Making Career Decisions

So far we have been looking at job types in a two dimensional. In our 2d model your job is in the same position on the chart no matter your abilities for the given job type. The 2d model is good for understanding why you are making money, but it doesn't help determine how to make more money. For that we will need to look at the same chart in three dimensions.



We now hove a qualitative quotient rising vertically from each of the job types. In each case the vertical factor represents qualities which increase the attractiveness of your work to those who will be paying you. For example, a professional musician vs. an amateur.

In order to use this model to maximize your profitability we are going to need to find what jobs we are able to do and choose the best selection of to maximize the pros for each job type, while minimizing the cons.

I start by making a list of which skills and abilities I have, some major personal characteristics and things which I can make. I rank each of those abilities based on how much I think someone could potentially pay for each activity.

What I do :

• Programming (8)


• Wood Working (4)


• Network Security (5)


• System Administration (7)

What I make :

• Informative websites (7)


• Cool Program (9)


• Wooden kids furniture (5)


• Digital drawings (5)


• Cooking (2)

Who I am :

• College graduate (7)


• Son of well respected man in my home town (9.5)


• Young conservatively dressing tall man (7)


• Yet another personal financial blogger (4)


• Eagle Scout (10)

Now I plot them on the chart (either for real, or just in my head).



After listing and ranking my abilities, I add which abilities I would be interested in improving and to what level.

System Administration (9)
Wood Working (8)

Based on my chart I can see that I currently could probably make a cool program and provide something which is in higher demand than my current programming position.

In order to provide a more demanded skill in System Administration I would need to improve my skills a little bit -- maybe take a class, or study online.

To maximize my income right now, I should make a cool program. If I would rather maximize my income by doing system administration, I should improve my skills enough to command a higher salary.

To be good enough with wood working (Which I enjoy), I would need to get a lot better. If my life dream were to support my family as a wood worker then such improvements might be worth their effort. Since that's not my dream, my self improvement time could be better spent elsewhere.

Odds are good that you too will have several skills which will are in higher demand than others. Besides just trying to maximize your income, be sure to also consider that certain skill groups (eg. Programming + System Administration + Network Security) may prove more valuable as a cluster of abilities than a single higher valued skill (eg. Writing a single cool program). Also balance the different positions with the pros and cons discussed in part two in order to find a level of job security and type of job risk you are comfortable with.

Conclusion

This isn't the be-all end-all theory for deciding what to do for work. No model is perfect, and making the most money isn't the most important thing in life. What this model can do though is help you visualize potential areas to improve your income, and help you find ways out of a field you're not enjoying.

Financially Stable. Now what?

As I've become more familiar with personal finance blogs, I've slowly come to realize that I am very blessed. Most of the finance blogs are about getting out of debt and reaching the point where we are now.

• Our Credit Cards are paid off


• We have money set aside to pay off our student loans before they start charging interest (and it's making interest for us in the mean time).


• Our car payment is 0% interest, so there's no rush to pay it off ahead of time.


• We have more than $2000 sitting in ING doubling as an emergency fund and a start on a house down payment.


• We're putting away 15% of my salary into a 401k


• Shoot. We've even got a budget.

Ok. Great! Now what?

Now What?

Well, we want a house, so we're putting more money aside each month for that. We know that we're still spending more than we need or want to and we're trying to trim the fat. That one's a continual process though.

Beyond still saving, I'm not really sure what our next stratigic move is supposed to be. If we had a house it would probably be investing. There are plenty of sites that talk about investing. My problem with that is that we want our money back in 6 or so months for a house down payment -- I don't want to make that short term of investments, I want long term stuff.

In other words I have no idea what the next step is. Maybe it's time to buy a new car (I kid!).

Credit Card Reasons Revisited

Anonymous Says No To $350

Or, How To Miss Out On $29.20 a Month By Not Using Credit Cards

I recently listed 8 reasons to use a Credit Card which caused someone under the bravery of 'Anonymous' to call my advice crappy.

I understand that Credit Cards can be trouble for some people and I have no problem with people disagreeing with me. I did however take issue with these two segments of his response:

Why not keep the money in a high interest account and transfer it online,free, to your checking account as needed. problem solved
...
Rewards,benefits. Virtually useless. For most people the rewards/benefits do not outweigh the risks with credit cards

Great idea! And if one wasn't using a Credit Card at all, I'd agree. However, I found the line 'Virtually useless' rather suspect. I decided to run an analysis and see for myself (and for you, dear reader) what exactly is the financial benefit of using a Credit Card in the manner I use it.

