Most of us remember being kids and, while we might have been worried about death, our lives were so long ahead of us. What they don’t tell you back then is that your childhood is long and slow, and you end up getting so excited about turning 18 and 21… then you’re suddenly 30 and then 40 and then you’re 50 and however many years are left of your life, the best of your health is probably being you… Continue reading Life is Really So Short.
Tag Archives: 30s
Hello 2016! A Toast to an Amazing, Productive, Healthy, and Sane Year
I’ll admit it, 2015 was rough. With my long commute to and from work, my sanity and health sank to perhaps an all-time low. Although I achieved networth growth over the year, it wasn’t nearly as much as I had targeted. In fact, in the year when I made significantly more than I had ever made before, I ended up saving less than I had in the past (including interest.) I closed out the year with $344k in total assets with the exception of my car (I don’t count that in my networth calculations, though, I guess I suppose I should.) I wanted to be at $400k in networth, but between some bad investments, general stock market blahs, and being unemployed for a brief while, I just didn’t get anywhere near that.
What I try to remind myself is that $344k at 32 is not too shabby. If I don’t touch that, don’t add anything else, and it manages to grow at 5% YoY that’s $1.3M by the time I’m 60. Ok, so I want to get to $4M by 60 (which requires about a 10% YoY annual return with my current principal and no annual additions), but even if I get to $1.3M by 60 I think I could remain working and manage to grow that another 5 years, which gets me to $1.7M and that isn’t counting any savings from future Mr. HECC.
The plan was to hit $500k net worth, have a kid and save for a house while living in an apartment with young kid, and then over the next five years save enough for a 20% downpayment ($300k) on top of the $500k plus annual interest that I wouldn’t touch. That goal is looking rather unlikely right now, and I’m actually ok with that. I’ve gotten to this point where I’ve accepted that the life I am going to lead as an adult is going to be at a lower class level than the one I was used to as a child. While I grew up in an upper-middle class household, my family will be squarely in the middle class (for my region of the country), and we’ll be fine. We’ll still be doing much better than the majority of households in the country, even if we can’t afford a house for a long time, if ever.
Right now, my focus must be 100% on excelling in my job. With my current salary and responsibilities, I have the opportunity to set myself up for a very successful next 20 years of my career. I also am very seriously confronting the reality that if this doesn’t work out for any reason, if this is a failure, then it means a significant shift my career trajectory and networth projections. I very well might return to school – which I’ve been talking bout for a while but haven’t seriously pursued – to study to become a psychologist or design researcher with a psychological focus. But I don’t want to think about that right now, I’m heads down, fully in the game, trying to relax and thrive despite the many challenges at hand. In other words, I refuse to mess this up.
Beyond work, this year is just a huge year of major life changes. I get married in a few months (tax bill goes up next year, woohoo), and I also likely start trying to have kids, confronting the soon-to-be-proven fact that conceiving doesn’t come so naturally to me (thanks PCOS.) I’m hyper-focused on losing weight, eating healthy and exercise right now. My weight fluctuates significantly — in 2012 I was at 180lbs (my highest ever, which is very heavy for a woman who is 5’3), to 155lbs a year later, to 176lbs a year later than that, dropping and holding steady at 170 through 2014 and most of 2015, ending 2015 at 160lbs. I hired a personal trainer 3x a week ($50 a session which is a really good deal for this area) so we’re working on getting my weight down to about 130 in the next couple of months (5 pounds a month is my goal to lose, which is a good, achievable goal.) It’s mostly so I can feel happy with how I look in my wedding pictures, but it’s also just something I need to do in order to save myself from premature aging. Plus, I just feel mentally more clear and balanced when I’m eating healthy and exercising. It’s good to have such short-term goal so I am focused the entire way through, no matter how hard it gets.
This year, my goals are going to be a little less intense on the networth side. I’d like to get to $400k in networth, including $23.5k in new retirement savings (401k & IRA). That leaves $31.5k to make up for in interest and other savings, or about $2.6k per month. I’m planning to try to save an additional $2k per month on average, and hopefully the rest (~$7200) will come from interest on, say, $250k of invested, interest-earning assets, which is about a 3% gain on those investments. I’d prefer to go well over this, but trying to be realistic with the goals, especially with the wedding spending. I don’t think this is going to be a hugely profitable year but I could be wrong.
