The balance between paying down debt and savings

[Tradd]

OK now knock out that debt girlfriend, and become debt-free forever

Hell, yes!

[jp1]

Well I’ve got some interesting work news!

Import manager at my company just resigned. I was offered the position but turned it down. I don’t have the patience to deal with half the import staff (absolutely dumb asses!) and I’d rather stick a fork in my eye than deal with all the accounting issues. But I’m getting another $10K bump and I’m also negotiating for a few more vacation days. I wouldn’t be eligible for another week for another two years. Raise goes into effect 3/1, so I get it on March 15th pay.

Congratulations! That's awesome news!

I totally understand why you don't want that job. When I left the mega corp five years ago I didn't meet my new (current) boss in person until after I'd been hired and went to Chicago for my first week in the early summer of 2019. At dinner after the first day at the office he was stunned to learn that I'm 12 years older than him and expressed concern that I might want his job. I had to reassure him that I absolutely DID NOT want his job. He has to manage up to senior management. I, at the time, didn't have to manage anything beyond selling insurance policies. And frankly, underwriting policies and selling them to the brokers is the fun part of my job. Over the next several years I apparently did such a good job at convincing him I didn't want his job that when he wanted to promote me to product manager a year and a half ago (he'd just gotten promoted to managing director) he was actually concerned that I would say "no, I just want to keep being an underwriter." And I lived up to his expectation because when he offered me the product manager job I didn't immediately say yes, but instead asked "what would that actually entail?" Ultimately I took the promotion because he convinced me that a sizable part of the job would still be underwriting, which is in fact the case and I'm fine with managing people. Yes, I do have direct reports now, as well as product management responsibilities, but my day to day life is still mostly the fun bit.

One of the interesting twists that came out of that first dinner conversation with boss is that that night I told him he could have me for eleven years if he wanted me because I planned to retire at some point between 62-63 years old and I really didn't want to go start over somewhere else. Today he still has another 6-7 years of my life, so I'm hoping that I get to spend that time working for him at current employer. With that in mind I've already started focusing on making sure that there are others on our team that are trained up to take over my product management role when I leave. It seems like just yesterday that I was graduating from college and eager to start my first job, but now here I am, planning to make sure that someone can take over my mid-level management job after I'm gone.

[jp1]

Jp1.. thanks for your concern, and I don't mind answering at all.

The house wasn't really holding me back because my son paid for everything when we moved out and he rented it from us. It was only holding us back in that it was an asset that wasn't liquid--so we had nothing for emergencies, large outlays, etc.

As you know, I have had an ambivalent relationship with money and have made some really STUPID mistakes and large errors in judgement as well as dumb bad luck (most notably the 2008 housing bust, when my grand plan to take out a jumbo mortgage on my MIL's house so that we could pay cash for the foreclosure next door for her to spend her last years in exploded in my face. All told, that period between 2007 and 2010 cost me probably 500k.). There are 2-3 other main reasons that I'm not retirement-ready, but they come down to my relationship with money vs the other people in my life.. 'nuf said.

So now, I have proceeds in the bank. That's good. But here are the big outgo's as you put it--:

Rough numbers...
Normal stuff:
Mortgage, utilities, cable/internet: 2000.
Basic food, clothing, home expenses: 1000
Insurance (life, health, auto) 800
Transportation: 400

As you can see, if this were all I had, which is all I need, basically, I'd be fine on SS alone, and just use the proceeds of the house as emergency funds. BUT here are the other biggies:
Boat 900 (loan, docking, gas, etc.)
Debt minimums: 1500
DH "sin tax" (smoking various things). 1200
Everything else: Entertainment, gifts, major repairs in car and house: 1000-1500.
I can manage all this with my average past income--although last year was a very bad year from both an income AND an outgo perspective.

I know this looks appalling to most of you, especially given I have very little saved for retirement. I can't and won't justify anything. As the Queen said, "Never complain, never explain." I know what's stupid and what's not and this is where I am. There are no victims, only volunteers. I am lucky to have a job where I can make $150/hour sitting in my pajamas. I'm just hoping that part of my luck doesn't expire until I do.

I am, at this late stage trying yet another financial rehab... I've joined a program that I find to be very helpful in helping me face all my realities and deal with them appropriately.

Thank you for being so candid and up front. Obviously your situation isn't ideal (as I'm sure you're very well aware) but you're a healthy person and your job is such that you can keep working in your PJ's for the forseeable future. And you seem to like what you do. It's not like you're a walmart greeter earning minimum wage who struggles to get out of bed every day to go face unhappy customers and sore knees etc.

As for 2008, SO and I were also kind of a loser on the flipside of your coin. We moved from Jersey City to San Francisco in the fall of 2008/spring of 2009. San Francisco's real estate market is always a whipsaw so spring 2009 would've been a PERFECT time to buy. I was very aware of that at the time but we just didn't have the cash to make a down payment happen. So we didn't. I don't think SO thought much about it but it bothered me for years until we bought our current townhouse.

[Tradd]

Congratulations! That's awesome news!