Remember, our financial plan says to use the Credit Card wherever possible (and to pay it off on time, every time).

My analysis involves the following three scenarios:

Scenarios Under Analysis

Checking Account Only

• One 0% interest, $0 fees checking account


• Salary goes in, checks come out

Checking Account and a 3% APY Savings Account

• Salary goes into Savings


• Money is transfer ed over as needed

3% APY Savings Account, 1% Cash Back Credit Card

• Salary goes into Savings


• All expenses go onto Credit Card


• Credit Card is paid off at the end of the month

The Results!

With a monthly salary of $3,013.26 and monthly expenses of $2,187.50 using a 1% cash back credit card and a 3% APY savings account I will make $29.20 more a month than if I were just using a checking account. I will make you $24.96 more a month than if you I were using a checking and savings account (but no Credit Card).

See the whole sheet for a more detailed look including assumptions I made to simplify the calculations.

Table: Monthly Difference Between the Three Scenarios

Blog Sized Excerpt	Checking Only	Checking and Savings	Savings and Credit Card
Vs. Checking Only	$0.00	$4.24	$29.20
Vs. Checking and Savings	-$4.24	$0.00	$24.96
Vs. Savings and Credit	-$29.20	-$24.96	$0.00

A Partial List of Flaws

• Not everything can be paid for with a Credit Card.


• Expenses aren't actually evenly distributed throughout the month


• It is possible to get an interest bearing checking account


• Using multiple savings accounts will give you finer grained control over transfers to the checking account


• Some people really really really hate credit cards, so this won't work for them


• Some limitations may apply to 1% cash back purchases


• Carrying a balance even once will wipe out months of returns

Conclusion

I stick with my recommendation to use a Credit Card. I realize that my numbers are rough estimates, but I believe that they are strong enough and close enough to show that there is a clear financial benefit to using a Credit Card.

Using a Credit Card isn't for everyone, and I respect that, but just because they don't work for you doesn't magically make them crappy for everyone.

Comprehensive Financial Planning: Initial Thoughts

I've been slowly getting up to speed on how money works, on the importance of budgeting and appreciating the principle of compound interest. In this learning process I've realized that there are several expensive milestones which I should be planning for now. As I look at these events, I realize that I need a comprehensive financial plan.

Some Large Financial Milestones

• House


• Kids College


• Sons' Missions


• Helping my kids become financially stable


• Retirement

Some of these are so near it's scarry (House). Others are so far off it's hard for me to be able to estimate how much I need to save. All of them will require large amounts of money. Some (retirement, college) can get extra help from special types of accounts (529, 401k, IRAs, capital gains vs. earned income taxes) if I plan wisely.

Complicating Financial Factors

There are complicating factors for me to consider when thinking about these financial events. Markets will change, my job will probably change, I don't know how many kids we'll be having.

Side Note : Inheritance assets

On a trip last weekend to visit my grandpa-in-law I was also reminded that there are some people in my life who will be leaving something to me in their wills. My father and grandpa-in-law have potentially large assets, possibly my grandpa too.

Inheritance assets are hard to include in a comprehensive financial plan since there's no way to know when someone is going to die, or how much their assets will be worth when they do.

How To Get Started

I don't know how I'm going to make my comprehensive financial plan. I think that I'm on the right track to create it though. The first steps are to 1) get my day to day financies in order then 2) understand the events I need to be planning for then lastly 3) make educated guesses and estimates about the situation.

In a few weeks you should see an initial revision of my plan. If you have any suggestions before then, I'd love to hear them.

Warily Eyeing Credit Card Reward Programs

Are Credit Card Rewards Programs Worth The Trouble?

Currently we have two credit cards. One we've had since we got married, almost five years ago. The other we got when we switched to the credit union.

The old Visa card is through a large national bank, and is pretty crummy. 24% interest, no rewards. The only reason we haven't closed it is that it's the oldest piece of our credit history. We'll keep it around until our mortgage is secured, then we'll close our account with that bank.

The newer card gets 1% cash back at the end of the year. It's convenient that we can just transfer money from our savings or checking to the credit card account, all in one spot.

