Panelist

Yesterday took an interesting turn! I have never been to a conference before, not even a career fair, but yesterday I was asked to be a panelist in a summit for recent graduates. One of my biggest fears is talking in front of people so the idea of speaking in front of this group (30-35 people...it's not even a big group!) is absolutely terrifying. But I think it will be a really good experience, so I volunteered to help out. Someone dropped out last minute so I have a few days to prepare which just adds to the fun! I had planned on spending my next two nights reading a book for class, but this changes my plans a bit.

The purpose of this panel seems to be to help recent graduates in their job search. I'm going to be asked to talk about where I went after college and where I am now and what steps I took in between. I was worried at first that I wouldn't have a lot to talk about. I only applied for one job and was offered it before graduation. Then when I made my career change, I only applied to two jobs, got one interview, and then got that job. So when it comes to the actual job search, I have very little experience. However, I have a lot of experience in researching for a position and I truly think that's why I have gotten every job I've interviewed for thus far (which is currently four).

I think that's the information that I will focus on in my discussion. I'll discuss the job search process in terms of preparation and try to get the point across that there is no such thing as too much preparation (but it is important to know what to share from your findings and what to keep to yourself).

I know some people don't believe it's possible to prepare for a job interview.  To me, the research process is half the battle for getting called back. You can have all the skills in the world, but if you haven't prepared for your interview and can't show the employer what you know and what you've done, then you've already lost.

When I was looking for a new job, I also did multiple informational interviews with career counselors trying to get a look into the daily life of those jobs. Then when I found a job that matched what I was looking for, I crafted a brand new cover letter and figured out who would be leading the search so I could address my letter to them. I also double-checked my resume to make sure there were no errors nor omissions. Once I got the interview invite, I started preparing anecdotes that showed my skills and personality and could be applied to a variety of questions. I researched the company and the people who worked there to see what kind of problems they might be facing and how I might help those problems if hired.

I think my preparation really helped me know what it was I was looking for which meant I could then make a better impression in interviews because I was only applying to jobs that really interested me. How do you prepare for the job search? I'll update later on how the panel went and what ideas and tips I heard from other people. There will be a Q&A session, so I'm very interested to hear what people come up with.

Savings Plan

As promised in my last post, here is my discussion of savings plans. Pretty much anywhere you read about personal finance, you will see that people recommend breaking goals into short-term (less than five years) or long-term (more than five years). Some also break into medium-term goals (5-10 years), but I think it can sometimes be tricky distinguishing between medium and long when they're both so far away.

As I mentioned before, I love love love spreadsheets. While my budgeting spreadsheet is pretty robust (a different tab for each month, and a different workbook for each year), my savings spreadsheet even makes me laugh at its depth. My goals and savings workbook has eleven tabs in it--eleven! It's actually pretty ridiculous. Each tab has a different variation--what if I saved this much, this month, when would I meet my goal? Or it goes into detail about a specific goal, like paying for graduate school or buying clothes.

My final savings spreadsheet looks like this (with dates and numbers thrown in; not my actual spreadsheet. It's way too big). Also, note, in my spreadsheets, I put the total highlighted in bright yellow so I know that I've completed saving for that goal. 

Dog	Travel	Graduate School	Month
50		350	January 2014
50		350	February
50		350	March
50		350	April
200	50	350	May
	50	350	June
	50	350	July
	50	350	August
	200	350	September
		350	October
		350	November
		3850	December

This just shows how I break everything out. When I was getting ready to buy a dog, I saved up money for a year to make sure I had enough to pay for him, all his vet bills the first year of his life, and any toys or supplies he needs. That way, when I picked him up, all I had to worry about was "omg, I have a puppy now!" and all the fun/stress/tears that involves.

The same goes for graduate school. I have always had a paranoia of becoming poor. Whenever my parents mentioned anything about money, I would pipe up "are we going to lose our house?!" Not that my questions had any basis in reality, but for some reason, I was always scared of not having enough money to get by. So fast-forward to now, at 24, living on my own and making ends meet. I still have that fear except now my big fear is going into debt. I never want to go into debt except for a house mortgage, and maybe a car, but even that I would like to avoid. So, to make going into debt not happen, I have to plan my money very carefully because I have many lofty financial goals and don't have a massive income.

