No Money Mo Problems: Adjusting to Life on a Non-Profit Budget

Teachers don't get paid a lot of money.  

I know that comes as a shock to most of you but it's the honest truth.  American society doesn't value its teachers as much as it should, and because of that they aren't financially rewarded as they should be.  Yet, the salary isn't so terrible that teachers are forced to eat raman noodles six days a week.  For the most part, if you manage your budget you can not only survive on a teaching salary but you can also put some money away for retirement.  I was fortunate that over seven years I was able to do this.  Of course the master's degree helped increase the salary and I was also fortunate to have a top-notch financial adviser.  All and all, I felt that the teaching profession offered me a good enough salary that I never felt pressured to take a second job.  I ended up working the past three summers not out of financial necessity but rather to alleviate the boredom that takes hold of me if I'm out of work for too long. 

With my new job, I'm making roughly half of what I was making while teaching.  

Now comes the hard choices.  

I knew full well coming into this line of work that it was nowhere near as lucrative as teaching.  In fact, I joked that I took the job because I was too overpaid and had too much vacation time as a teacher.  What makes that funny now is not only the new salary but the fact that I now have ten days off.  Total.  Although I am in a management position, it is my first-year with the organization so although I have a decent amount of responsibility, my pay reflects that of an entry-level employee.  I knew this coming in and it's just like any professional where you start at the bottom and have to work your way up.  However, unlike a new employee that is just starting and doesn't know what it's like to actually have money, I'm going to have to start making some choices based on my new financial situation.  

Fortunately, I had a decent amount of money saved for this upcoming transition.  I knew that moving would cost a pretty penny and it definitely has.  In addition to the moving cost, I've also had to buy basic furniture (like the couch pictured above) and household necessities, a cable/internet package, a security deposit for my apartment, buy plane tickets and a rent-a-car for my friend's wedding in September and a used bike bought on craigslist as my old one was "beyond repair" as the local bike repair shop so graciously told me.  Now that the big stuff is out of the way I'm going to now figure out just how to adjust my budget to become half of what it had been.  

For the most part, this hasn't been too terrifying.  I've been able to adapt based on my new lifestyle.  For example, because I work long hours I really don't have a consistent time to go to the gym.  Solution?  I currently use the apartment complex gym in the morning before work.  It's nothing too spectacular but it gets the job done and that combined with my bike should keep me in good shape throughout the week.  I've also adjusted my food budget as well.  I used to go food shopping every week on Sunday and would buy food for the week.  Now, I buy whatever is on sale and keep it in my fridge until I eat it.  Since I get home so late, I make sure to have a few food options to just toss in the microwave and eat at 10 P.M.  Fortunately, I've found a Trader Joe's with good deals so that helps keep my food budget low.  

What will take some adjustment will be my work with my financial planner.  While teaching, I was fortunate that not only could I make monthly contributions to my account but I could also contribute larger amounts every couple of months as well.  This helped me max fund my IRA account and also contribute to my portfolio.  However, now with a depleted monthly salary, these contributions are going to have to either be reduced or lumped together at the end of the year.  This isn't going to cripple me financially by any means, but it will slow the growth in my portfolio which had been growing steadily for the last seven years.  Of course, there's always the chance the salary increases after a couple years but as of now I realize that these next two years won't see the kind of portfolio growth I had been accustomed to the previous seven years.  

In addition, I'm also going to have to be careful when it comes to travel.  I will hopefully have some money budgeted in case some of my friends decide to get married within the next year, but it won't be as easy as it had been while teaching.  I just don't think I'll be able to do three or four weddings in a single year due to both my finances as well as my lack of vacation time.  I already had to bail on a good friend next month, whose wedding just happened to be on the same day as the wedding I'm attending.  Fortunately, I don't think I have any weddings in the next six months, but I've learned they tend to come in waves.  If that ends up happening, it seems unfortunate but I realize that I will have to pick and choose which wedding to attend and which weddings I simply can't afford to go to.  

Lastly, I can't help but note that this salary adjustment has given me even more of a reason to do what I'm doing.  All of the above are adjustments I'm making as a single White man.  I will get by, barely, but I'll get by.  I honestly am amazed that families get by on the kind of salary I'm receiving.  It boggles my mind that people are against raising the minimum wage because there is so much that can be done with an extra two or three dollars an hour.  The kind of campaigns my office is working on is helping to address that very problem and I can see how difficult life can be for families making the kind of salary I am.  Instead of worrying about making plans to their financial planner, these families are worrying about paying the bills and providing food for their children.  It's extremely humbling to think about the kind of hard choices these families make each and every day; choices that are so much more difficult than "well I guess I won't pay for a monthly gym membership."  