Our Spending Habits

Neither of us likes carrying cash. I hate having things in my pockets, and she loses stuff in her purse. As a result, we use our credit card everywhere we can, our debit card where that doesn't work, checks where debit cards aren't accepted and cash as a last resort.

We always pay of the entire balance each month.

Current Rewards Program

I guesstimate that this year we've been spending about $2,200 on our credit card each month. If 1% cash back works the way I'm assuming it does, that means we'll get $264 back at the end of the year (.01*$2200*12).

Other Reward Options

Thinking that I'll get $264 back and knowing my average monthly spending means that I can now start comparing other credit card offers and maximize my rewards. Some cards appear to offer really good deals with reasonable APRs and no annual fees.

Let's pretend for a minute that I really did get 5% back on all purchases (there are a couple of exceptions). Spending the same amount each month would then get me $1320 cash back. (0.05*2200*12).

Is this really how it works? If I use the card responsibly (paid off in full each month!) do I really stand to gain that much in cash back? Does anyone have experience with any of these types of cards?

Other Factors

Our credit union is local. We will be closing our accounts when we move in January. Since we don't like our other credit card or the bank it's through, we'll need to get a new credit card anyways.

The cards I listed all require having 'Excellent' credit. My credit score according to Credit Karma is 811. My wife's is similarly high. That along with a car loan in our name and regularly paid cell phone bills I think might put us in the 'Excellent' category.

I'm not fan of credit card hopping. I don't want to switch or open cards every year in response to good deals, so I don't care much about the introductory bonuses or APY; I want to find the card that will be best in the long run.

I've heard Dave Ramsey's and JD's calls to get rid of credit cards, but that's not how we live. We have both been pretty financially reasonable, even before we had a budget. We treat credit cards like we would guns: useful but dangerous tools that need to be treated with respect.


I'd love to hear other's advice and experience with these or similar cards.

Is It Time to Switch To CFLs?

I've known for quite a while that CFLs (Compact Fluorescent Bulbs) were cheaper in the long run, but I was ambivalent about the savings, and was under the impression that it wasn't that much of a difference anyways. Now that I'm trying to become more disciplined and save money wherever I can, I decided to do an honest evaluation of the potential savings.

We are likely moving in January, so I wanted the CFLs to pay themselves off before then since I don't know what kind of lighting our yet-to-be-found new house will have.

My plan was to a) analyze the costs and b) stick all the existing incandescent bulbs into a shoebox till we're moving out and take the CFLs with us.

We now have all CFLs, except for the two porch lights which are almost never used and which are difficult to replace anyways. If my estimates and calculations are correct, we should save about $10 a month and recoup our costs in four months.

Below is the spreadsheet I used for my calculations. Please let me know if you see any errors. The in-line view doesn't have quite the whole sheet. Please view it on Google docs or download it to see the full thing.

(Post continues after spreadsheet)

View it, Download it as ODS, Download it as XLS.



As you may have noticed, the longer you leave your lights on the sooner you recoup your costs. The obvious solution is of course to leave your lights on all day long. You'll be saving money before you know it! ;-)

There are some minor issues to switching to CFLs. If you're concerned about the color of your lighting, you may want to buy just a couple of bulbs and try them first. The CFLs, though they claim to be pure white, daylight or whatever do seem to have more of a blueish tinge than the incandescents.

I put the bulbs in our house last night, and due to the color of the glass around the light fixtures, the color temperature change isn't that noticeable, except in the bathroom, where we have a built-in vanity with six bare bulbs surrounding it.

When my two year old walked into the bathroom this morning, he said "We got new walls in the bathroom?", "No" replied my wife. "Somebody painted the walls in the bathroom?" returned my son. The color change isn't bad, but it does exist and may take some getting used to. For $10/month though, I'll do it.

Categorizing My Monthly Spending

When we used our accounts at Wells Fargo, we could see a categorical breakdown of our expenses, but only for the Credit Card. My current Credit Union doesn't offer this functionality, but I had a driving need to know where my money was going.

Initially I would download the .csv (comma separated values) files, and manually sort them out into categories on a spreadsheet.

Of course, that grew old quickly, and I was forced to search the internet for something better. Coming up empty handed, I wrote my own script to sort out my different expenses into categories.

