A while back, I had read an article posted by some of my friends on Facebook: "20 Things You Need to Accept About Your 20s." I've seen posts like it before, and the message is generally the same: Stop freaking out, you're not supposed to have your life figured out 100% yet, and you're not the only one who feels this way. Positive messages for people who feel like their life is a mess, which seems to be a pretty common feeling these days.
And yet, every time I see an article like this, I get a weird vibe from it. This specific article was the tipping point for me - these articles aren't just sending the message, "You're not alone." They also are saying, "Life isn't going how you want but it's beyond your control so don't worry about it." They're saying, "You don't need to take responsibility for your shortcomings."
Reading this article, I thought to myself, "I'm sick of these bullshit excuses."
When things don't go how you want, it's so easy to just blame anyone or anything besides yourself. "I can't afford to eat well because the cost of living is so high." "I can't exercise because the gym is too expensive." "I can't find a job because the job market is too competitive." "It's ok that I'm up to my eyeballs in debt; everyone my age is."
(sorry those all seem to tie into money - money isn't the big issue here)
Taking responsibility for your life is scary - it means you need to admit you did something wrong, you made a mistake, or maybe you aren't doing the best you can. And yet, it's oddly relieving, because you can tell yourself, "Things may not be how I want them to be now, but they don't have to be that way because I can change them."
I get it, we're broke. Student loans need to be paid off, along with rent, utilities, etc. So start spending less. Eat at restaurants less. Go to bars less. Buy new clothes less. It doesn't need to kill your social life - have dinner parties at home. Drink at home. Find free/cheap entertainment around town. And sure, ramen is dirt cheap, but it also is loaded with fat and salt and has little nutritional value. Joe and I eat quite well with a grocery budget of $60 a week. Which, incidentally, is below the "Snap Challenge" food stamps budget. And we're not the only ones.
But time! Who has free time anymore? 8+ hours of work a day, plus more as needed because you can't afford to lose your job. How do you find time to cook meals at home and exercise while still having that social life? Some people swear by the "cook a lot over the weekend and eat leftovers all week" method. I'm not a huge fan of eating the same thing all week, so I'll plan ahead meals for the week, and save the quick and easy ones for days when I get home late. I'll admit, I get home later than I'd like on gym days. But I still have time to cook dinner, watch tv, and take care of anything at home I want to get done, and I'm in bed before midnight. On run days, I get home earlier and sometimes find myself with too much time and not enough to do!
Of course, I'm lucky in that I still get a free gym membership. Don't have access to a gym? Try running/walking/biking/etc. There's plenty of bodyweight exercises you can do to build strength without any equipment, and most can be adapted to be easier or harder depending on your skill level. Do stretches to build your flexibility. Don't have time to exercise? Yet you can binge watch entire series on Netflix? Sounds like you have time to me.
I'm not trying to say I have my entire life figured out. I'm not trying to tell you to cut all fun things out of your life. I'm telling you to be conscious of the decisions you make everyday. I'm broke, but I still like going out to the bars. It's cheaper to drink at home with friends, so I'll usually do that instead, but I will still go out every now and then. Just not every week. Sometimes I want to eat a dozen donuts in a day. So I will, but again, not every week. And if my weight is higher than I'd like that week, well, means I need to do even better next week.
No, things won't always work out how you planned. No, you can't change everything. But it really is amazing how much you can control if you simply care enough to put in the effort.
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
Tuesday, July 8, 2014
Unprepared for the "Real World" - Money
I was lucky to grow up in an area with good schools. I've always liked learning, and I had plenty of opportunities to learn new and exciting things. Despite that, I find myself clueless out in the "real word" quite often. Based on my experiences, there's a couple places where schools could make some huge improvements, two examples of which are education about food and money. Maybe your schools did a better job teaching these than mine, or maybe the responsibility should be more on parents, but regardless of where the problem is, this is something that needs to be addressed.
