Tag Archives: high cost of living

Career

Do something meaningful or just make money or FIRE

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I’m not sure what I want to do with my life, but it feels as if I’m running out of time to do it, whatever “IT” is. I always felt like in order for life to be worth living, you need to do something worth doing. But then I also acknowledge that life is fleeting no matter what, and even the most accomplished of individuals are forgotten, if not in generations, than at some point the the sun dies and humanity disappears forever. It’s a bleak way of looking at things, but it also is freeing. Nothing I do matters from that perspective. Nothing at all.

What does matter, at the moment, is paying the bills. Giving my kids a good life for the few years they get to live when it does feel like life has meaning. Giving my family a life that I can look back on, on my deathbed, and think, I gave them all a good life. We had fun. We laughed. We spent quality time together. We saw the world as much as we wanted to. We ate good food that we made or bought. We had some memorable experiences. My kids are well-adjusted, as much as possible with our DNA, and we’ve been generally good people.

How much money does THAT cost?

Well, right now we’re spending anywhere from $12k-$15k a month, and it doesn’t get us that lifestyle. Not here. Not in the Bay Area. We can have some of it. I’m getting better at learning the basics of cooking (taco night FTW) and honing in on managing my Amazon addiction.

But everything adds up.

New tires.

Special doctor’s appointments for my autistic kiddos, now with a $50 co-pay per appointment on my $1200 a month already-subsidized Obamacare plan.

What’s happening with the plant outside?

We should check on the house insulation as our PG&E bill is $600 a month.

Our car is on its last legs. We can manage with just the minivan for a while, but then we’ll have some uber costs to take us places and can’t take the kids two places at once.

My mom on the east coast is only getting older, and eventually she won’t be able to fly out here to see us. It kills to think about not seeing my mom at least two times a year, even though she drives me nutso. Family is family.

The kid’s school is having a fundraiser, again.

And so on.

Life is just expensive. People clearly manage on less. A lot less. Even in this insanely expensive part of the country.

But — to life the life I want — we need to earn. I need a job.

We can maneuver our savings and investments as such that I probably don’t have to earn a crazy amount to be CoastFI at least. That’s nice to know. It’s incredible to have a serious cushion at this point in my life. I’m not sure how I got here, but I did. I still remember saving my first 50k, 100k, 250k, etc, and thinking — wow, that’s a lot of money. So it’s all relative. I’m in a good place. We’re in a good place. But I can’t not work. Not here anyway. And as my husband refuses to move (and I don’t really want to) I need to figure it out.

He makes $110k a year with no benefits. We’re bleeding anywhere from $50k-$100k or more a year with his income alone. My goal is to make $150k a year minimum.

The job market is shit right now. Add to that my wonky employment history and not clearly fitting in any one position I’m a bit scared.

I’ve applied to 300 jobs, give or take. I have some interviews here and there, but nothing is sticking. This week I have two first round interviews, one second round, and one second round that appears to be a final round because it’s five hours(!) long. Remote at least. It’s good I don’t have a job because who has time to find a job when they do?

I know, I know, I’ve been daydreaming of a career change. I’m not against that either. Just scared. I’ve been starting to learn some very preliminary coding. Ok, I watched a few YouTube videos and have been conversing with ChatGPT about where I should start and my 6 year old son knows more Python than I do. I have a few app ideas, but haven’t jumped in yet. It’s difficult to focus with ADHD and 3 kids including a 3-mo old who needs to nurse every 3 hours or so. My brain is a big pile of mush. And I’m supposed to work full-time again, how?

The jobs I’m interviewing for are all over the map. I had a call for one that paid $80k-$100k. That was a horrible interview and they decided I wasn’t worth following up with to even tell me they passed on me, I guess. Most of the roles are senior IC or head of the small department and paying $180k-$200k. A few are $120k-$150 IC or some are head of in small startups where they think that range is acceptable. Then others at bigger companies are higher than $200k but odds of getting those are teeny tiny non existent (though there is one I’m applying to that seems like a possible good fit, so fingers crossed there.)

It’s just… I wish I could have a job that inspired me to do my best work… I feel like I need that. Something I wake up in the morning and I’m all like, wow, I get to do THIS with my life? But is that realistic? How many people actually get that kind of life?

The reality is that I have 25 years or so left to work. Which is a long time but it’s also not that long of a time. If I stay in a job 4 years, that’s 6 jobs or so between now and retirement. Six opportunities to do something meaningful or to just hold my breath and pay the bills. And if I do FIRE, then even less time. How much do I need to care? What if I just find a job I can do blindfolded with my hands tied? Why does it HAVE to be hard OR meaningful?

I just want to feel like I can do the job. Even if I can convince these folks that I can in the interviews (I doubt it), when I start working how do I actually do a good job? I never know where to start. If someone hands me a project I’ll get it done to the best of my ability, but these roles are all so much more ambiguous. Which, tbh, I like — as I get to be more creative and strategic — but then I just have trouble actually figuring out what’s worth doing. I see the big picture and all the things we should be doing, but of course there aren’t enough resources to get that done (esp when the only resource is me). And, so, I flop. When I have an agency or team to do the actual work and I can set the strategy it’s better. But I always run out of time. Some due to procrastination and panic, some due to overcommitting, some do to righting the course too late.