You run it on the command line like so

./statementToCategories.pl list.csv of.csv account.csv statements.csv

It will ask you how to categorize different expenses, and when it sees them again, it will remember what you entered last time. When it's done, it will ask you what to save the file as, and will create a .csv file with the different categories, and how much was spent in each category. It will also tell you how much you spent in each category in an average month.

With that data you can make charts, make plans and moan about how much you wasted on eating out....

You can find the script here:

http://richerandbetter.blogspot.com/2000/01/statementtocategoriespl.html

The script is in Perl, since that's what I'm comfortable with, and it probably won't work as-is for you, unless your bank/credit union lets you download .csv files with the same format as mine does, and you're running Linux. You are free to edit the script however you want and redistribute it.

I have no idea if the .csv files I download are some banking standard, or if they're just the way my credit union decided to make them.

ING Direct

I finally set up a savings account at ING Direct today. As you know, part of our plan is to move money to the highest interest rate account it can go in, while being as liquid as it needs to be. We had accrued $2500 in our Money Market account, so it was time to move some of that into a higher interest account.

Since we have to pay rent tomorrow, and we have $318 on the credit card which is due on the 25th, I decided to only put in $1000 into the ING account for starters. In a week or two when rent is paid and we're closer to our next paycheck, I'll transfer another $500 in.

How accessible will our money be? From what I've read, a transfer from ING takes about 5 business days. At my credit union, I can cash in the CD at any time, and I only lose the last 60 days of interest on the CD. So, I'm exchanging urgency in an emergency situation (where I could use my credit card anyways) for lack of penalties really.

Depending how well I like the ING Savings account, I will probably open an Electric Orange checking account as well. We use an average of 5 checks a month. Any of those things which couldn't be paid with a check from ING could be paid with cash, and then we wouldn't have to worry about changing our bank account whenever we move.

Job Interview

Today I interviewed for the job I mentioned in "What Am I Worth?". Overall the interviews went pretty well. There were three interviewers, one attending via phone. I certainly did better with the in-person interviewers than over the phone.

The company is something of a cube farm company but I'm optimistic that it'll be a good experience, assuming I get the position. I should find out if I get to have the second and final round of interviews within a week.

I ended up asking for $60,000 per year. I choked and didn't play the 'how much could you offer?' game like I should have. I'll try harder when we move in January. My current position is dull enough that I'll take a non-maximum salary to switch positions.

--

Interviews are always fun in a way. I get nervous and a bit queasy, but the task of trying to relate my life experiences to the questions they ask is always an interesting challenge. My resume was prepped to help me this time, as I included several non-work projects I've done in the experience section. In the past I wouldn't have included them since I wasn't paid, I didn't have a manager, and they were relatively short term. They did use technologies tangentially related to this companies offerings though, so it ended up helping.

Background: Our life situation

I believe that money advice and information is more useful if you have a frame of reference when considering the advice. All advice isn't good advice, and not all good advice applies to everyone at the time they hear the advice.

Here's our life situation

• I just barely graduated and am working full time.
• My wife is getting her MBA.
• We have two young kids (both under 3).
• We rent an apartment, but are planning on buying a house in the next 18 months.
• We have about three years of car payments remaining, at zero percent interest.
• We will have to start paying interest on student loans in June 2009. (About $6000 total in loans)
  
• We don't carry a balance on our Credit Cards
• My work has a 401(k) plan with matching up to 3% of my salary (Salary: $50,000/yr + bonuses)
  
• My wife and I both have minor money making hobbies (no dependable income, probably a total of several thousand extra dollars a year)
• We believe in the law of tithing, and pay 10% of all our income to our church, as well as other offerings from time to time.
  

We are a deeply religious family, but I will try my hardest not to be a zealot or to push religious views too heavily in this blog. If you are offended by the mentioning of religion in a financial blog, you have several options:

1. This is the Internet, and you are free to find another site to visit
2. Realize that not everyone is just like you, and that we can agree on some things and disagree on others
3. Every time I mention faith, blessings or the likes, do a mental search and replace and say belief and luck instead
   

I've got friends with all sorts of beliefs including Zoroastrian, Jewish, Mormon, Baptist, Catholic, Spiritist, Agnostic, Athiest and more. What we have in common brings us together as friends, what is different provides variety in our lives.

Tomorrow: An overview of our current accounts