE by 35.


7. Reach FIRE by 40.


8. Reach FIRE by 45.


9. Discover my purpose while I still have time, energy, and health to enjoy it.


10. Leave a lasting legacy on the world.


11. Leave a lasting impact on the world.


12. Know that my life was meant to be.


13. In my community or place I found to call home, do public health or  community service.


14. Work with the American Red Cross disaster relief.


15. Do a free medical mission.


16. Find a church family.


17. Find something that excites me as much as going to school in the 3rd grade (I went even when I had the chicken pox I liked it so much).


18. Form a tribe that nourishes my spirit. Or learn to live without one.


19. Be unbroken.


20. Have a ritual of a morning, afternoon, evening walk/stroll.


21. Eat ice-cream again.


22. Not get diabetes or high blood pressure.


23. Not get cancer and die a miserable death.


24. Not get killed, murdered, or raped.


25. Not die a horrible death.


26. Die peacefully in my sleep at age 62 after being retired for at least 20 years.


27. Eat well.


28. Cook more.


29. Regularly try new recipes.


30. Bake more.


31. Chop more.


32. Eat more vegetables.


33. Never be constipated again.


34. Not be incontinent. Never lose bladder or bowel control.


35. Never need dental work again.


36. Automate the easy choices in my life..to include breakfast, lunch, finances.


37. Be kind.


38. Have 1, 2, or 3 now wildly successful men from my past profess their undying love and proclaim I was the one that got away.


39. Eat seasonally.


40. Crack a lottery game and reap the rewards.


41. Get to/thrive on a bare bones 500/500/500 budget; if student loan eliminated, replace with health insurance, travel budget/ missions (total 18k/year).


42. Enjoy water sports.


43. Host a small group (e.g. life group/bible study).


44. Write a love story blog/ web series in the vein of the Murder She Wrote television program and be really good at it. Be the first to create this genre.


45. Be an old lady actress.


46. Have a cult following of my Love She Wrote serial blog.


47. Not take an OTC or RX for at least 1 calendar year (not even an ibuprofen, vitamin, iron pills, or GI aids).


48. Find my voice.


49. Stop being the sidekick in my own narrative, life story.  Stop playing a supporting role in my own life. Be the hero of my story. Be the hero of my journey.


50. Inherit a million dollars.

I would encourage all of you to at least write down your x-list for your life. Whether you believe in working with the universe, speaking thoughts into action or existence, plain hard work, vision boards, or the help of a higher power, making your intentions known is a part of the process even if only to yourself. Have a great day! Enjoy the journey wherever it leads.

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Scrapbook | A Photo Journey Inside the Home of My Early Retirement Journey

Welcome back to My Early Retirement Journey! Where I come from (unspecified country), when you've been friends with someone for awhile, it's expected that you will spend equal amounts of time in each other's home. One of one and not enough of the other and someone is quickly offended. Besides how can you get to know someone if you've never been invited into their home.  Personally an invitation to someone's home moves a relationship from casual to personal on the way to close.

In this community where we openly talk about the once taboo topic of personal finance, how then have I not let you peer into my personal space. I've been blogging for about 3 months now, so it seems fitting.  Here it is- my humble home in all its ordinary glory. Come on in!

Photo Journey (photos taken May 2018)

 

Outside my apartment building. I live in one of the apartments without a balcony.

Bed when I woke up this a.m. Nightstand = storage container

 

Swivel tv stand.

 

Armchair I sweat together one summer. From Target (no affiliate).

 

Kitchen. Dishes air drying. Single girl Cheerios dinner from last night.

 

Missed trash day on Thursday. Backpack from overnight stay in Maryland. Toaster oven, no regular oven.

 

Stacked appliances. Miss the old non HE washer. Have to air out detergent compartments, otherwise mold.

 

Laundry mountain. Empty Crockpot box.

 

Shower recently cleaned for houseguest.

 

Closet and empty hangers from clothes that need to be put away. Also no dresser, just use closet shelves.

 

Yay, mostly empty laundry basket. See laundry mountain.

 

Kitchen.

 

Mostly clean kitchen. Sometimes I brush in the kitchen sink.

 

The opposite end of my apt visible from bed.

 

Pretty much same vantage point.

 

On the other side of the swivel tv stand. Sorry these are out of order. Don't know how to re-roder them without re-uploading everything individually. I'll do better next time.

 

My dressing area, where I sit to get ready in the mornings.

That's it folks.That's also what $910/mon gets you in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. I hope you enjoyed the tour. Tune in again next time!

Coming soon: A photo journey behind closed doors. My Early Retirement Journey opens her cabinet and closet and fridge doors 😁!

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My Week Ending May 25, 2018: Dominica, Design Your Life, Commencement

Welcome back to My Early Retirement Journey. In case you're just joining us, here's a little bit about me.  I am a single 30-something, openly Christian, hesitantly immigrant-y, human woman. I love watching TV while eating takeout, and I want to retire early. I currently work as a consultant in a tele-health call center making around $40/hr. I started my professional life in 2015 at the ripe ole age of 31 after a few false starts. I spent 2016 paying off about $10,000 worth of credit card debt. I spent 2017 paying off about $20,000 in private student loans; I still have about $300,000 in federal student loans for which I am currently on an income-based repayment plan for the next 25 years, give or take.  I started really getting into savings and investing late 2017 when I stumbled upon the FIRE (financial independence, retire early) community.  In 2018, I made the decision to try to save for a sabbatical and maybe if all goes well continue the journey to early retirement.  Along this journey, I give weekly updates just like this one. Come along with me, I urge you!

