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BLAH & money stuff

July 26th, 2007 at 03:49 pm

Looks like I will make about $80 interest for July. Received a $40 credit today from MM and my CD will be up $40 in a few days. Plus a few pennies here and there from my other accounts. My big BT was only in the account for a few days. So next month will be the most lucrative BT month - expecting more like $120 interest. woohoo!!!

Well my expense reducing streak is done for the moment. Insurance down, water down. But the last sewer bill had a 8% rate increase. We used to pay $60 every other month, and now it is $65.

The $200 sign-up charge for the gym hit our credit card (as well as the HP book refund. Oh after many calls our book finally arrived yesterday - much drama. We had both finished reading it before it arrived - borrowing 2 diferent books - but was good and will keep for our library). Anyway, gym... Hmmmmm. We have been so good at saving first and living on a tighter budget I am for once at a loss where to come up with $200. I have been really lazy on the ebay/craigslist selling so I have a few weeks to cough up the money. Will hit it from that angle. Sell sell sell. we have $200 to sell easy. Regardless where it comes from I feel it was a very important investment and I knew we could cough up the cash. Don't worry, I am not going to make a habit of buying things outside the budget. Wink Eagerly waiting for christmas to cough up the $200 for unlimited childcare for "life" which will make the gym THAT much more appealing. We'll try it out first, hope the kids do okay with it.

Other than that I just feel BLAH lately. I am sick of working full-time. I want to speed up my part-time time table by about a decade. LOL. I just have to hang tight. Slow and steady wins the race. I think mostly I was so looking forward to an easy summer. Since it has been anything but, I am in a funk. Dh isn't helping. I allowed him to buy his stupid TV if he would cough up the money because it was a really stupid thing to do really. But as usual he applies for one job, doesn't get it, and the world might as well end. I think I am just peeved with him lately, or taking it out on him. Both probably. I am still sick of bringing in so much side money on top of my FT job and his inability to bring in a dime. I am kind of at a loss with him because he always worked many jobs through college and save save saved. Looking back he was always working where his friends got him jobs. He used to make fun of me "wasting all that time" in professional sororities in clubs. Whatever, all I have to do is pick up a phone to get a job with all the contacts I have made. I had 5 job offers the day I graduated college. Yeah, what a waste of time *rolls eyes*. All his friends still work for minimum wage. The only silver lining is the whole TV subject came up again last night. I had mentioned before that Dave Ramsey always mentions delivering pizzas as a great part-time job for paying debts, etc. Told him to go get a job for a couple of months and then be done. If it isn't so bad he could keep it to fund his ROTH going forward. Anyway, some days he says he will do anything (even fast food) to help but his actions speak louder than words. Don't see him putting a lot of effort in a job search. But when we were talking last night he mentioned his cousin who is out of the work (much the same - a lot of brains but unable to find a job for whatever reason - no college degree to boot in his case - lord I hope my sons don't end up like these guys please...). But anyway, he is doing pizza delivery in Sacramento 2 nights a week and dh said he found with his GPS he could make more money because he could deliver more in shorter time. I could see the wheels turning like maybe he realizes it isn't the craziest idea after all (well duh). But then again I get the feeling if he gets a job like that he will want to buy a GPS first. Which mostly defeats the purpose. LOL. Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em. Yeesh!!!!

Seriously, I am not sure I know 2 people smarter than him and his cousin really but they are just about dead end jobs for the most part while all the women in the family (most in their 20s) make close to six figures. It is a little bizarre. My frustration with dh is he applies for 1 job and gives up. Lord help him some day when he NEEDS a job. Waiting for jobs to fall into your lap just doesn't cut it, and he never seemed to have got the memo.

Anyway, if he could help me a bit I Think I could go to part-time now, or within the year, but I just don't have much faith in any help. So that is putting me in a funk too. Lord knows he is not happy being home full-time and it would help both of us if he could find some work. But whatever. We had a talk about it today. I don't expect much to come of it. He knows how I feels. IT's up to him.

I was starting to see a silver lining at work and maybe feel caught up, but someone quit yesterday. It's dismal here... Back to square one. IF people would just stop quitting AND there were qualified candidates it wouldn't be so dismal. It's a catch 22. Pay is good but stress is high. Maybe in a few years we'll get more CPAs/accountants. YEesh. In 2000 we were offered bonuses of 1/3 our annual salary to find qualified candidates. These days I get paid twice as much and I bet that bonus is much more - who knew it would get so bad. I thought it was bad then! Now they are saying 75% of CPAs in the country will be of retirement age in the next decade. Just a little crazy.