Let's just focus on money today. In my high school, we were only required to take a half semester of econ. The class I took to meet this requirement had a project where we were assigned jobs and salaries, and had to make a budget based on that. We learned to fill out a check. We played the stock market game for a couple weeks. Bam, econ requirement finished. We never talked about how to make a good budget - this ended up being me blindly guessing at how much things like health care, utilities, and groceries would cost. We never talked about how to invest in stocks in the real world, let alone the different ways to invest in stocks. We never talked about how you save money for retirement. Sure, there was the "try to save 10% of your salary," but where should you put that money? And what about taxes? Nothing.
I have a steady income now, so I should know something about money and what to do with it, but I don't. I'd throw some extra money into my savings account every now and then, and the rest would just sit stockpiling in my checking account. Saving for retirement? Uh sure, that can be my savings account, but more likely I'll just need to work for the rest of my life just to get by. Stocks? Those are scary and only rich people buy them, right?
I don't expect schools to go crazy in depth with all of this, but why not even mention that there are different kinds of retirement accounts? Not a word was said about IRAs, let alone Roth vs. traditional. What about a pension or 401k? Why not give a brief rundown of different types of accounts, and when they're relevant. Why not explain that it's stupid to get a savings account that only give 0.05% APY? I don't think that's too much material to handle.
And while you're at it, why not explain that picking individual stocks is really no different than gambling? Or that mutual funds are not any better, except you're paying people to gamble for you? But there are actually ways to invest in the stock market with relatively low risk, did you know?
What about a class period spent talking about credit cards and how to use them intelligently? A day to discuss different types of student loans?
I've been trying to learn more about money and how to spend/save it responsibly in the past couple years, but this shouldn't be something you only start learning after you turn 22. I'm still so uninformed about so many things, and each year I throw money around carelessly is a huge setback to my savings. I spent years with that stupid 0.05% APY savings account and earned probably less than a dollar in interest total, yet I thought I was still ahead of the game because I at least had a savings account, and that's better than earning no interest in a checking account.
It would be fantastic if schools taught even a little bit about investments as part of the required curriculum. But even if you're in my shoes, absolutely clueless about anything and everything money related, you can still do yourself a favor and learn about it independently. Do your kids a favor, if/when you have them, and teach them about money. I'm doing my best to learn, and I'll be talking more about my financial adventures in the future here.
Let's just focus on money today. In my high school, we were only required to take a half semester of econ. The class I took to meet this requirement had a project where we were assigned jobs and salaries, and had to make a budget based on that. We learned to fill out a check. We played the stock market game for a couple weeks. Bam, econ requirement finished. We never talked about how to make a good budget - this ended up being me blindly guessing at how much things like health care, utilities, and groceries would cost. We never talked about how to invest in stocks in the real world, let alone the different ways to invest in stocks. We never talked about how you save money for retirement. Sure, there was the "try to save 10% of your salary," but where should you put that money? And what about taxes? Nothing.
I have a steady income now, so I should know something about money and what to do with it, but I don't. I'd throw some extra money into my savings account every now and then, and the rest would just sit stockpiling in my checking account. Saving for retirement? Uh sure, that can be my savings account, but more likely I'll just need to work for the rest of my life just to get by. Stocks? Those are scary and only rich people buy them, right?
I don't expect schools to go crazy in depth with all of this, but why not even mention that there are different kinds of retirement accounts? Not a word was said about IRAs, let alone Roth vs. traditional. What about a pension or 401k? Why not give a brief rundown of different types of accounts, and when they're relevant. Why not explain that it's stupid to get a savings account that only give 0.05% APY? I don't think that's too much material to handle.
And while you're at it, why not explain that picking individual stocks is really no different than gambling? Or that mutual funds are not any better, except you're paying people to gamble for you? But there are actually ways to invest in the stock market with relatively low risk, did you know?
What about a class period spent talking about credit cards and how to use them intelligently? A day to discuss different types of student loans?