2016 Goal Summary
1) $400k networth – including $23.5k in retirement savings, $24k in taxable investments, and about $7k in interest.
2) Be 130lbs by summer
3) Thrive at my job (and be gainfully employed and loved by my colleagues when Jan 1, 2017 rolls around)
4) Get pregnant before I’m 33!?!
Well, here’s to kicking off what is sure to be a crazy year. Fingers crossed it’s a good one. I think it will be. I hope it will be. Oh god, it better be. 🙂
Hello 32. Such a strange age.
I woke up this morning from one of my continuous wedding nightmares as of late and I completely forgot it’s my birthday. I guess that means I must be 32. This is the age when some people have been parents for a while and their kids are starting to become serious “kids” or even young adults. For me, this is the age I’m getting married, starting a new job, and maybe starting to build my family.
What does 32 feel like? I am not “old” yet, but certainly not young. There is a huge gap in behavior and mentality from myself and the youngins. Even college students, once the epitome of youthful old age, are babies, while 40-50 year olds are relatively childish and childlike. No one seems to really grow up ever, it’s just that young people change in their ways so the old youthful behavior suddenly seems like old people behavior. But we’re not much different from who we were when we were kids.
I don’t feel excited to turn 32. I’m excited I’m alive, of course, but nothing really feels like a “happy” birthday. The next birthday really worth celebrating is 50, so I have some time until then. At this point I just know my life is really rolling on and I’ve got to make some quick decisions to make it work. As each day goes by the more and more I want a family. It doesn’t help matters that many of my friends have their first child – even though few of my friends gave birth in their early to mid 20s, the majority of them hit that milestone prior to now, expect the ones that don’t plan to procreate (there are exceptions, of course, with some having waited even longer.)
I went and tasted cake last night for my wedding – felt that was a good “goodbye 31” celebration to have secretly in my mind. After 30 I think we should be celebrating the day before our birthdays, not the day of. Celebrating making it another year, the never-ending sun setting of our youth, and all of the things we survived mentally and physically in the year prior. No need to celebrate getting older at this point. Nothing to see here, carry on.
When you’re 20, or 20-something, that’s a great excuse to make mistakes. I made my fair share. Then 30 rolls around and you don’t quite accept that you’re not in your 20s anymore at 30. You try to forget the whole turning 31 thing. Then 32 is here and you can’t deny it, you’re heading rapidly towards your “mid 30s.” Biologically this is significant. As a woman, you only have a few more years left to bring life into the world. As a professional, the lines forming on your stressed forehead mean you’re suited finally for those coveted VP and partner jobs, or at least you’re getting closer to those opportunities.
You always looked young. You always got carded. You haven’t gotten carded in a while.
When we’re 2, we expect to grow significantly by the time we’re 12. Yet there is a grand denial about the aging process between 22 and 32. But, man, I’m OLDER. Older than I was. That’s how life works.
At 32, I see my family less and less. Everyone is moving away, even though I deserted them years ago. My sister may move off to the midwest soon and work weekends and holidays, so I’d only see her on specifically planned joint vacations. My parents have their new winter condo in Florida so should a work trip to the east coast occur during the months they’re gone I won’t just happen to be able to have dinner with them. I’m at that part of my life when your family unit is depleted and you must start to build your own. I am fortunate to have a partner in life, because if I didn’t I’d feel horribly alone and depressed right now. I look at us and see us aging and hope that we have a long, relatively and fairly healthy life together. That’s the most one can do, is hope.
What did I think I’d accomplish by 32? Heaven knows. I never had a plan. I wanted to have $500k in net worth, but I’m only about 70% there. Not bad. Not great. But it’s something. I never thought about when I’d have kids, just that I’d have them and not wait until the latest possible time I could, which really means I thought I’d probably have kids by now. At least I’m getting married to a man who will be a great husband and father. Check. That’s some progress. I’m terrified of this whole adult thing which I’ve put off for so long. It’s time to grow up. Goodbye 31. Hello 32.
That Time When You Realize You’re Almost 32…
Shit. I’m less than 6 months to 32. That’s not quite old but it certainly not young. And while I’ve saved up a decently sizable portfolio of investments over the course of my 31 and a half years, every day I freak out more regarding how I’m quickly watching the opportunity to have children disappear before my eyes. Yes, women can have kids later and later these days, but with my PCOS-crapified ovaries I know getting and staying pregnant is going to be a total bitch and damn expensive if not impossible.