I really don’t know what to do. I know what not to do. What not to do is don’t get fired again.  I mean, I can’t avoid layoffs — which are more common than not these days. But I can’t get FIRED. So I need to figure out how to do things right from day one. Which includes during the interviews because that’s when I actually provide an overview of my plan for the first 90 days usually. I need alignment where I’m not overselling myself to get the job but also getting the resources I need to make a big difference fast. I made it 4 months in my last role and that’s because my first 90 days I didn’t get enough done. I would have handled things differently if I could do that all over again, but no matter what I think it wasn’t a fit.

I’m really struggling and scared. I know I’m not going to be on the street tomorrow. But I just don’t know what I’m good at. And I’m tired. And don’t have the energy to fight right now. I need a job that I can do and do well and earn ok money at and actually feel some sense of accomplishment at the end of the day. Is that job out there? Is it one of the roles I’m interviewing for this week? Will I ever find it? And when I do… how da fuc do I keep it?

Real Estate & Rent

I’m Pregnant: With a New House

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I feel like I’m having twins. Except one is a baby and the other is a house. My first house. My house. Well, our house. In the middle of our street. In the middle of my check book.

After a 300k+ downpayment, you’d think we could stop bleeding cash for a while. But a “new” house in these here parts is an old house. A pre 1970s house. Which, when I bought it, didn’t seem that old — given many houses here are from the 1920s. Then, after buying it, I realized it is pretty old. Old enough to need a whole bunch of new things.

I set aside 50k for first year repairs–and I’m going to spend it all up front. Fumigation – 3k. Roof – 2k. Electric – 15k. HVAC – 15k-20k. And that’s before we get to the nice-to-haves, like an electric garage door opener, a hallway bathroom remodel (so we can have a bathtub), and maybe epoxy on the garage floor to make it into a gym (ok that’s a luxury but “only” 2k.) I don’t love the layout of the house and the two bedrooms we will be living in for the foreseeable future (while my FIL lives in the master bedroom suite) are tiny. I’d like to add on to them and rip out everything in the house and redo it all but… ok, I’m not that crazy. Maybe I am. But I’m also actually pregnant. And tired. And not ready to complete a massive remodel and cash out all my stock to build on to this house. It will probably never happen. I need to be happy with the house as is.

I’m trying to be. It’s scary to be a homeowner. I think homeownership is kind of bullshit but I’m doing it anyway. It’s a total scam. The “American dream” my ass. In a HCOL area it takes 35+ years to break even, if that. That’s not counting all the upgrades you put into your house because it’s your house. You know, home ownership and this dream is really just the government wanting to convince people to take care of a little plot of land and pay more taxes for that land and feel stuck. Being stuck is good for the stability of a nation. Not so much for its people.

But I did it anyway? Why. Oh, I don’t know. As our networth creeps towards 2M, and as we’re approaching baby #2, it seemed like the right thing to do. Give my kids some stability. It’s good for them, supposedly. I don’t know. I lived in the same house my entire childhood and look how I turned out–and now I’m just an emotional mess on my mom having to sell that home. And I’m almost 37. Maybe I’d be better off if I moved around as a kid and didn’t have such an emotional attachment to a piece of real estate.

Anyway, I did it. The home is ours. And right now it’s actually ours but we can’t go in it because the sellers have a rent back and they’ll be out on Nov 7. Then it’s ours ours. Ours to put a massive tent over and fumigate. Ours to replace the old fire hazard electrical panel. And redo the vents so we can put in AC. Ours to move our king size bed into the 100 square foot bedroom with a tiny closet because that’s what my life is now. Spending 1.5M+ on a home should buy some luxury but it doesn’t here. I have a little more space than a 1.3M home but not much more. I don’t know what I have. A 1.5M+ headache. A 7k a month mortgage. A whole lot of new stress. Neighbors — god — people I will have to get to know and can’t avoid if for any reason I want to avoid them.

I’ll miss my apartment — but we couldn’t stay in our one bedroom anyway. I’ll miss my neighborhood and town, and the last town I lived in where we tried to find a place to buy but gave up with everything going 300k above ask. I feel like this is kind of the end of everything, versus the start of it, which is the wrong way to be approaching home ownership. But it’s kind of a let down. You save and save and save and then the best you can do is buy a half-decent home with a lot of repairs needed that’s over an hour from your office. Is it an accomplishment? I don’t know. Hard to say. Maybe it will feel like it is when we have it fixed up. When it’s really ours ours. When I can tell my son this is his house, for real. His front door. His bedroom. His backyard.

I’m looking forward to the space. The grass I can lie on during the day with no one giving me funny looks. The same grass I can sleep in without worrying I’ll wake up and my keys will be gone. All the walls that we can do whatever we want with. So much responsibility. 85k a year of it, plus whatever it costs to keep the house “alive.” What a fancy life I lead.