Sure I picked the right career, if I wanted to work ALL the time. I value work/life balance too much but struggle with everything my family demands of me for now. I think with things as the way they are though I will probably get a few more raises and will be able to take a much lesser job or cut back my hours significanly for good pay, in just a few years. I think that is the other reason dh and I have been butting heads. He wants much more materialism out of life than I do. Not a ton, but I would be happy to cut back my hours today and downsize our house. He would think I Was insane to suggest it. *sigh* Then again I keep telling myself what if I coul have all this and a part-time job at 35. It may be possible. How many people can say that?

In the meantime the overtime pay is sweet. I like my job enough I don't mind coming in on a saturday. Miss the kids, but don't mind the work. Hanging in there and saving that overtime for now!

But just a glimpse into all the thoughts running through my head of late.

What I find interesting is there is a huge woman demographic when it comes to CPAs. As they pay more, more women are just happy to work less and spend more time with their kids. Every woman (but I) in this office works part-time while all the men are FT management. I am somewhere in the middle since my spouse doesn't work I guess. But it is not a pure gender gap/discrimination thing. The woman are happy to work part-time. They want to. They demand it. Some days I wonder how much Full-time CPAs will be paid to encourage them to work full-time. Or maybe they'll have to pay less to draw in more full-time workers. A strange dynamic where mostly I don't find I will be hitting any pay ceiling in the near future. The pay is still not enough to draw people in so I will probably get another few 10% raises and expect six figures without any management duties. When I graduated college in 1999 you wouldn't make more than $40k at a job like this. It's a little insane. I keep seeing bookeeper jobs listed in Craigslist for $65k. Strangely appealing to me (very low stress!!!!). $65k ain't no chump change!!!! I am blessed to have so many options. Then again some days you figure this can't last forever (we will draw in more talent at these wages) and I should make as much as I can while I am young and jobs are so easy to come by... IT's a strange/mostly good dynamic for now. But I don't want to be forced working into long hours forever either, feeling there is little choice because it is impossible to find or retain employees. An interesting catch 22. I am trying to focus on the good for now. If it wasn't so crazy I Wouldn't be paid so well, so I do have to keep that in mind. IT may speed me to earlier semi-retirement which I am aiming for at 40...

On other days though when I don't see my kids for most of the week it is hard to not get peeved with the whole current work/life balance situation. Just have to look at the big picture I guess...

3 Responses to “BLAH & money stuff”

  1. scfr Says:
    1185471087

    Sorry to hear you're in a funk.

    I think the pizza delivery gig sounds like a great idea for your husband. Did you read the blog entry by "Keeping It Frugal In Texas" where she has a really great plan to make herself "earn" a piece of exercise equipment that she really wants? Perhaps your husband could earn the GPS system that he wants with his tips ... As soon as he has made enough in tips to pay for a GPS, he can buy it!

  2. fern Says:
    1185478767

    Well, there are 2 kinds of smarts, book smarts and life experience smarts. Maybe he isn't getting that job becus he really doesn't have to.. He's got you.

    And you seem like a very take charge kind of gal, the one who worries about the bills and works her butt off to keep everything running smoothly.

    If your husband is the one who wants a more materialistic life, how come you're the one working so hard? It should be the other way around.

    You would have to be a risk-taker to do this, but i wonder if you announced again you were tired of working so hard and cut back on your hours maybe that would force him to step up to the plate.

  3. Broken Arrow Says:
    1185559912

    Yeah, I can understand your frustration with your husband. I really can't understand that mentality either. Seriously. All my friends from all walks of life have had this belief that jobs equated to self worth. In fact, out of all of us, I'm probably the one that de-emphasizes jobs the most, but only because of my belief that one shouldn't rely on "Job Security", but on responsible personal financing instead to secure our financial future. And even then, I am still very keen on increasing my wage earning. By now, I've handed in no less than at least a dozen resumes, and both for a second jobs as well as finding a replacement of my current job. The last one does look promising though....

    By the way, is he still doing the video-for-hire thing?
    Text is Perhaps he would find this inspiring and Link is http://stillmotionblog.com/?p=139
    Perhaps he would find this inspiring (although the guy's intro was very cheesy).

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