For that alone, I am thankful I'm in the position I'm in, regardless of the lowered salary I'm now receiving.

525,600 Minutes: Measuring a Year in the Life

One year ago.  

One year ago today I was sitting at my home in San Diego.  I was on my couch, with Microsoft Word open showing my course outlines as well as my lesson planning guide.  I was double checking my materials, making sure to have an extra activity or two for the first day just in case the day's lesson ran short.  After all, as a teacher you can always add lessons and the students will never know it wasn't part of the original plan.  The last thing you as a teacher ever want to do is have any kind of down time, especially on the first day.

My night before the first day of school this year is quite different.  

In fact, it's nothing at all like like year, nor is it like the previous six years before that.  For the first time in my professional life, I am not feverishly looking over lesson plans, organizing class materials, and looking back to my course outlines.  For the first time, I won't toss and turn the night before school.  For the first time, I won't wake up early, eat my Cheerios and banana, drink my orange juice and arrive to school a good hour before the first students enter my classroom.  And, for the first time, I won't begin a new school year by saying "Good morning, my name is Mister LaFauci..."  

My night this year involves me sitting on a futon, staying with a person I had not met until ten days ago.  It involves me recovering from a day where I woke up, did not eat breakfast, and grabbed a leopard-print umbrella that did not belong to me while heading out into a rainy Boston morning.  It also involved me having taken the orange line of the T, having attended a training for ten hours, having taken the T back, having grabbed some Chinese food alone, and having returned to the place where I was staying after spending thirteen hours out and about in Massachusetts' largest city.  

So as I sit here, I ask myself this:  How do you measure a year in the life?  

As I sit here reflecting on this question, it's interesting to me the twists and turns that a person experiences in his or her life.  Right now, my Facebook feed is filled with posts and updates of friends at previous schools I worked at.  One friend in Winston-Salem is celebrating her birthday and is beginning a new school year as a librarian rather than a classroom teacher.  One friend from San Diego just competed in a triathlon in Chicago.  One friend from San Diego is beginning her career as an assistant principal.  And my friends and colleagues at my previous school in Spring Valley are exactly where I was one year ago:  Looking over lesson plans, organizing class materials, and looking back to their class outlines.  

Life takes us all in many unexpected directions.  For myself, I could never have imagined that within a year I would have changed careers entirely.  I could not have imagined that I would have packed up my things and moved to Sacramento to work for a non-profit.  I could not have imagined that I would have attended a training in Boston where I would be learning the skills needed to become an activist and organizer.  I could not have imagined that I would be out canvassing in the city of Boston one day and then being in a room where we Skype with a former campaign organizer for Barack Obama the next day.  

In short, I had no idea that I would end up where I am today.

And yet, I am here and I am happy.  Not many people I know enjoy sitting in a room talking and discussing politics.  However, here in Boston these past ten days, that has been all we have been doing.  Not many people I know would look enjoy canvassing outside a Wholefoods.  However, that is what I did and I found the experience invigorating.  Not many people I know would enjoy being twenty-nine years old and having to memorize a page-long rap to recite to their peers the following day.  However, that is what I did and I made it my mission to excel at this activity.  

Going forward, I don't know where I will be one year from now.  All I know is that I won't be back in Boston, as this training is for newbies only.  What I know is that I will have another opportunity to reflect upon my adventures.  I know that many of my friends will being getting ready for the first day of school while others may very well be like myself and have decided to take a different career path.  Regardless of where I am next year, I know that I will have stories to tell about where I am and what I hope to continue to accomplish.  

Though the story never ends.  

New Beginnings: A Career Born in the Shadow of a Revolution

I've always been a sucker for symbolism.

We as human beings always try to find a larger meaning in simple acts.  It's part of our experience to believe that somehow, some way the universe is sending us symbols to help guide us in the right direction.  We don't like to acknowledge the fact that everything we do is purely by chance.  That goes against such time-honored romantic ideas of fate, destiny, and kismet.  Because if we aren't destined to do great things then why should we be motivated?  If for whatever reason, we aren't part of the universe's pre-determined plan, then why should we even bother?

This past week, I spent five days in Boston, Massachusetts for the first week of my new job training.  The training was held in the financial district of Boston, an area rich in both history as well as modernity.  As I walked off the nearly century-old subway system, I would pass by modern skyscrapers to the left and a meetinghouse used by patriots during the American Revolution on the right.  Each day as I headed to the fifth floor of the office building I wondered if the fact that I was walking the same route that men like Paul Revere, John Adams, and John Hancock meant anything in the larger scheme of things.