I've been trying to learn more about money and how to spend/save it responsibly in the past couple years, but this shouldn't be something you only start learning after you turn 22. I'm still so uninformed about so many things, and each year I throw money around carelessly is a huge setback to my savings. I spent years with that stupid 0.05% APY savings account and earned probably less than a dollar in interest total, yet I thought I was still ahead of the game because I at least had a savings account, and that's better than earning no interest in a checking account.
It would be fantastic if schools taught even a little bit about investments as part of the required curriculum. But even if you're in my shoes, absolutely clueless about anything and everything money related, you can still do yourself a favor and learn about it independently. Do your kids a favor, if/when you have them, and teach them about money. I'm doing my best to learn, and I'll be talking more about my financial adventures in the future here.
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
Where to Call "Home"
With the 4th of July coming up, I'll be going home this weekend to celebrate the holidays with my family. On Sunday, I'm driving back to Ann Arbor, and when I get there, I'll be sure to let my mom know I made it home safely. I always find that a little funny - I'm leaving home to go home.
Ann Arbor is where I live, so that makes it my home, right? It's different than Urbana, where I lived for the school year but was home for the holidays and summer. I'm here year round, for several years to come still. But I still can't break the habit of calling my parents' house "home."
I think it's partially because I don't want to call Ann Arbor home. The town isn't bad, and there's some things I really like about it. Lately I've been discovering more and more of these things. Which is good - if I have to live here, I better learn to like it. But it has its flaws, and those are significant enough for me to know that this is not someplace I'd want to stay permanently to live and work and raise a family.
So after I graduate, where will "home" be? Will I move back to the Chicago suburbs to be close to my family and friends? Will I end up on the west coast, where jobs abound for both Joe and me? Somewhere in Colorado where I can see the mountains I love every day?
It's a scary thought. Urbana was only a couple hours from home, so it's even possible to make a trip there and back in the same day without too much trouble. Ann Arbor is twice as far, so trips back and forth become less frequent, as do my vacation days. As a result, I see my family less, my friends less, and it gets lonely. Could I handle moving even farther away?
This is where one of my greatest skills comes into play. I can just tell myself, "Oh you don't need to worry about that yet" and that's that. After all, why spend time worrying about the future now when I still have years before I need to make those kinds of decisions? Not that you shouldn't think about the future at all, of course. I may not be worried about what specific job I want, but I'm still building skills and knowledge that will help me get any job I want when that's actually relevant. So while it's not really a pressing issue, it's still a thought that crosses my mind as I make trips from "home" to "home."
Sorry, I think this post was pointless.
Ann Arbor is where I live, so that makes it my home, right? It's different than Urbana, where I lived for the school year but was home for the holidays and summer. I'm here year round, for several years to come still. But I still can't break the habit of calling my parents' house "home."
I think it's partially because I don't want to call Ann Arbor home. The town isn't bad, and there's some things I really like about it. Lately I've been discovering more and more of these things. Which is good - if I have to live here, I better learn to like it. But it has its flaws, and those are significant enough for me to know that this is not someplace I'd want to stay permanently to live and work and raise a family.
So after I graduate, where will "home" be? Will I move back to the Chicago suburbs to be close to my family and friends? Will I end up on the west coast, where jobs abound for both Joe and me? Somewhere in Colorado where I can see the mountains I love every day?
It's a scary thought. Urbana was only a couple hours from home, so it's even possible to make a trip there and back in the same day without too much trouble. Ann Arbor is twice as far, so trips back and forth become less frequent, as do my vacation days. As a result, I see my family less, my friends less, and it gets lonely. Could I handle moving even farther away?
This is where one of my greatest skills comes into play. I can just tell myself, "Oh you don't need to worry about that yet" and that's that. After all, why spend time worrying about the future now when I still have years before I need to make those kinds of decisions? Not that you shouldn't think about the future at all, of course. I may not be worried about what specific job I want, but I'm still building skills and knowledge that will help me get any job I want when that's actually relevant. So while it's not really a pressing issue, it's still a thought that crosses my mind as I make trips from "home" to "home."