There is no way in hell that I could work in a job like the one I have now and deal with getting pregnant. At least when you have kids they’re these physical creatures you can talk about with others and offer as a reason to work from home on occasion in order to deal with the whole biological needs of being a mother with infants. When you’re trying to get pregnant and not having any organic luck, then you have to deal with tons of doctors appointments and the crazy of hormone injections and such that mess with your mind. Yes, people do this all the time but I’m sure working for a startup makes it a heck of a lot harder. And I don’t think I’d ever see an occasion where I’d feel comfortable explaining to my current boss that I need to take some time during the day to go to a series of doctors appointments in order to get knocked up. That’s personal, and I would want it to stay personal.
While I’m not looking to get pregnant today, the reality is that I DO want to be married by next June (12 months) and very shortly thereafter want to begin the process of trying to have kids. I’ll be 32-and-a-half (holy shit) and in order to have my first kid by 34, well, that doesn’t leave a heck of a lot of time. Mr. HECC needs to hurry up and propose to me (hoping that’s happening in next 30 days because now we’re at the 9 year mark and we’ve generally both agreed on the get-married-and-have-kids timeline) and we just need to move on with our lives. I’m perplexed at how I can be 31 with a job making over $150k a year and a networth approaching $350k and I still feel so terribly lost and behind. I have a job, not a career, no matter what it looks like from the outside – and a boyfriend who might as well be my husband but who isn’t – because I’ve been so preoccupied with not being like those girls who just get married in their 20s because that’s what they think they ought to do.
And on top of all this, I am seriously considering grad school now more than ever – because this whole situation of just taking jobs that I can get versus jobs that I’m actually capable of being good at is absolutely draining every ounce of my being. I’m learning a shit ton and there are many aspects of my role that I like too, but it’s just not for me over the long term. I’m so grateful that the few people I have on my team are rockstars and helping me stay somewhat sane, but nonetheless that isn’t a career I can maintain even for a few more years. I need to make changes and I need to make changes fast in order to at least make a significant attempt at having a family, which at the end of the day is way more important to me than becoming a millionaire in my 40s.
So now that I have that straight, it definitely changes my priorities and plans. What kind of career can I have where I can – instead of being at the office 10 hours a day not including commute – spend time at home and be able to be a part of my potential future children’s lives? What job can I do where I can live a somewhat standard middle class life and be able to afford a house with a porch and a backyard… one that I can watch my children run around in? If my 20s were the years where I just wandered blindly and tried my best to save and save some more, my 30s are a time to open my eyes and just accept that being in the upper middle class, like I was as a child, isn’t necessarily the only option or a real route to happiness. So what if I’m squarely in the middle class? Did endless trips to the suburban shopping malls actually make me a happier person? Did my parents putting me through a private college for four years set me up for more success then I would have had if I went to a state school on scholarship and loans? Yes, it made it possible for me to take more risks then I might have if I didn’t have the cushion, but maybe those risks were bad ones to begin with. Maybe those risks are the ones that got me to almost 32, unwed and looking at a likely barren future.
Of all the things I freak out about, having kids and being able to have kids is something that I think I have a right to worry about. There is a such thing as a biological clock and time is FLYING by. I’m grateful to at least have the man who I see being the father to my children in my life, and for that to be an extremely stable relationship – but who cares if I’m going to be a 33-year-old newly wed and facing years of expensive, painful, and otherwise inconvenient infertility treatments? Being a woman IS different than being a guy – especially one in their late 20s / early 30s. Guys don’t have to rush into having kids – and guys don’t have to stab themselves with hormones in order to attempt to get pregnant, going to the doctor for many appointments in order to conceive and then engage in an entirely new series of doctors visits for ensuring the baby is born healthy and all… not to mention all that stuff that comes with being a mother once you give birth. And if you want more than one kid — well, so long to career progression in your 30s.
