Slow And Steady Wins The Race

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m going back to school part time with the blessings of my employer. 40+ hours of work a week plus two 3^rd year Engineering courses. I’m going to be a little bit busy for the next little while!

My career has never been linear, which I’m okay with. It may take me longer to get somewhere in it, but I’ve picked up pockets of knowledge that others within my industry don’t necessarily have. I finished university with a degree in Mechanical Engineering, worked in the oil fields and on construction sites, and now I’m in an office doing Civil design. I’m quite happy with where I’ve ended up, I really enjoy my work, but I have a couple gaps in my knowledge which are preventing me from moving forward. So, I sat down with a senior Engineer, figured out what I was missing, and signed up for the first couple classes. Rather than getting a full Civil degree (so much overlap, not worth it), I’m going back as a “Special Student”.

The company will reimburse me for the cost of the schooling, which after fees, taxes and books comes to approximately $2,000. My manager convinced the business guys to reimburse me as I pay out of pocket, rather than making me wait until after I’m done the courses to pay me back. Thank god! That’s a big chunk of change to be waiting 4 or 5 months for reimbursement. So I’ve been snowballing my tuition payments. Every time I get reimbursed I tack on a little bit more money from the current pay check to make the next payment a little bigger: Pay $X, get reimbursed for X, pay $X+$Y, get reimbursed for X+Y, pay $X+$Y+$Z… you get the idea.

It’s been a reasonably painless way to pay tuition now that we got the details worked out (before I was paying for it out of pocket, not knowing when I would get paid back). It also means that when my last chunk of tuition gets reimbursed I’ll have a decent sized lump sum payment for my credit card. I’m looking forward to that!

The courses won't necessarily pay off financially for me right now, but it will make getting my professional designation easier, and will eventually make me more promotable. I could take another job that pays more in an effort to pay off my debts more quickly; going back to the oil sands would have everything but the mortgage paid off before the end of they year! However, those jobs come at a considerable cost in terms of health, mental well being, social and personal life. That added stress tends to lead to added spending, and I'm trying to find a healthier, more manageable lifestyle. It's a slow change.

Stop Living Your Job, Start Living Your Life: 85 Simple Strategies to Achieve Work/Life Balance
Harvard Business Review on Work and Life Balance (Harvard Business Review Paperback Series)
Life Matters: Creating a dynamic balance of work, family, time, & money

Up and down and up and down…

While my paycheck did come with an unexpected downfall in the form of overtime paid out as straight time, I completely missed something else on it. I got a raise. It wasn’t earth shattering, but I’m certainly not going to turn my nose up at another 3% annually. The last time I got a raise, I pledged to save it and not adjust my standard of living to include it. All was going well until my property taxes were adjusted for the year, and my mortgage (which includes the property taxes) went up another $50 every paycheck. Good bye raise savings. It’s time to institute the raise savings again.

The beef came in cheaper than expected, but the groceries and dry cleaning came in over. My coupon that would have saved me $10 on the dry cleaning (bringing me under the budgeted amount) expired 3 weeks ago, but I found 540ml cans of tomatoes on sale at the grocery store for $1 a piece (60% off!). So far over all I’m still under budget on this pay check.

Actually, that’s not entirely true. I had an unexpected expense related to work that I may be able to get them to pay for. I’m applying to the university to take a couple courses which will increase my usefulness to the company. All going well they’ll pay for it. If not, it will just increase my raise potential and hopefully get me some more interesting work to do. The application fee was $75, which went on my credit card. It didn’t wipe out the entire payment I put on it this pay check, but pretty close. Hopefully work will decide to cover that.