In a word:  Yes.

As someone who doesn't consider himself religious, it should be odd that I buy into things like symbolism.  It doesn't make sense.  I know that the universe is not particularly interested in my success or well-being.  I could live to be one hundred years old or I could pass away tomorrow.  In the grand scheme of things, I am merely a series of molecules formed together in one of seven billion homo sapiens on this planet.  I don't believe in any form of destiny whether it relates to being destined for greatness, finding your one true soul mate, or any major life event having been due to fate.  I believe that each and every one of us is here on a whim, and what we do with our lives, who we find, and where we end up are all products of chance.

And yet, there is something that is just so darn appealing about symbolism.

This past week as I began my new career, I was unsure of myself and what I had decided to do.  Believe it or not, it's not highly recommended to leave your chosen career after four years of undergraduate study, two years of graduate study, and seven years in the field.  It's also not recommended to then move up your belongings into a pod, move five hundred miles north and live in a brand new city.  And most of all, it's not recommended to give up a job with good benefits and a state retirement plan to start at a brand new job for half the salary, no benefits to start, and no health plan.

So I needed something to let me know I was making the right decision.  Something to reaffirm what for me was a difficult and life-altering decision.  The truth of the matter is, my training could have very well been in a variety of cities across the country, but it just so happened to be in Boston.  The training could have been located anywhere in the city, but it just happened to be in an historic area of the city right off of the Freedom Trail that highlighted important events in our country's founding.  The job could have been dealing with a variety of issues but it just so happened to be a job to help build a movement for progressive change in this country.  For someone such as myself looking for something to reaffirm my decision, this symbolic location seemed to be just what I needed.

And so, over the course of the past week I've learned about my new job.  I've learned about entering a field where I am with like-minded people fighting on behalf of the good of the people.  Discussing political issues over drinks and on the metro.  Being with people who read the newspaper online and while waiting in line at Starbucks.  Realizing that there are a variety of simple solutions to our world's problems that aren't being put into action for a number of reasons.  Planning for the upcoming year and putting the greater good of the people about our individual wants and needs.  Getting angry and scared and frustrated about where our country is and having each and every one of us caring passionately about leaving the world a better place.

I won't pretend that the minds that met on the fifth floor of that building in any way rivaled Revere, Adams, and Hancock.  However, knowing that I sat and discussed important political issues of the day on the same street as these men was in a word, inspiring.  Knowing that I now have the ability to make a difference like these early patriots is something that left a strong impression on me.  I'm only one week into this new career and yet I realized that I have found a place where my passions and my career have a chance to merge into one.  All of a sudden I'm not viewed as "odd" because I watch Real Time with Bill Maher and blog on a Friday night.  I can have discussions where my political views are apparent among my co-workers and for the first time in my career, I won't have to worry about repercussions about having these views.  Knowing these things helps give me hope that maybe, when all is said and done, I may have made the right decision after all.

All thanks to a few old buildings that just happened to be on the same street as my job training.

Boxed In: Thoughts on Packing and Owning "Stuff"

"That's the whole meaning of life.  Trying to find a place for your stuff."  

I've been thinking a lot about this quote the last couple of days.  George Carlin was truly a comedic genius and I regret that I have only come across his work in the past couple of years.  What makes Carlin an absolute legend is how astute he was in human nature.  The above quote is part of a five-minute long sketch where he talks about how our entire lives as human beings revolve around the concept of "stuff."  We have houses to hold our "stuff" while we go out and buy more "stuff."  When we have too much "stuff" we then need another, even bigger home.  We stay with friends and are confused by the "stuff" they own.  When we go on vacation, we immediately unpack our "stuff."  When we visit friends on vacation, it becomes even more difficult to pick which kind of "stuff" we take with us.  

These past three days I've been organizing and storing all my "stuff" into a 7' x 7' x 8' container pictured above.  I have been in my current place for three years, in San Diego for five years, and "on my own" post-college for seven years.  So, clearly as George Carlin would have you believe, I must be in possession of way too much "stuff," right?  

Actually, no.  

In fact, the above picture represents pretty much everything I own with the exception of a few smaller bags, and items that are placed in my car as well as a bike and bike rack attached to the trunk.  On the whole, I don't own a lot of "stuff".  A quick inventory:  1 car, 2 dressers, 4 bookshelves, 1 CD/DVD bookshelf, 1 DVD rack, 1 queen-sized mattress and box-spring, 1 fan, 1 humidifier, 2 lamps, books, clothes, 6 pillows, 5 posters, 3 boxes of school supplies/textbooks, 1 egg crate mattress, random gadgets and knickknacks and a metaphorical partridge in a pear tree.  

