Job Search: Hard Decision Made and Back to the Grind

Well after much debate with myself and some discussion with my mom. I opted to not take the job with Edward Jones. This was a major decision for me and I'm one of those people who always like to think of all the pros and cons before I make a decision. I thought I would share them with you all...so you can see what I was thinking.

The Pros:

1. It was a job which there would income coming in

2. The work entailed some interest for me...basically it would be a continuation of the things I want to eventually do with this blog, financial advising.

3. They were willing to train me to become a financial advisor and pay me for my training.

4. I would basically starting my own business and they would hire me an assistant to help maintain the office.

5. The pay was more than I was looking for...just over $30,000 plus bonuses. Their benefits packages was pretty good to... the basic included basic life insurance, basic accidental death and dismemberment insurance, income continuation plan for short-term disability, profit sharing and tuition reimbursement. (They also have optional medical and dental insurance, long-term disability, supplemental life insurance, supplemental accidental death and dismemberment insurance, dependent life insurance, long-term care insurance, health care reimbursement account, dependent day care reimbursement account, 401(k) plan, after-tax plan and investment savings plan.)

So those are some good pros...but what made me decide to go the other way

The Cons:

1. Ultimately this is a sales job...something I don't really want my whole job to be about. I know that almost all jobs has some sort of sales to it. But in order to be successful in this job you had to be a successful salesperson.

2. It's a career oriented job. I'm not looking for a career just yet. I want to go back to school in a year or two and I don't think I could just walk away from this in that time frame.

3. I would be responsible for my paycheck. They only pay you the salary for the first month, after that it's really up to you to have built a sizable business to start making a income.

4. I can't really see myself doing this for long, it seems very stressful and I wouldn't be able to do that and school, plus continue on working on my writing.

5. I'm just too young to start to settle into such a career path.

So five cons and five pros...you can see how I was in a bit of a fix. But I realized that it wasn't really about how many was in each list but how much they each weighed in my life. This is where it really pays to know your life dreams and goals. Granted one of my life dreams is to become financially stable but I don't want to sacrifice other dreams to be financially stable. In my life the Cons weighed more than the Pros. While I feel a little disappoint that I'm not posting about a new job, I'm comforted by the fact that I hadn't sold my soul for money. It's a good feeling.

Job Search: Potential Job?

I finally got up the nerve to call the lady back from Edward Jones. Unfortunately she wasn't there so I left her a message. She then called me back and I didn't hear the phone ring so I missed it. But she did leave a message and I'm suppose to call her back tomorrow morning and we are to have a discussion. I'm thinking they have some sort of entry level position. I don't really know how I feel about it.

On the one had I'm excited about a potential job, on the other hand I'm nervous that I'm getting my hopes up for nothing. So I've been trying my best not to think about it. I told my mom about the other day, and my sister. My mom was like okay well maybe they have a entry level position, just call her back and see what she has to say. My sister was less supportive, saying that I wasn't qualified. I don't know what they are looking for so I don't know if I'm qualified or not.

I'm really ready for a job cause I'm ready to start anew. I know I'm kinda asking for a lot, everyone's saying it's gonna take a while before I can actually get something. My dad has been looking for work for five years. I don't know what all he's applied for but I'm hoping my luck will be different.

On a side note, my mom *suggested* that I think about just going back to school...possibly in another state. I've been thinking about it, but it might not be as easy as everyone seems to think. It's much harder to get into grad school plus find money to do it. Besides I haven't a clue really what I want to go back for. That's why I took the year off to try and figure it out.

Losing Weight at a Discount

You know sometimes it pays to click on a random ad. Today when I logged onto my music "subscription", Ruckus (I'll tell you about that at another time) there was an ad for the National Body Challenge. For a while now I have been trying to lose a decent amount of weight, for various reasons. I can't claim to have tried many different diets, my Mom can though. You see I have an unnatural fear of vegetables. It goes behind the whole not liking vegetables, no they actually cause me fear. Over the years I've been trying to ad more and different types of vegetables, but it's going very slowly. At present I can stomach peas, corn, small doses of Alfredo drenched broccoli, onions, small amounts of carrots and that's about it.

