It wasn’t that long ago that I was writing multiple times per week. And then I changed jobs, bought a house, and did a bunch of other stuff. However, some normalization has returned and I fully intend to “be back” once again.
The Only Constant is Change
As Heraclitus said in Ancient Greece, the only constant is change. And before moving on to the future, I wanted to let you all know what I have been up to. Here is a brief synopsis of the past year!
Job Changes
I was working as a supervisor in the supply chain of a Fortune 100 company. I really liked my boss, my co-workers, and the company, but I wanted to see what else was out there. After all, as a guy in my mid 20’s, I needed to explore my options while I was still young.
So, I decided to get a job as an operations consultant with a small (under 50 people) firm. For those of you not familiar with operations consulting that has a heavy emphasis on manufacturing and warehousing, companies don’t build plants in the middle of Manhattan. Therefore, I was thrown into a situation where I was traveling Sunday afternoon and getting home Friday evening. For those 5-6 days, I was in the middle of nowhere. To give you an idea, think: 3 restaurants for the entire town. But I really got to know the advantages of different airlines and hotels. Especially the reward programs. The travel was tough, though, so I looked elsewhere.
I decided to get back involved in operations closer to home. I landed a gig as an operations supervisor with a larger company (>$500 million in revenue a year), but not quite Fortune 500. I was going to be working 4 days a week (SWEET!) which would be about 45-50 hours per week. Things got out of hand and I started being told I had to work 13 hour days 12 days in a row, get 2 days off, and then repeat. The change in hours pushed my commute from 45 minutes each way to about 1.5 hours each way. In other words, from the time I got home until the time I left for work again I had a total of 8 hours… to sleep, eat, shower, etc. I let my boss know my concerns and I was let go.
Due to that, for the past 2 months I have been on unemployment. There will be a few posts about my journey there, but to make a long story short, its a numbers game. I submitted a lot of job applications. A lot of jobs available were very very basic and looking to pay about 1/2 of what I was looking for.
Finally, I got a job that I have just started with a tech startup. It is an eCommerce company that has a seemingly great management team, steady growth over the past 5 years, opportunity for advancement, a good work culture/environment, an expectation of working hard but still having a life, and just a very dynamic job role.
Now that I am no longer working 80 hour weeks as I have been for the past year, I should be able to write some more!
Living Changes
I was paying about $650/mo for rent, my dogs rent, and utilities in my apartment that I lived in last year. I had 1 roommate who was paying about the same.
I had enough cash saved up for a 10% down payment on a house + closing costs while still leaving me with a 1 year emergency fund, so I took the plunge. I got in right before the tax credit expired.
Since moving into the house, I have rented out 3 rooms. I like living with roommates and this will probably be some articles in itself. It is a 4 bedroom house. The mortgage payments (principal and interest), mortgage insurance, property taxes, and homeowners insurance all add up to about $1,300. By renting out those 3 bedrooms I collect $1,625. After doing some quick math (assume 20% effective tax rate on that), I break even… I pay $0. My money goes towards maintenance and home improvement, further building equity, and my share of the utilities (usually about $80).
In other words, this works for me because I like living with people and I look at it as a big picture. By living with people, I am saving about $7,200 per year (assuming no maintenance), breaking even (assuming $7,200 in maintenance), or spending an extra $400 per month (assuming $12,000 in maintenance). Judging by the maintenance I have had to do and the things that need work based on a thorough inspection, I should fall pretty close to the middle of that range. And this all ignores any equity that I am getting along with the fact that my city has not had any major crash in home prices.
What to Expect
I am not going to jump right into it and start pumping out articles left and right. My goal is to get back involved in the community by commenting on other blogs, conversing with you all on twitter, etc. I will be posting and will try to focus some of my posts on learnings I have had from the past year regarding job changes, home ownership, etc.
I am also going to be posting some guest posts from some awesome people who have volunteered to write a post for MyLifeROI!
I look forward to talking to you all again!
