All I want to do is shop. I want to buy clothes. Bags. Shoes. I want to buy presents for my friends. Presents for my family. Presents for Dylan! I want to buy Dylan helicopter rides, movies, music, books, T-shirts, clothes, shoes. I want to buy him things for his car, his room, for our house together someday. But I know that I should live within my means for now. Pay off what I've spent on my credit card in the past few weeks, and start putting all my extra dough in the bank. It'll serve us better in the long run, and maybe in the not-so-long run, if we decide to move in together this January.
I wish I made more money. I wish my raise had been a little more than it was. I wish it were easier to earn more money doing the job I do. I am hoping that the initiative I've taken this year in taking on new and different projects and creating documents that can grow the future of my department will make me a more valuable and worthwhile employee- worthy of giving bigger raises to! I think the thing that would matter the most in terms of money would be a promotion. I would need to be promoted from assistant vice president to vice president. I don't know what kind of leap that would mean salary-wise, but I'd be happy to find out!
I think the past couple of years, my raises have been a little bigger than the one I got this year, so it seemed like kind of a let-down, instead of, "Oh! I got a raise! Awesome!" It was more like, "Oh...only that? Ok..." I wish that I had it in me, or that it would matter, if I could fight for more money. Demand more money. Do people do that? I feel like corporate jaguars do it. Are corporate jaguars a thing? If I work for a big company like FTI now, can you negotiate for more of a salary? If I could do that, wouldn't all of the contractors working for Comcast negotiate getting things like sick days, health insurance and a pension? You'd think so.
One of the cool things about the money I make right now is that 3%of my salary goes into my 401K, which I just learned many people do not even begin saving for until they're into their 30s or 40s- crazy! I had a 401K at my first job out of school. Unfortunately, it only had $1000 in it when I switched jobs, and I had to remove it all if I didn't want to transfer it to an IRA...and at the time, it mattered more to be able to pay my rent while I was in transition than to save for retirement. But it's important to save for the future, and that's what I'm doing now. What I like about my 401K versus my savings account, is that I can barely touch my 401K. I can't go to an ATM and extract $20 from it. I would have to make a calculated decision (and be heavily taxed) to take money from myself.
I'm hoping soon to have a nice hefty sum in my savings account too, so when I need an extra $100 here or there, I don't have to turn to credit cards, I can just remove and replace it in my savings account when it's convenient for me.
I feel like I'm getting close to a place where I'm completely responsible with me money. But things like going out to dinner, crisp packages of stationery, cute new dresses, amazing boots and cups of hot tea from Starbucks will always be calling. And I have to learn to budget my money, like I budget my time. I feel like I'm worlds better at budgeting both of these things than I was 5 years ago, but I still have irresponsible instincts with both sometime. I wonder about that from time to time. Is it OK to have days or nights, where I don't do much of anything? I have nights like that with Dylan, where we kick back and watch TV for hours on end...but after that, I end up feeling very warm and fuzzy but not very accomplished. I think it's important for me to feel accomplished. I think I mentioned that yesterday, in fact...I'm sensing some THEMES for my 750 words a day here, people! Let's see what develops next month, where I'll try to write every SINGLE DAY.
No comments:
Post a Comment