I have tried two of the main stream diets, Weight Watchers and Slim Fast. I have strong opinions of both, the main one being they aren't budget/frugal friendly. Weight Watchers basis of going to meetings is a good one, I mean it's much easier when you feel like you have to answer to someone. And even though they say it's about community, come on who isn't going to be a little competitive in an area like that. Slim Fast, is advertised as free, which in a way they have one up on Weight Watchers, you can easily go online and use their tools and website for free. (Weight Watchers online tools is part of their Weight Watchers Online program and cost roughly the same as going to the meetings programs.) But Slim Fast is really geared around their products that are not cheap at all. It's hard to substitute regular food when they say have a Slim Fast Meal Replacement bar for Lunch...well does that mean for us normal folks?

So at first I was a bit skeptical of the NBC program. So I clicked on the ad and it took me to the Discovery health website, so far so good. So why am I psyched about this challenge. Well for starters its completely free. The package is amazing to be free, you get:

1. An 8-week free membership to a Bally Total Fitness
2. Customized meal plans
3. Progressive fitness plans, tailored to you by professional experts
4. Diverse community support (It's called the National Body Challenge for a reason.)
5. Individualized weight and fitness trackers
6. Various videos and interactive tools
7. Plus more!

There is one set back...it's only a 8 week challenge From January 5 2008 to March 2 2008. But I'm sure the information you learn both on the website and on TV you can easily take it with you to keep for life. Another important note is that the you can potential register anytime doing the 8 weeks but the 8 week pass to Bally Fitness is available until the 15 of January (11:59pm).

If your reading this after the end of it...don't worry it's a yearly thing. If I have a great experience this year, I plan on doing it again next year.

Personal Vices

Everyone has a vice or two that cause them money every single paycheck. It's our guilty pleasure, or gift to ourselves for being us. And most people always find it way to account for these vices. But when you are strap for cash or looking to get out of debt, vices can be the bane of your existence.

My vices are gadgets and books, and recently e-books and music. I like to think I am on top of my vices, every now and then I go a bit overboard but not often.

I heart gadgets, I'm a total Generation Y type of gal. If it flashes and does cool things then I'm all for it. The latest gadgets I bought was my cell phone and laptop. I had never own a personal computer before in my life. When I came to college my dad bought me a used PC desktop and used one of the old monitors we had around the house and it lasted me all the way until that summer before it died. Then I went to a rental place a rented a laptop...I went through two of them before the last one fell apart due to shoddy workman ship. My Jr. year a friend of my dad's gifted me with their old PC desktop and it last for 1.5 years, I loved that thing it was the best computer I ever had. But then my dorm room had a surged and it crashed...well after waiting for several months and using my dad's old laptop I had finally had enough money in a paycheck to buy me one. I researched it as good as I could. And ended up with a Toshiba Satellite A135-S4527. It cost me less than $600, and it was more advanced than my two friends Dell laptops that they had both purchased last August (one had went into debt to get and the other one had their parent pay for it.)

Before that I saved for a whole semester to get my self a Nintendo DS and three games. I was so excited to get, again my own personal game console ( I had shared a Sega and a original Nintendo with my sister and my brother had a Playstation 2). Out of the three games I bought I mastered one in less than two months, the other two I got bored with extremely fast and traded them in. I got some more games and one for X-mas but I haven't mastered them either. Since last march I think I've played my game maybe a handful of times. Recently I've been thinking about selling it on Amazon or Ebay. But every time I think about it I remembered how I saved and how I know it's just because I haven't bought a new game for it that I don't play it.

I haven't bought a new book or e-book since October and I won my video mp3 player and I canceled my music subscription back when I bought me laptop...I have Vista and the To-go feature doesn't work with the Vista.

I know that in the upcoming months that these holds on my vices will have to continue but I must confess I look forward to the day when I can dip my toes in them once again.

Happy Birthday to Me

Today is my 23rd birthday, it feels weird. I didn't do anything out of the ordinary, I hate it when my birthday falls on a weekday, not to mention that I have no money to go and splurge on myself. I know there are tons of things to do for free, but not here in the south and definately not during the monf January. Now next week around Martin Luther King's birthday then yeah I'm sure there will be loads of free things. But that's one of the things that can lead to not liking the fact that your birthday is only two weeks after Christmas. A lot of people think you can just lump it all together but I figure if I can't lump your birthday in with the closet national holiday than neither should you being lumping mines.