But do I really care? I don’t exactly have my heart set on becoming CMO – and what that entails. Is the American Dream working so hard until the day you retire that you don’t see your kids grow up, or have time to enjoy any hobbies or other moments in life that don’t involve soothing client worries or generating more business? I hate admitting that part of me wishes I were born at a time when these choices were made for me. What a terrible feminist. But it’s hard to be everything. Well, it’s not possible to be everything. And I am really, honestly, over dramatically and extremely terrified of believing time wouldn’t progress quite so rapidly if I chose to ignore it – and that my own ability to be a functioning woman wouldn’t be sidetracked by attempting to get ahead in a career where I’m yet another broken cog in an otherwise malfunctioning machine that will spin on and on and on whether or not I happen to be there to fill my little place in it.
Do You Really Want Kids? The Case for Being Childfree
The term “childfree” is all the rage these days. A new book “Selfish, Shallow and Self-Absorbed – Sixteen Writers on the Decision NOT to Have Kids” is getting its spin in the spotlight. Not surprisingly, everyone – and their mother – had an opinion on whether or not any woman should become a mother. If you don’t have kids, as the book’s name suggests, you are called various derogatory terms, as if somehow the choice not to bring another human being into the already overpopulated, resource-strained world is the most selfish thing a person can do. I for one acknowledge that the choice to be childfree is anything but.
That said, I do want children. I don’t think there is a logical reason why beyond biology; I’m absolutely terrified of my ability to be a good mother – judging by my management skills and hatred of confrontation and overall disorganization and poor time management ability, one could easily make the case why I should not be a mother. I’m 31.5 and it would be just as easy to spend the next eight-and-a-half years of my life doing what I’m doing now, until it’s too late, at least naturally, to have a kid or a litter. I could just say, you know what, I don’t want kids, and I’m not going to have any (my parents are expecting me to say this any day, especially since I’ve been in a relationship for nine years and have not yet so much as gotten engaged.)
I don’t know if there’s every a good reason to have kids or to not have kids. If you live a non-religious life, as I do, there’s no god from above throwing shade at me and my partner for not popping out the maximum number of new psyches one body can produce. There are people out there who love kids and people out there who loathe kids in equal parts, and some who love kids never have them by choice or by default and some who hate them have a gaggle to their own dismay. Some who love kids have them and then secretly hate them, and some who secretly hate them, have them, and realize that the meaning of life is seeing the world through their child’s eyes.
Perhaps if I had some sort of outstanding career where I was happy jet-setting around the world, creating art or performing on broadway or directing films or writing novels which leave no time to be distracted by little brats screaming bloody murder in the background, I’d think that a childfree life would be the way to go. But I’ve gotten to this strange point of limbo in life. At 31, with nearly $350k in savings (on paper, anyway), and a career that, while sucking up the majority of my waking life, inspires me less than a calculus class, I know that I am fortunate to have options that few have, but I there is something horrifyingly missing from my life today. It isn’t a big fancy house or even a big fancy job. It’s family.
Family, of course, can mean many things. I grew up with a large extended family – myself being the oldest cousin – with just one sister and two parents, but well over 15 attendees to any holiday family gathering, my childhood was filled with the dramatics of a family mixed with Tri-State Jews, Italians, and Cubans, which was lively to say the least. Of course as a child I never really appreciated this, it was just the way life was. It was yet another holiday, another family event to go to, and as I transformed from the only child of the whole family, cute and the center of attention, to the oldest cousin who was meant to behave and help entertain the young ones or be bragged about relentlessly by her narcissistic parents who would overstate her accomplishments, I didn’t have what one would call a healthy relationship with that family. Still, it was family – a family I’m sorely lacking today.
Even though I doubt my maternal instincts and abilities, I also feel inspired to build a strong, solid family filled with love and care. One where perfection is not the expectation and flaws are equally rewarded and cherished. My boyfriend and likely future husband is such a quiet, calm, introverted individual, I fear our family will be so small, mellow, and quiet without the organic melding of a localized large extended family. I’ve considered moving back to the east coast just to be near family — my parents are having a portion of our giant clan over for seder tonight, and I will yet again miss it — but I don’t know if that would really help or hurt my desire to set up a healthy family dynamic sans the consistent crazy of my own parents.
