Update on When Career Plans Change
Published July 16th, 2008
Well, I have an update–and some great news! For those of you who are just joining me, I wrote a post last week about When Career Plans Change. The response to this post has been great; many emails, some sincere and supportive comments, and both blog carnivals I submitted to this week even chose that post as an editor’s pick! I mention this because I think the choice of taking what’s in front of you, or waiting for your dream, is something we’re all faced with at some point in our life.
I chose to take the one year contract I was offered (instead of waiting indefinitely for my dream job), and once I committed to it, some amazing things happened:
The anxiety vanished
I thought that all of my stress had to do with the job and family decision–really it just had more to do with the uncertainty. Once I decided to take the job, and called my new employer to accept and firm things up, the stress disappeared. I realized I’d been scared of giving up on the plan I’d set, and maybe I was feeling my biological clock ticking a bit–but it doesn’t matter right now. I made a decision, I faced the fear of uncertainty, and now I’m ready to move forward. Inadvertently, while waiting for my dream job over the last year and a half, I’d gotten stuck in a bit of a personal finance rut. I thought, when I get the new job, then I’ll up the mutual fund contribution… or get our health and dental insurance from my employer… and on…and on.
Whatever Pete and I decide to do about expanding family will be up to us. We both have good careers and jobs where we can live and work anywhere. Even though I’d thought of formal job benefits as security, really what better security could we have than setting ourselves up knowing we’ve invested in our education, having highly employable careers, and the right kinds of insurance to protect our assets. This made me feel better, now I truly know that any little person could be accommodated into our family whenever we feel we’re ready.
I re-vamped the budget
I’m not one of those people who budgets strictly right down to the last penny. I set a reasonable budget/expense sheet for all of our expenses including house related stuff, utilities, insurance, investments, food, gas, dogs, misc, then roughly compare what we’re spending to see how we’re doing, and what adjustments need to be made. Regular budgeting has been tougher over the last couple of years since I’ve been self-employed, and my cashflow has come in spurts. We’ve done really well to get the most out of the money we do spend, since a big chunk of our take-home goes to our debt repayment plan.
Of note, I eliminated the gradually increasing satellite bill of $40 a month. In addition to the slightly lower car insurance rate than last year, we also negotiated a lower car and home insurance premium by leaning on our broker to up the deductible and lowering the premium by an extra $17 a month. These changes amount to an extra $812 of hard earned after tax-income in our hands for about 20 minutes of work–I’ll write a whole post on this very soon.
I took the savings above, and turned it into an increase in our monthly mutual fund contribution–which I’d been wanting to do for months.
Even though we have government-subsidized health care here in my province, it doesn’t cover any prescription drugs, dental, optometry or any other adjunct services–specially if you get really sick, you could lose everything. We’d been putting off getting private healthcare to wait for it as an employment benefit–mostly because you get much better coverage through either government or private company plans, however, since we’re both on contracts and now 30, we figured we really shouldn’t wait on this any longer. It will be hard to feel good about shelling out $250 a month for both of us to have some mediocre coverage on our own, but still better to not take risks with our health. Besides, the longer we wait uninsured, the higher the premiums will become–specially if one of us happens to get sick.
I re-balanced the investments
There wasn’t too much to do here since we don’t have too many investments outside of Pete’s pension, but still a necessary task that I’d been putting off until the job change. As I mentioned above, I also upped the monthly contribution, rounding up to an extra $75 a month.
I updated and made a newer debt repayment chart
Most of this debt is considered “good” debt from a combined 15 years of post-secondary education–but definitely still debt nonetheless. We have successfully payed off over $17,500 during the last year, and hope to comfortably double that over the next year, now that we’ve gotten used to just living on one income.
Renewed my commitment to take better care of myself
This new job means no more 12-16 hour days or overnight emerg shifts, and no more eating a large meal, then going to sleep exhausted after work. Even though it means a one hour commute, I will enjoy working 9 to 5, seeing weekends off, and having more time to volunteer again. I’d gradually gained close to 30 pounds over the last 3 years–mostly by eating too much food at inappropriate times, and not sleeping well. Things have already started to change for the better just eating meals at regular times.
Since I’ve spent the better part of the last 5 years in scrubs and sometimes a white lab coat, I’m going to need some office clothes, so I will have to do some spending here over the next couple of months. I’m happy to look around at consignment stores, the discount racks and outlets, and Goodwill. When I lose the rest of the weight, some of my favourite dress clothes will also be waiting for me in the basement (I had carefully packed all of my favourite skinny clothes away).
More time to volunteer
Well, I’m off to call my friends at the local humane society and tell them I finally have time to help out with the animals–I can’t wait. Next on the list is to officially join Veterinarians Without Borders–it’ll be a while after the Galapagos holiday before I’ll be able to take time off for an assignment, but I’m eager to get started and get involved.
As it turns out, by making just one decision, I once again opened up space in my life to improve many things. To me, this represents one more way that choosing to be positive and grateful is helping me to live a better life.
Kelly from Almost Frugal on July 21, 2008
This post has been chosen to be part of the 69th Carnival of Money Stories at Almost Frugal, going live on July 22nd. Don’t forget to link back to the carnival!