That's it.  

And you know what?  I'm okay with not owning a lot of stuff.  

I feel that the whole idea of owning "stuff" is a socially constructed way of measuring worth in today's society.  The problem is that we as a society value "stuff" way more than we should.  We see the person with the fancy cars and nice house and we automatically assume this person is successful, which most likely he or she is.  However, we don't question how this person got his or her money.  Was he or she a successful entrepreneur?  Did he or she inherit the money?  Is he or she a hedge fund manager?  Is he or she a drug dealer?  Is he or she an entertainer?  All we see as a society is someone rich and powerful, regardless of how they got there.  

In the movie American Beauty, the character played by Kevin Spacey has a revelation.  It occurs as he is trying to seduce his wife on an expensive leather sofa and is coming dangerously close to spilling wine on it.  When this happens, Spacey's wife warns him of this impending accident and Spacey himself flips out by screaming "It's just a couch!"  He then goes on to lecture his wife about how all their possessions have become more important to her than actually living a full life.  It is at this point in the film that Spacey realizes his marriage is beyond saving because his wife's "stuff" was more important to her than he'd ever be. 

I guess a lot of it depends on how you were raised.  For me, I was fortunate in that I was never surrounded by unnecessary "stuff."  Everything in my home had a purpose.  My friends' homes were the same way.  I guess this is what happens when you grow up in middle-class suburbia:  You don't yearn for things that you aren't exposed to.  I vividly recall an instance when I was twelve-years-old and my Dad and I dropped of a baseball teammate to his home.  As we pulled up I commented that it was a "small house."  Once my friend was dropped off, my father stopped the car and gave me a lecture as to why that was a disrespectful thing to say and why I shouldn't say thing like that again.  

Lesson learned.  

And yet, for many people the idea of having stuff is what drives them to make some ridiculous choices throughout life.  The lawyers on Wall Street aren't working 100 hour weeks because they love the law, they're working because they want to own "stuff."  People in line on Black Friday or during the new iPhone release days are literally knocking each other over to be the first ones to buy the "stuff" even though it will still be there at a future date.  Collectors will forgo their life savings to buy that one piece of memorabilia that completes their collection of other massively expensive "stuff."  Couples will get in fights and arguments over whether or not their newest "stuff" should be the convertible for Mom or Dad or the family-friendly minivan for them and the kids.  

For myself, owning "stuff" has never been a problem, but I've seen firsthand the destructive effect it can have on people close to me . I've had friends who have gotten into massive debt because they needed to own the latest "stuff" to add to their apartments.  At a time when they should have been saving money and investing it, all they saw were the newest plasma TVs, laptop computers, and gaming systems.  Unfortunately for them, their credit card became a blank check for which they would plop down large sums of money with no reasonable expectation to pay it back any time soon.  As more and more creditors began calling, these friends finally wised up and realized that their quest for "stuff" might not be the healthiest thing for them and their future credit score.  

As a Wandering Millennial, part of what makes this lifestyle possible is the fact that I don't own a lot of "stuff."  I haven't needed it.  I've always been perfectly content with the bare essentials.  I don't watch cable or play video games, so why would I need a 50" plasma TV?  I use my car to get from point A to point B so why would I need an Aston Martin?  I use my laptop computer for word processing, e-mail, and to store my music and pictures so why would I need a $5,000 top-of-the-line machine?  For me, all these items are superfluous.  In fact, with my current upcoming move, it will be the first time in my adult life that part of my essential "stuff" has included things like a couch and a dining room set.  Up until this point, I've never needed them.  

I guess that is what separates me from those who need "stuff."  I don't view "stuff" as a status symbol.  I'm highly skeptical of people who start conversations by asking how much money I make.  It doesn't matter how much I make or how many cars I own.  What matters is I'm a person with thoughts, feelings, ideas, hopes and dreams.  I realize that people like that represent a small segment of the population that I will never interact with.  I'm okay with that.  I'm okay with having a seven-year-old car with dents on the front bumper and rear taillight.  I'm okay with the fact that right now, I honestly couldn't tell you what the most expensive thing I own is, besides my car.  I'm okay with the fact that my laptop computer is five years old and the fact that my iPod is so outdated that it's a struggle to find a sleeve that actually fits it.   And, I'm perfectly okay with having everything I own fit nicely in a 7' x 7' x 8' storage pod with a decent amount of room to spare.

At least until I add a couch and a dining room set.