When I think about my life, you know, the next year or ten years or thirty or eighty of it, I no longer have this crazy desire to be the next Idina Menzel or Ellen Degeneres. All my life I thought what I wanted was fame, to just be someone who people knew and loved and would be willing to talk to, someone who wasn’t this oddball in the corner hoping for her shot to be not only accepted by lauded for her esteemed personality and thoughts. I thought that was core to who I am, something that would never change. I dedicated my early 20s to auditioning for local productions, sacrificing potential jobs which conflicted with evenings off for rehearsal, not because I thought I’d get the lead or because I really believed I had the talent to ever succeed in the performing arts, but because the drive was there. It was gnawing, visceral, relentless and the only iota of a self-propelled intention I knew to be true. Even that, the one thing I thought I knew about myself, it seems, is fleeting.
I wouldn’t mind being known for doing something great – writing a best selling novel or, heck, one day the grande reveal of this blog once it becomes more than just a never-ending self-absorbed tale of depression, anxiety and poor career choices (I’m surprised anyone actually reads this thing, but if you are reading, hello) – but what I really want to do, what I really want more than anything in the world, is to be able to go to the park with my kids and watch them run around and laugh and fall down and get up all over again. I want to have teenagers who I can relate to deeply due to my extended, perhaps pervasive adolescence, and help them grow into their own. I want to raise children who learn that they can do anything they want, that it doesn’t have to be something worthy of bragging about. That their destiny is their own. You know, I’ll never be a great employee. I’m not built to be an award-winning corporate, execution-oriented, results-driven robot. I think I might be built to be a mother. Well, I guess you can say, of course I am.
Thinking about motherhood a lot lately…
It’s not just that most of my friends have children that is on my mind lately – it’s that their children are very quickly growing up. I didn’t feel so behind with my friends having tiny babies that could only communicate in screams and silence, but now my friend’s kids are bouncing around all over the place, building up their personalities, laughing and making out a few words. A few of my friends are even on their second child. I’m 31, childless, by choice, but it won’t be by choice for long.
I didn’t grow up knowing I wanted to be a mother. But now that I’m in a long-term relationship of nearly 9 years, I’m ready. I mean, I’m really ready – as ready as I’ll ever be. But the reality is that I’m not even engaged yet. If I get engaged in early 2015, which I think I will, I won’t be married until late 2016, after I turn 33. As I’ve written about before, having children is going to be challenging and require some form of medical intervention due to having severe PCOS. Who knows if I even can have kids? It may be impossible. What will hurt most is finding out that it might have not been impossible if only I didn’t wait so long…
There’s a growing part of me that wants to skip this marriage thing altogether and jump to having children, or at least trying to. Marriage seems unnecessary these days – and, as I’ve written about before, actually costs more in the long run from a tax perspective and makes life even less affordable. Perhaps marriage itself is not a necessity anymore. I’d like to be married, but I don’t need to be. I feel, at this point, I do need to have children. That’s more important. I want to build my family before it’s too late.
My boyfriend is aware of this, and he wants kids as well. We’ve both discussed 1-2 years as the timeframe for having children. The marriage stuff is where it gets tricky. It requires 1-1.5 years of planning. Not that I really am ready, ready to have a baby today – as in, I couldn’t imagine keeping my current job after giving birth, and I’d like to remain in my job for at least two years if possible. But… I go back and forth… because I’d like children, and by children I mean 2-3 kids, and if I wait any longer it’s just going to be harder to have one, let alone a pair or trio.
I feel like I also have no one to talk to about this. I bring it up with my boyfriend and he says we’ve already discussed it and there’s no use rehashing, in so many words. A peep of this to my parents and I get an earful that I’m waiting too long to begin with. My friends who already have kids and who are sleep deprived aren’t interested in hearing my minor jealousy. So I blog about this topic a lot because I just have no one to share these feelings with. And I’m really starting to get scared — life is buzzing by so quickly and I just don’t want to let it blur before my eyes without having the opportunity to build my family. Yes, adoption and such is always an option, but like so many other women out there I would much prefer to give birth to my own children. I’m not sure if I’d ever adopt. But I’ll cross that bridge when the time comes.
It’s just crazy to me how when you turn 30 you’re suddenly, well, old, in terms of your biological clock. Nowadays our 20s are more or less thought of as time to find ourselves, to explore, to grow up – and then boom, you’re 30, or you’re 31, and then… you have 10 years to get your shit together before you’re freaking forty and you’re a full-on grown-up entering middle age. So, I have ten years, or less, to have all my children, if I’m going to have any, and figure out how to balance some form of work life and personal life. I’m terrified of moving too fast and even more so moving too slow. I put all of my energy into work because I have to right now, that’s my focus, but I can see focusing on that for so long that I just run out of time to have a family. I feel like I might have my priorities mixed up.