I totally understand why you don't want that job. When I left the mega corp five years ago I didn't meet my new (current) boss in person until after I'd been hired and went to Chicago for my first week in the early summer of 2019. At dinner after the first day at the office he was stunned to learn that I'm 12 years older than him and expressed concern that I might want his job. I had to reassure him that I absolutely DID NOT want his job. He has to manage up to senior management. I, at the time, didn't have to manage anything beyond selling insurance policies. And frankly, underwriting policies and selling them to the brokers is the fun part of my job. Over the next several years I apparently did such a good job at convincing him I didn't want his job that when he wanted to promote me to product manager a year and a half ago (he'd just gotten promoted to managing director) he was actually concerned that I would say "no, I just want to keep being an underwriter." And I lived up to his expectation because when he offered me the product manager job I didn't immediately say yes, but instead asked "what would that actually entail?" Ultimately I took the promotion because he convinced me that a sizable part of the job would still be underwriting, which is in fact the case and I'm fine with managing people. Yes, I do have direct reports now, as well as product management responsibilities, but my day to day life is still mostly the fun bit.

One of the interesting twists that came out of that first dinner conversation with boss is that that night I told him he could have me for eleven years if he wanted me because I planned to retire at some point between 62-63 years old and I really didn't want to go start over somewhere else. Today he still has another 6-7 years of my life, so I'm hoping that I get to spend that time working for him at current employer. With that in mind I've already started focusing on making sure that there are others on our team that are trained up to take over my product management role when I leave. It seems like just yesterday that I was graduating from college and eager to start my first job, but now here I am, planning to make sure that someone can take over my mid-level management job after I'm gone.

Neat story!

Another reason I don’t want the manager job is that it has nothing to do with being a customs broker. It’s all on the transportation side. Plus I get a ton of hands on with my job, which I mostly enjoy.

[Tradd]

I think once the debt is paid off and I have a good emergency fund, I’m going to open a Roth IRA. Work offers a Roth option as well as regular 401K so I’ll have to look at that.

[rosarugosa]

That's great news, Tradd. Congratulations! The raise should give you a nice boost in paying off your debt!

[Tradd]

Just pulled $1K out of savings and threw it on cc. I didn’t want to empty savings down to $1K again, but wanted to do something.

[Tybee]

Just pulled $1K out of savings and threw it on cc. I didn’t want to empty savings down to $1K again, but wanted to do something.

Awesome, you are tackling that debt!

[jp1]

Congratulations! That's awesome news!

I totally understand why you don't want that job. When I left the mega corp five years ago I didn't meet my new (current) boss in person until after I'd been hired and went to Chicago for my first week in the early summer of 2019. At dinner after the first day at the office he was stunned to learn that I'm 12 years older than him and expressed concern that I might want his job. I had to reassure him that I absolutely DID NOT want his job. He has to manage up to senior management. I, at the time, didn't have to manage anything beyond selling insurance policies. And frankly, underwriting policies and selling them to the brokers is the fun part of my job. Over the next several years I apparently did such a good job at convincing him I didn't want his job that when he wanted to promote me to product manager a year and a half ago (he'd just gotten promoted to managing director) he was actually concerned that I would say "no, I just want to keep being an underwriter." And I lived up to his expectation because when he offered me the product manager job I didn't immediately say yes, but instead asked "what would that actually entail?" Ultimately I took the promotion because he convinced me that a sizable part of the job would still be underwriting, which is in fact the case and I'm fine with managing people. Yes, I do have direct reports now, as well as product management responsibilities, but my day to day life is still mostly the fun bit.

One of the interesting twists that came out of that first dinner conversation with boss is that that night I told him he could have me for eleven years if he wanted me because I planned to retire at some point between 62-63 years old and I really didn't want to go start over somewhere else. Today he still has another 6-7 years of my life, so I'm hoping that I get to spend that time working for him at current employer. With that in mind I've already started focusing on making sure that there are others on our team that are trained up to take over my product management role when I leave. It seems like just yesterday that I was graduating from college and eager to start my first job, but now here I am, planning to make sure that someone can take over my mid-level management job after I'm gone.

Just watching one of Kirsten Dirksen's videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpzuYHdEgvc and had a weird job related "yeah, I totally understand..." moment. About 8 minutes in he was explaining that he was trying to get a loan because he'd been given a free teardown shotgun shack but needed to find land for it, move it, renovate it, etc, so he was calling around to lots of banks and everyone basically was like "whatever. no." And then he found one guy who said "if you can find and buy land for it, get it there, plant it on a new foundation and then ask for a loan to renovate it and make it worthwhile, I can make that work and loan you money."

So much of my job as a technology errors & omissions liability underwriter is figuring out how to say yes for writing insurance for a potential insured that has a quirky unusual exposure. Most of them are probably fine, but I can't just randomly toss policies out there. If a loss occurs I have to be able to explain why I thought they were a good risk. Being able to make that explanation for a weird company means being able to write an account that most other underwriters said no to. (and also means better premium since most other underwriters channeled their inner Nancy Reagan and just said no...)

As I think more about this I"m realizing that when the more junior members of our team call me to discuss accounts one of two things happen. Either I agree with them that it's a crap account that we need to stay far away from or I disagree and then spend the rest of the call talking with them to figure out how to justify the account so that we can win the deal and hopefully give that junior underwriter another example of an account we wrote that they can use to justify future accounts.

[Tradd]

I think I may be able to get the cc debt to four figures next payday.