To invest in my 401(k) or not...

Tomorrow will officially mark my one year anniversary at my new job which means that besides having been in this roller coaster of a stressful job for a whole year, I am now eligible for company 401(k) matching.  The big question is "should I go for it?"  The company matches up to 4% if I contribute 5% which is probably the only way I'm going to get any more money out of this company given everything that has gone on lately.


According to Dave Ramsey I am better off putting all of my financial resources towards paying off my debt in as short amount a time as possible.  And I can really understand why that advice makes sense.  However, I have not been able to contribute to a retirement plan for almost 4 years: three because of constant pay cuts at my last job that sent me re-arranging my finances ever couple months to stay above water and the last year because I wasn't yet eligible to participate.  If I stick to my current debt pay-off plan it will be another 5 years before I'll be debt-free and that doesn't take into account all the "what-ifs" that could happen in that amount of time... like me or S losing a job or starting a family.


So that makes almost a decade of no retirement savings which I think even Dave Ramsey would say is too long to put off planning for retirement.  Perhaps I need to look at my debt in terms of "good" debt vs. "bad" debt: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/money101/lesson9/index2.htm.  My "good" debt is my student loan, it's the bulk of my debt but it's at a really low interest rate and it helped me get the jobs that will eventually pay it off.  My "bad" debt includes my credit cards with their high interest rates and my car loan even though the interest rate on that is low.


I should be able to pay off the "bad" debt within the next two years.  That seems like an amount of time to continue putting off saving for retirement that I can feel comfortable with.  


What would you do?  Push off saving until all debt is paid?  Start saving now regardless of debt?  Or split the difference and pay off the "bad" debt before saving?

Troubling times at work

I moved up to Boston (from Florida) almost exactly a year ago for a job.  Life in Florida had been giving S and I a rough time ever since the recession began especially since both of our careers are so highly dependent on the economy (me in the construction industry and S in the non-profit arts education industry).  My job in Florida had been on the verge of collapse for a couple years with all the joys of pay cuts, hour cuts, benefit cuts, and furloughs... and layoffs all around me.  When S lost his job and then house we knew it was time to head to higher ground.


I was ecstatic to find the position in Boston... it pays great, solid benefits, and the type of company I really wanted to be with.  So we packed up the moving van and headed up the coast hoping for a better life.  And in many ways we've found that life, we've made some new friends, the area is amazingly rich with things to do, and we've both got great paying jobs.  On the other hand, neither of our jobs are going the way we had anticipated they would.


Shortly after I started working I realized that my company has an extremely high turn over rate of employees... within the last year I've seen 4 full time employees go and a handful of part timers (the place only has 12 full time employees on any given day so you can see how disproportionate that is).  And it's not because we don't have the work, new hires have come in immediately and we're all extremely busy.  At first I only though it was odd but as time passed I started understanding the many reasons behind the high turnover rate.  And most of these many reasons have at some point smacked me in the face.  


Let's just say that my boss has a knack for forcing people out if she decides for any reason that they aren't performing up to her incredibly high, unrealistic standards.  If the person doesn't leave on their own after a period of her applying her tactics, she just fires them.  And even though this sounds like the paranoid ramblings of discontent employees, I can assure you this is actually something she has proudly stated to me.  Now I'm not sure where I fall on her spectrum of discontentment but I have noticed an increase in particularly passive-aggressive behavior over the last month so I'm starting to worry that I've made it onto her list.


Also, I'm just not used to feeling so discontent at work, I love my profession and have generally enjoyed every job I've had in the field.  Most days at my current job are a struggle to get through with composure and there have been more than one occasion over the year that I've eaten lunch in my car so I could cry without my co-workers seeing me.  


I am going to be working on my resume and starting to feel around for other opportunities but the whole thing has me wondering if I should be focusing more on building a savings account just in case.  How many months worth of expenses should I have socked away?  It took 6 whole months for me to find this job but that would mean needing $13,500 or so in the bank to support me if it took the same amount of time again.  I'm not going to get anywhere near that kind of money socked away in a short amount of time and it would mean I would have to stop paying down debt beyond the minimum.  I'm feeling really uneasy about the whole situation and the stress of dealing with this person day to day is starting to wear me down.


I guess the best I can do right now is try to quit with the "what if scenarios" until I have a little more time to think over the best approach :(

Working overtime

First off, let me just say that I have a decently good salary at my career job.  It is enough to cover my bills and pay down my debt in a reasonable amount of time plus there are bonuses from time to time that I can shovel towards the debt.  However, I am still struggling with some of my worst spending habits like dining out because I am too busy rushing to my well-paying job to make food or using retail therapy to ease the stress from my well-paying job.  I am making OK progress at kicking those habits but I decided I need to bring in some extra dollars to make up for the extra spending I haven't been able to completely kick yet.

Thankfully, I can sew and  from time to time I list my sewing services on Craigslist when I'm strapped for cash.  So I posted my ad and quickly lined up several large jobs which seemed manageable when I took them on but....  I also bring in a little extra money from my Etsy shop but it's never been very significant.... until recently which has sent me scrambling to make orders to ship!  Add to that my actual real job has been demanding way over 40 hours for the last couple weeks with no end in sight and you've got one incredibly stressed out girl!

And unfortunately this girl runs right back to old bad habits when stressed out and strapped for time.  So in my quest to earn a couple extra bucks to cover my habitual bad spending decisions I've actually set myself up for complete and utter failure and increased my bad spending over the past two weeks.  sigh.  I will eventually get this right, it's just frustrating to keep getting in my own way.