I finished saving for Pinecone (my sweet, goldendoodle. He's almost a year and a half now!), I've saved up enough for travel for now, and I have my emergency savings all squared away (though, some days I think I should have more in my emergency account and then I think about all I want to save for fun, and I just can't do it). So for graduate school, since I don't want to dip into my savings or go into debt, I put a little bit away each month into a separate account so that when my graduate tuition bills come, I can pay for them immediately. This takes a lot of discipline though because sometimes I really just want to go out and buy some new clothes (my closet is finally tipping from mostly high school to mostly college and beyond--woohoo! Wardrobe is finally growing up...).

Speaking of clothes, I also have a 'clothes' tab in my "Savings Plan" spreadsheet. In it, I have what clothes I would like to buy (all color-coordinated so I can do a lot of mix-and-matching instead of buying a ton of stuff and having nothing to wear it with), how much they will likely cost, and when I can afford to buy them. Since most of my money is going toward graduate school right now, it will be a long-process updating my wardrobe. My next big purchase will be jeans since I know I desperately need a pair--seriously, my other two jeans (yes, only two) are wearing very thin. I'm wanting to buy more quality jeans so I've been looking at Lucky Brand which is much more pricey than my usual Kohls jeans, but will a) probably look nicer for casual Fridays at work and b) will probably last longer. For my new wardrobe, I'm looking for more quality over quantity.

Other big parts of my savings plan include a house, a car, and a wedding. All of these things are ridiculously expensive. But by breaking them out into manageable chunks, I'm able to see when I'm likely to reach those goals. These are the long-term goals I mentioned at the beginning of the post--things that I will (hopefully) need 5-10 years down the road, not now (again, too expensive!). I've already started researching what type of car I'd like (hoping hoping hoping my current car lasts at least another six years) so that I'm prepared for what I need to save so that when my car does die (again, hopefully many years down the road), I'm prepared to buy a new one.

Anyway, that's my way of creating savings plans. It may seem tedious and silly, but it really keeps me on track to reach my savings goals and allows me to do the things I want to do. I highly recommend spreadsheets to help get your finances on track, or really, anything on track! Spreadsheets are amazing.

Monthly Finance Breakdown

I believe I've mentioned before that I absolutely love budgeting and talking about savings, investments, and money-management. I think it's a lot of fun, albeit sometimes stressful. 

Last week I watched a webinar by TIAA-CREF for young women professionals. While the information was pretty rudimentary, I was reminded that I really need to start contributing again to my personal Roth IRAs. I've been doing my work 401k, in addition to maxing out my company match plan, but apparently that it not enough according to the webinar, so I'm back to monthly contributions to my Roth IRAs. This means I had to play around with my budget some and I decided to share my monthly breakdown in percentages to those who are interested in learning and talking about budgets.

Here is my monthly breakdown:

Rent: 34%

Education: 19%

Groceries: 14%

Restaurants: 7% 

Utilities: 7%

Extras: 5% (this includes doctor appts, presents, toiletries, clothing, races, entertainment)

Dog: 5%

Roth IRA: 5%

Savings: 3%

Transportation: 1% (I walk a lot)

Some months I have tax refunds in an early month or get some freelance work, so I sometimes change up the percentages based on what I would like to spend money on (usually more on dog, food, savings, or extras). It's actually really nice to see this in percentages, because every month, I balk at how much I pay for utilities (paying for premium cable seems like such a waste, but alas, without it we couldn't watch The League). 

I have all of this information, with actual hard data numbers, on a spreadsheet that I update every few days to include new purchases. Seriously, I love spreadsheets. I find them extremely fun to play with and have many different ones that I fiddle with on a daily basis. Definitely a tad bit OCD and type A, but I enjoy it. It's even gotten me a freelance job, so it's a pretty great hobby.