Sorry, I think this post was pointless.
Friday, June 20, 2014
Dressing for Success: Harder Than it Sounds!
My boyfriend, Joe, recently started his first real job. His usual outfit of t-shirt and jeans or t-shirt and basketball shorts was no longer going to cut it thanks to a laid back, but still business casual, dress code. In the past couple weeks, he's built up a respectable base wardrobe with collared shirts and khakis. Jeans are ok, so our next mission is to find him some better fitting jeans, but that man is impossible to buy pants for.
Every week day, I get to watch him go off to work dressed like the brand new yuppie he is. And then I look down at what I'm wearing. And I get sad.
See, working in a chemistry lab, your dress code is: long pants and no open toed shoes/sandals. There's really no point to dressing nicely. With my luck, the first day I wore a nice new shirt, I'd probably spill acid all over myself. Not that I've ever done that so far (knock on wood) but that's just how life goes. So 95% of the time, I'm in a t-shirt and jeans. But come on, I'm closing in on 25. I shouldn't be shopping in the junior's section anymore! There's gotta be some sort of compromise between looking nice but still casual enough for a lab, right?
What I'd love to do is box up half of my current wardrobe or more, donate it, and go on a massive shopping spree. I don't know quite where I'd go, though. Kohl's and JCP are two of my go-to cheap clothing stores, but then I have to deal with the fact that if I try to shop in the "misses" section, I'm pretty much limited to styles which come in an x-small. I'm not trying to brag here. I don't normally complain about "vanity sizing" but it's a bit ridiculous. I don't care much for my own sake because I can almost always find something that fits, but I am by no means "extra small." There are people out there who are much smaller than me - what do they do when they want to shop for something outside the junior's section?
Sorry, tangent aside, I just want to find a way to dress a little nicer than I currently do without having to worry incessantly about ruining the clothes in lab. Well, I say that, but here's what I bought on my last shopping trip:
- yoga shorts (They're longer than the ones I currently use as pajamas, making them acceptable for public!)
- crop top (it's summer and it's hot, wah wah)
- muscle tank with neon rainbow zebra on it (wah wah hot summer, plus gym shirt..?)
(all from the junior's section)
So, as it stands, I still haven't solved the problem of what to wear to work. I'm going to keep trying, and in the meantime, I'll still just be wearing band shirts and my rainbow of v-necks...
Every week day, I get to watch him go off to work dressed like the brand new yuppie he is. And then I look down at what I'm wearing. And I get sad.
See, working in a chemistry lab, your dress code is: long pants and no open toed shoes/sandals. There's really no point to dressing nicely. With my luck, the first day I wore a nice new shirt, I'd probably spill acid all over myself. Not that I've ever done that so far (knock on wood) but that's just how life goes. So 95% of the time, I'm in a t-shirt and jeans. But come on, I'm closing in on 25. I shouldn't be shopping in the junior's section anymore! There's gotta be some sort of compromise between looking nice but still casual enough for a lab, right?
What I'd love to do is box up half of my current wardrobe or more, donate it, and go on a massive shopping spree. I don't know quite where I'd go, though. Kohl's and JCP are two of my go-to cheap clothing stores, but then I have to deal with the fact that if I try to shop in the "misses" section, I'm pretty much limited to styles which come in an x-small. I'm not trying to brag here. I don't normally complain about "vanity sizing" but it's a bit ridiculous. I don't care much for my own sake because I can almost always find something that fits, but I am by no means "extra small." There are people out there who are much smaller than me - what do they do when they want to shop for something outside the junior's section?
Sorry, tangent aside, I just want to find a way to dress a little nicer than I currently do without having to worry incessantly about ruining the clothes in lab. Well, I say that, but here's what I bought on my last shopping trip:
- yoga shorts (They're longer than the ones I currently use as pajamas, making them acceptable for public!)