Her First Grey Hair… and Turning 31
“You have one,” my boyfriend exclaimed in a taunting manner. “I have one what,” I asked, half paying attention. “You have a grey hair,” he said, giggling, knowing that he was pushing my buttons just a few days before turning 31 (to be fair I’ve teased him re: his own grey strands for years now.) “WHAT,” I exclaimed, suddenly feeling the blood rush away from my face, breath stop, and the panic of time punch me smack in the stomach for the nth time this week. If turning 31 wasn’t enough god though to start the decolorization process of my hair as a gift for surviving another year.
Now that I’m about 31 and topped off with one silver grey hair (or, apparently, the start of one in about an inch of root) it’s very clear that in order to accomplish anything in the life of mine I must make haste. It’s so easy to get lost daydreaming about the meaning of all this and coming to yet another lapse of solid conclusion. I think back to the days when I felt excitement for the future, for moments, for all the ups and downs of life… and I try to swallow the memory of those days when there was true unfiltered anticipation and trepidation… today I’ve completely lost that part of myself. I look forward to absolutely nothing.
Maybe that is being my bipolar self yet again, perhaps I’m in a depressed phase. Or maybe this is just the way a rational person approaches life. What will the next thing that I look forward to be? A year ago I took a trip to southeast Asia with a friend and I was somewhat excited about that – it seems travel to new places is the only thing that really excites me anymore, yet I don’t like traveling on my own and I don’t actually have time to travel with work. Instead, I just am trying to be heads down, really focused on my job. I know I’m in such a fortunate place where I have a great position in a company where I actually am interested in the subject matter and I like the people I work with and I’m getting paid well. Everything is going so great. I should be extremely elated right now. But happiness is not what I feel. I feel the rush of saving money each month. The rush of knowing that I’m increasing my networth so one day I can be free – but even if I could actually accomplish financial freedom what would that actually buy me? I spent two months without a job and I was miserable and ready to go back to work by the end of the first week.
I am convinced that the next thing I’d be actually excited about is having children and seeing them grow up and go through their own phases of over excitement in discovering their new world. Yet I don’t see a life as a mother and life as a startup executive jiving together. I don’t think I can do both. Sure, some women can, but I’m barely able to handle such a high-pressure job without the kid(s) nagging for my attention and time. I’m pretty sure I’d fall completely apart trying to do both at once, even with the support of a future-husband who would be more than thrilled to stay at home.
And, of course, I shouldn’t rely on children to resolve this emptiness in my life, the hollowness in my heart. I don’t have time for hobbies but I’m sure if I had the motivation I’d figure out a way to make time. I don’t do well in a life without structure yet I’m terrible at making structure for myself. The days and months and years just tick tick tick on and on. Soon more grey hairs will pierce through my scalp, swallowing the vibrant strands which tease as the remnants of youth. Meanwhile I’m watching my always angry father fade away from his cancer and my mother continue to nag as she nags and all of life just slip past as I beg of it to stop so I can embrace it as fully as I once did, back when every moment meant more than it should have, instead of near nothing, a fractured fragment of its absolute worth.
The Quarter Millionaire Success! $250k Networth at 30
I didn’t think it was possible, but with the solid growth of the stock market this year, a $10k raise mid-year, and mild frugality (let’s not go so far as calling myself frugal because I definitely wasn’t), I hit my goal of saving $250,000 before I turned 30!
I’m mostly amazed because this year I bought a car (for ~$19k cash including warranty, I’m counting $10k of that towards my networth currently) and took a $3000+ trip to Southeast Asia. While I still feel like $250k is a drop in the bucket in terms of affording life in Silicon Valley, it represents a major victory for my personal goals (remember I started at $25k in 2007 and was down to $18k in 2008.)
Now I am going to try to save above and beyond $250k this month as I want to get to $300k minimum by Jan 1, 2015 – and I’d like to max out my 401k early on next year (ie put 90% of my income for first few months into the 401k, so keeping more cash liquid right now than I normally would.)
Here is my full NetworthIQ report for Dec 1.