But other than that I am happy to see another year, I am happy to have my family around for another year. 2007 was not the year I wanted it to be but I survived it and I can only go int o 2008 with a positive outlook.

In other news, I have gotten another email from Edward Jones about a possible job, I know I should get in touch with the lady. It's a job, but I don't know if I am truly qualfied to work there. So I am going to sleep on it and perhaps call them tomorrow morning. I know I can't dally to long or I might be passing up a good chance. I know I can learn and excel anything I put my mind to, dealing with other people's finances? *sigh* that's a big thing.

Well I'm off to do something...maybe this weekend I'll do something festive for my birthday.

Vacationing From the Edge: The Reasons part 2

In the last part of the Vacationing From the Edge series I talked about my low-self esteem issues. Today's post will cover the Dreamer part.

Dreamer

Being a dreamer is a permanent characteristic for me, so I'm going to preface this with a I don't see me ever not being a dreamer. Some times my dreams get lost amongst reality and some times I prefer my dream world over this real world. And this has really caused a lot of my problems to date but I don't see me forsaking my dreams to become financially stable.

For starters being a dreamer helps me cope with life. I mean life is not a easy thing to deal with. Because with life you have death and that's not a real awesome thing to think about (Unless you are a Goth- I'm not...nothing against them.) Being from a barely above poverty line family I got use to drowning everything and everyone out when things got bad. But as I've gotten older I know and understand that things could have gotten a lot worse.

How does that translate to my personal financial predicament? Well often it means I set to high of a goal for me to obtain in the small amount of time I give myself, which means I usually fail. And I've talked about that already and how that affects me so no repeats. But one of the truly big dream that I have that affects me the most is that I want my family to be happy and stress free. I know there are some going...Wait you can't put that all on yourself...you gonna drive yourself crazy trying to do that. Hence the title of the blog. Well I've been trying for 20-something years and I've not manage to do it. My family is miserable or anything they just aren't as happy as they could be, if we all weren't financially burden.

Often I catch myself daydreaming while others are living their life. And over the few weeks I've been here trying to find work I have come to some decisions.

It's time to stop living in the dream world solely, I think it's fine for me to visit at least once a day. I'm very creative...creativity is an extension of my soul. I need it to survive which means I need to dream to come up with new ideas of creativity. From writing to photography, digital arts to sculpture, painting to basket weaving. I've done it all and I'm always interested in coming up with new ways to express my creativity. I've come up with a list of new hobbies I want to try that I'll post about later.

I don't look at being a dreamer as being a negative thing, but I do understand the part it had to buying me the ticket to the edge.

The Job Search

As you know I am currently unemployed. Which is a major bummer. After having a solid job for fours years straight I got use to having one. It's weird I always thought I would prefer not to have to have a job but now that I don't I want one. It sucks not having money. Not because I want to buy stuff, cause I don't. I've had plenty of chances to spend the little bit of money I have on frivolous things but just haven't been in the mood to be a consumer.

But I have been proactive, as much as I can be without a car to go searching for work. I have actively applied for four different positions in the last three days. All at local colleges and one at a bank for a financial advisor (on the job training). I have a phone call coming in for the bank to talk about a interview set up so let's keep our fingers crossed. I would like to have some sort of employment before the first of February.

In the mean time I have been looking around for other ways I can make some cash while I wait. I've signed up for Google Adsense and Amazon Associates for this blog, and I'm thinking about put my other blog and website on the account. I have a website for my fictional writing and I get a pretty steady stream of business on there. I have some diehard readers that come by on the regular. Speaking of writing I've been looking for competitions to enter to gain some revenue plus get my name out there. Anything and everything (that's legal of course) I'm looking into.

I have a massive paperback collection. About five or so boxes worth of books in my parents storage. They have been in there over a year now. I figured since I haven't really missed them I can start selling them on Amazon, they are all in excellent order. I was taught how to maintain a paperback collection and how to repair said paperbacks for commercial resale. So my paperbacks are practically like new. At least they were before going into storage, there is no telling how they are now. But I have some books that I kept out of storage that I can start with.

I'll keep you all posted about how this all works out.