Friday, October 24, 2014

Another Conversation with the Boss

I had a very long talk with my boss last Friday evening about my unhappiness working for the firm.  This was a hard conversation for me to have with him.  I, essentially, asked him what could the firm offer me in terms of a long term future.  Also, asked him what could I do to assist the firm in becoming a major player and expanding our market.  He did not have any answers for me, but he did say that he would look into it. Whatever that means.  He lied quite a bit during the conversation.  I only called him on one of the lies.  I assume that he does not realize that the employees talk with each other and, of course, share information.  I felt a bit dissatisfied after the very long and exhausting talk.  It appears that he has no plan for the future of the firm or the future of the employees.  I asked him specifically what he saw my role as in the future and he could not articulate anything to me. 

A few good things came out of this endeavor: (1) I maybe getting a raise as a result of this conversation. I don't know how much.  He said he would go speak with the partner in the South/Central Florida office about giving me a raise (typically raises are about 10%) and; (2) I gave him an idea I had about bringing more work into the firm.  This was the second time I told him about the idea.  This time he was excited and willing to let me give him more information.  Hopefully, this will take off into something big.  I hope it does and that eventually I work out an arrangement where I am getting a piece of the profits for coming up with and implementing the idea.  Wish me lots of luck.  It's so hard to implement and bring new ideas to a company that has little to no rules, boundaries or parameters. And no outlook with regard to the future. 


That being said, for the time being I am going to table the idea of looking for a new job.  I want to see if this will take off into anything and build the firm up into something big.  If, ultimately, things do move along well and I am still unhappy I will resume my job seeking efforts.   I am going to wait until after the new year to resume my job searching efforts. 
 


Friday, October 17, 2014

Budget Breakdown October 16-31 and updates!

Here's where the money went:

$260 utilities
$100 groceries
$1000 dental fund
$640 student loan
$100 savings
$214 spending
$100 gas

That's it, my paycheck very quickly and precisely spent in a short list. As noted above, I paid $640 to my student loan.  So now, the grand total owed on my student loans is $24,242.53.  I owe $20,207.53 (which includes the interest which will accrue through the end of the month) on my larger student loan.  I now owe approximately $4,035 on the smaller student loan.  If everything goes according to plan I should be able to get these two student loans under $24,000 by the end of the year!

My dental fund has about $3,484.27 left in it, this will go down by about $1,000 when I have the next crown placed at the end of the month.

My online savings account is up to $2,123.73.  Last month I earned $1.08 in interest.  Hello- passive income! I have earned $3.73 so far this year. 

Saturday, October 11, 2014

Student Loan milestone!

I am finally owe less than $25,000 on my student loan debt!! The outstanding balance on the larger loan is $20, 180.56.  The outstanding balance on the smaller loan is $4,669.13.  The grand total is...$24,849.69!!! I am sooo excited. Picture me spinning in circles until I am so dizzy I can't stand up straight!!  Everyone celebrate with me!

When I started this blog (earlier this year) I owed over $28,000 on these loans. Of course, this makes the next goal to get the loans under $20,000. I would really like to meet that goal by the end of the year, but I don't think that is possible.  I am trying to cash flow all of the dental work that still has to be done so that is taking a large portion of my disposable income.  I just paid over $1,300 for a crown and some other cosmetic things (smoothing down a chip in my front teeth), but hopefully the dental work will be done by early next year so I can focus on paying down the student loan debt with a vengeance.