Monday -  Yay! Another work week. Spent the bulk of the day between calls researching Croatia, Portugal, Lesotho, Dominica. Trying to plot my mini-retirement. Get me out of here! Based on flights from say Oct 11, 2018 to April 11, 2019, it was cheapest to leave out of Washington DC and fly to Porto, Portugal. After reading a few blogs, listicles, and articles, my day of searching was a bust. I have in my mind a 6 month sabbatical/ mini-retirement. To travel to Europe, I would need to get some sort of visa to stay past 90 days. Boo! I thought about just doing 3 months #easychoice. But 3 months is like a summer vacation. Which would've been nice in 2015 after finishing professional school and was just enough time during the K-12 years, but now I'm looking for more than enough time. I want to fully rest, reset, recuperate, restore... all the r words.  Then I googled countries where you don't need a visa to stay 6 months. On the list were: Barbados, Canada, Dominica, Lesotho, Mexico, Panama. Barbados, Dominica, and Mexico were quickly discounted. Island retreat is not of particular interest to me. I just picture running from weather regularly. Pass. I got stuck on Canada for the rest of the day because I want the convenience of my current life. I quickly realized it didn't meet my other C: cost. Then the day was over. Defeated. What now?

Tuesday -  Worked 8a-4p. Even got out on time. Went home and cleaned up the trail of debris left by sharing a space with another human. It's been a trying 10 days. It wasn't all bad. I think like any relationship, miscommunication and lack of communication was at the helm. Enough about that.  After cleaning and sweating to death, went to Walmart to run errands and get my aunt her "things." Spent about $58 (Budget: $50/wk) on our cart of stuff. Took my aunt to dinner (chicken and rice). That was about $24 (Avg: $9 for just me). By the time we got home it was around 9p. Showered. New Girl. Sleep. Repeat.

Wednesday - Working till 3p today because heading to Maryland after work. On the way to work I remember wishing I had a different life. I don't even want to wake up really wealthy one day. I used to want that. Of course that would be nice, but as of this moment I just want to wake up with a whole new life. I want a reset button. I want to have the opportunity to take all the lessons I've learned and really win at life. I want to redo elementary school, middle school, high school, college, work life, friends, family. Everything!  This sounds like a good idea for a post - design your life. Stay tuned. What would you do if you had a reset button?

Thursday - Went to my cousins' college prep graduation from Good Counsel High School in Maryland (no affiliate). We left the house a bit after 7a to make sure we could find parking. Graduation didn't start until 10a. That was fun, she said sarcastically. The drive to a lovely catholic church in downtown DC helped cement how much I don't want to go back to living/driving in the city. As much as I hem and haw about NC, my life is very convenient here. I pay an emotional and somewhat financial price, but that's what makes me stuck in a decision loop.

Knowing how much debt my aunt has accrued - pulling from her 401k and falling behind in her mortgage- to send my cousins here took the celebration out of it for me. And then knowing they are about to encounter another debt journey to go to college after I hemmed and hawed about which schools would lower their debt burden to have it fall on deaf ears just made it a bittersweet day. Plus I was tired.

There were a few people there to help celebrate my cousins' commencement that I didn't know and in small talks about college, debt, and personal finance in general, I affirmed a few realizations: meeting new people is really not that much fun for me anymore; I don't like when people disagree with something I feel so strongly about; just as I haven't been able to successfully evangelize about Christianity, talking about FIRE is met with similar incredulity. When to me I just wish someone would've mentioned (maybe more than once) a different path to college and personal finance when I started on my debt journey, it's hard to swallow that people are about to walk into my mistakes.  I am not of the popular opinion that you need to let people make their own mistakes. What the heck are parents and your elders for if not to guide you! What's the point in making the same mistakes as those who came before you?

Friday- Yay, 4 day weekend! So glad I decided to drive back home last night even though the time I left added 2 hours of traffic to my journey. Woke up in my own bed with fresh sheets, the sun shining, and no work!  It's Memorial Day this coming Monday and I have 3 new post ideas I'm going to work on. I woke up fairly rested and excited to create some content. Onwards!

TV this week: New Girl, Family Feud (courtesy of my aunt)
Takeout this week: Peruvian chicken and rice

BlueBird (no affiliate) balance: (as of 5/23/18)

Note: I use the Amex BlueBird prepaid card in my current Working Budget for regular monthly expenses (groceries, eating out, phone, gas, etc..). My last budget update 03Mar2018 showed this line item as $540/mon (down from $600/mon), but in April 2018 I decided to challenge myself to $430/mon based on my idea that my bare bones budget, if needed and possibly in early retirement, is 500/500/500 housing/student loan/expenses. Since my loans are currently $566/mon I subtracted that $66 from the $500 for expenses and rounded down.

Next pay date: $215 is auto-deposited the 8th and 23rd of every month.

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