Next post, I will talk about my savings plans and goals. I have a few and each one is broken out month by month for about the next five to ten years so that I know exactly where I am with each one. In similar news, Trulia just came out with a report that over 50% of millennials are planning to ask their parents for money for their home down payment. That number baffles me, but more on saving goals next time.

I think it's really helpful to start a dialogue about saving because saving money is so incredibly important. Are there any tips or tricks you've learned along the way? Is there a specific money topic you would like addressed? I would love to continue the discussion!

Whole30

My mom recently started doing the Whole30 lifestyle change. She's only on day four, but people say that in weeks two and three, you can really feel a change in your body and energy-levels. Basically, you take out all the big inflammatory food groups (sugar, legumes, dairy, grains) and substitute them with protein, vegetables, and infrequently, fruit. I'm planning to start this too because my diet now mostly consists of beans, which is really not the healthiest thing in the world. Delicious, protein-filled, and hearty, but when your dinner consists of a can of beans, a tortilla, and some cheese, it's probably time to start doing nicer things to your stomach (mine has been rebelling for the past few days after a delectable taco casserole, hence the inspiration to finally start a new lifestyle after decades of stomach anger).

I've started trying to come up with a meal plan for the first week and it's proving to be difficult. When you cut out grains and legumes, you have to buy a ton of animal protein and a variety of vegetables. According to one site, you should be aiming for about one pound of protein and six to eight cups of vegetables a day. A pound of protein! I usually only eat chicken once a week and then subsist on beans the rest of the week. We'll see how this experiment goes!

For my first week, most of my meals are salads. I really need to get more creative if I'm going to make this work because salads get very boring very fast.  I try to grocery shop on the weekends so this meal plan starts on Monday. Here's the plan:

Monday
2 eggs, 1 cup of spinach, 1/2 c cantaloupe
2 c lettuce, 1 c cucumber, 1/2 c tomatoes, 1/4 c almonds
Fish fillet, home-made salsa (1 c tomatoes, 1 c onions, handful cilantro), 1 avocado

Tuesday
Smoothie (nut butter, 1 c fruit, 1 c veggie, 1 c almond milk)
2 c lettuce, 1 c salsa (leftover), 1/2 c hearts of palm, 1/2 avocado home-made mustard vinaigrette
Serving chicken, 1 c salsa, 1/2 avocado

Wednesday
2 eggs, asparagus, lemon, 1/2 c cantaloupe
2 c lettuce, can of tuna, 1/2 c hearts of palm, mustard vinaigrette
Chicken, asparagus, lemon, kale chips (make with garlic and EVOO)

Thursday
2 eggs, 1 c bell peppers
2 c lettuce, can of tuna, 1/2 c hearts of palm, mustard vinaigrette
1 c edamame hummus, 1 c snap peas, 1/2 c bell peppers, 1/2 c carrots

Friday
Non-traditional breakfast: hard-boiled egg, 1 c onions, 1 c tomatoes, 1 c cucumber, vinaigrette
1 c edamame hummus, 1 c bell peppers, 1 c snap peas, 1/2 c carrots

I only plan meals for the work week as weekends tend to get swept up by other things. For that week though, those veggies add up really fast at the grocery store (in terms of cost). I might have to play around with my grocery budget some.

I'm having a hard time thinking of new ways to eat the same old produce. Also, I have issues with eggs which are making up a large portion of my meal plan. I go through phases where I can eat them everyday and then go through phases where they absolutely disgust me. Currently in a disgust phase and yet, guess what I had for lunch?!

Looking back over the week seems like that can't possibly be enough food--I love crackers so much and feel that a meal is incomplete without a crispy crunch or a nice piece of bread, but I will try to persevere! And maybe add some more food to my daily meal plans depending on if it's needed or not. I really don't know. Has anyone done the Whole30 or have any advice on what foods to eat?

For following weeks I will definitely be making a ratatouille. One of my favorite foods is eggplant so I love making dishes with it. My favorites are ratatouille, babaganoush, and eggplant lasagna. Also I like making a pasta sauce with eggplants, but can't eat pasta on this plan, so that's out.