- crop top (it's summer and it's hot, wah wah)
- muscle tank with neon rainbow zebra on it (wah wah hot summer, plus gym shirt..?)
(all from the junior's section)
So, as it stands, I still haven't solved the problem of what to wear to work. I'm going to keep trying, and in the meantime, I'll still just be wearing band shirts and my rainbow of v-necks...
Saturday, June 14, 2014
Why I Run
As my inaugural post, I thought I'd start off with one of my newer hobbies - running. This is especially timely, as I'll be running my first 5K next weekend. I'll be participating in the Color Run, which isn't timed, so it doesn't really count in my mind. However, it's the first time I'll be involved in any sort of organized running event, so it's still exciting to me. Plus, you get covered in colorful powder, and I can get on board with that!
Now, if you know me, this may confuse you. For most of my life, running has been one of my least favorite forms of exercise. So why do I run, you ask? There's a variety of reasons I started, and keep running, so here they are.
Let's start with the most obvious - exercise is healthy. Life expectancy is always increasing due to awesome advances in medicine and science. If I'm going to live for a hundred years or so, I'd like to enjoy all that time. I want to be able to take care of myself and keep doing the things I love. Sure, by the time I'm 100 they may be able to transfer my "consciousness" into a robot body or whatever, but the idea of that weirds me out, so I better take care of the body I have now.
Of course, there are plenty of ways to exercise, so why run? Turns out, a lot of forms of exercise require some sort of equipment. For running, you just need your feet. Well that and a pair of shoes. I'm a very casual runner, so I don't need, or want, to have all the latest running gadgets and gear. I have a pair of running shoes, but not the kind that cost hundreds of dollars. They don't give me blisters or anything, so I think that's good enough. If I became a serious runner, I might have to spend a little more on shoes. But for now, running is easily one of the cheapest forms of exercise I can do.
Here's the most important reason: Running burns more calories per unit of time than just about anything. Swimming is also up there - think Michael Phelps and his 10,000 calorie training diet. However, I suck at swimming even more than I suck at running, and I don't want to deal with pools and chlorine in my hair, etc. The problem with life is that food is delicious. I want to be able to eat yummy things, and sometimes I want to eat more food than I should. By running, I can eat more food and not get fat from it. That counts as a win in my book!
Now, if you know me, this may confuse you. For most of my life, running has been one of my least favorite forms of exercise. So why do I run, you ask? There's a variety of reasons I started, and keep running, so here they are.
Let's start with the most obvious - exercise is healthy. Life expectancy is always increasing due to awesome advances in medicine and science. If I'm going to live for a hundred years or so, I'd like to enjoy all that time. I want to be able to take care of myself and keep doing the things I love. Sure, by the time I'm 100 they may be able to transfer my "consciousness" into a robot body or whatever, but the idea of that weirds me out, so I better take care of the body I have now.
Of course, there are plenty of ways to exercise, so why run? Turns out, a lot of forms of exercise require some sort of equipment. For running, you just need your feet. Well that and a pair of shoes. I'm a very casual runner, so I don't need, or want, to have all the latest running gadgets and gear. I have a pair of running shoes, but not the kind that cost hundreds of dollars. They don't give me blisters or anything, so I think that's good enough. If I became a serious runner, I might have to spend a little more on shoes. But for now, running is easily one of the cheapest forms of exercise I can do.
Here's the most important reason: Running burns more calories per unit of time than just about anything. Swimming is also up there - think Michael Phelps and his 10,000 calorie training diet. However, I suck at swimming even more than I suck at running, and I don't want to deal with pools and chlorine in my hair, etc. The problem with life is that food is delicious. I want to be able to eat yummy things, and sometimes I want to eat more food than I should. By running, I can eat more food and not get fat from it. That counts as a win in my book!
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