Evolving Personal Finance » career
What We Did in Graduate School to Enable Our Risky Career Decisions
Since our move to Seattle, Kyle and I have been meeting lots of new people as well as updating our friends and acquaintances about the changes in our life. These conversations often go as follows: new person: So what brought you to Seattle? Kyle: I got a job at a small biotech start-up. new person: Oh, wow! That’s great. And what do you do? me: I’m self-employed. I’m starting a business teaching graduate students about personal finance. new person: A … Read entire article »
Filed under: career, choices, savings, self-employment
An Agonizing Decision
As of May 31, Kyle had two very attractive job offers in front of him, both of which he had negotiated. While he had submitted a few more applications earlier in the month, as he hadn’t heard back from them yet it seemed that he would just be deciding between the postdoc and the real job at the start-up. Kyle asked to take another week to make his decision, which the postdoc advisor agreed to. This … Read entire article »
Filed under: career
The Reluctant Negotiator
One of the ways that Kyle and I have different personalities is that I am more assertive than he is. After reading personal finance blogs and preparing for my first real job for many years, the necessity of negotiating has been deeply ingrained in me. Particularly as a woman, I think that negotiation is my obligation, not an option. Kyle has not had similar exposure to this concept except largely through me, and that paired … Read entire article »
Filed under: career
The Tale of Two Job Offers
For the last several years, Kyle’s and my life plan has been for him to do a postdoc in his field and for me to be the ‘trailing spouse.’ We thought he would graduate and move to that position before I graduated, but it turned out that I defended only a couple months after he did, and he stuck around in his PhD advisor’s lab to finish up a couple papers as a short-term postdoc … Read entire article »
Filed under: career
We’re Evolving!: Our Next Transition
When we founded EPF in 2011, a major component of is purpose was to keep us financially honest during our several anticipated life transitions. Well, it took until 2014 for the first one to occur, but now we seem to be on a roll. Transition #1: Kyle defended and became a postdoc in the same lab he did his PhD in. Essentially the only change was a salary bump. Transition #2: I defended and became funemployed. The major change … Read entire article »
Filed under: budgeting, career, funemployment, housing, income
First Job Problems: Payroll Deductions Are Annoying!
Apparently I’m doing a whole series about surprising or confusing things that happen when you get a real job! I mean, Kyle’s job is only like half-real (postdoc so he’s still in training and isn’t paid what he’s worth, but he gets a W-2 so he’s a real employee). I’ve already covered why we chose not to enroll him in his 403(b) and how we muddled through our new health insurance choices. Today’s topic is … Read entire article »
Two Tiny Notes
Miss me yet? 😉 Just wanted to pop in with two bits of news. 1) You can get your EPF fix over at Making Sense of Cents today. Michelle published a guest post I wrote (pre-FinCon14 freak-out) on a budget-related method of motivating myself to earn side income in my funemployment. For September, I’m already up to ‘car gas.’ Leave me a comment over on Making Sense of Cents to let me know what you think of my idea! 2) I just learned I have an internship interview in a field I’m very interested in so please wish me luck! Even though I’m not job-searching, I seem to be job-applying. I’ve applied for three internships, a fellowship, a part-time contract job, and two full-time jobs in the past six weeks. Most of those … Read entire article »
Filed under: blogging, career, funemployment
What to Do About a Large Reimbursable Expense
In May, I went on an interview and incurred some incidental reimbursable costs for food and transportation (my flight and hotel were paid directly by the company). Also in May, Kyle registered for a conference; in June he booked his flight to the conference; in July he paid for his lodging and food at the conference. All of his costs were reimbursable as well, but not until after he returned. My costs were only $85, so … Read entire article »
Filed under: career, emergency fund, savings
How Joint Money Management Is Keeping My Marriage Together
I have recently been thinking quite a lot about career transitions, two-body problems, and money in marriage. Kyle and I keep completely joint finances, which I think is a key reason that we are living in the same city and working together to optimize our two-body solution. If we had separate finances, things would probably look quite different… How We Got to Where We Are Kyle and I started dating when we were undergraduates, both graduating in … Read entire article »
Funemployment Report: Goals for August 2014
My funemployment officially starts in September because I am still employed full-time as a graduate student through August. However, now that I am post-defense, I have the time to set myself up well to transition into funemployment. I’m going to attempt to document my funemployment through a series of goal posts. Just after the start of each month, I will report how I did on my goals for the month that just ended and set out … Read entire article »
Filed under: blogging, career, funemployment, goals, grad school
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