Depressing post about my future. AKA me looking for career advice - Page 5

by the northeast do you mean NYC?

Fine if he wants some advice then I'd say take the $30,000 job and work his way up. Everyone has to start from the bottom and dial back his expensive tastes. Right now his post is basically "I want a high-paying entry-level job that's fun and exciting where I want be at the bottom of the totem pole." Well that shit like that doesn't exist.

Uhmm, that's the problem. You can't easily land even the 30k job with a non-traditionally marketable degree.

he said in the op he has an interview for a job that pays 30k but it's not enough for him.

Ish. NYC Metro area, NJ, Philly. I've lived in all those areas and 30k is enough to live on. In the hood. If you don't care what you eat. And don't plan to get sick, retire, take vacations or ever go out, you can live on that.

 

I'd imagine its largely the same in baltimore, boston, etc. Can't speak to them though as i've not lived in those cities.

We're OT, but Liam you're saying trying to live on 30k salary in Philly is equivalent to 30k NYC area?

I've been, but not lived and I'd imagine there's still a bit of difference. Curious...

Philly proper is probably equivalent to non-borough nyc metro overall, but philly is definitely cheaper than NYC. philly you MIGHT be able to live on 30k. NYC you'll be living like a pauper WITH roommates on that kind of money, or in a neighborhood where dressing like anyone on here would get you jacked daily. Philly burbs in PA arent that bad, but NJ property taxes are ridiculous.

The company posts for them. It is essentially a two year long interview. Only about half of the hired bunch end up with full time gigs. They hire new ones almost every year.

I feel like if you can do stats work, you can be useful to a lot of companies and a lot of departments. Even if you take one or two extra courses in college in stats and you throw it on a resume and can talk about it employers see value. I took a bunch of extra stats courses in college and my current employer ate it up. Probably helps that I am very good at it and can talk about it in lay terms as well.

Are you serious, Teger?

Since we're talking about a starter job, I don't think he should be worrying too much about retirement savings just yet. Barely scraping by in your first job out of college is a healthy experience, IMO. At some point you need to learn that life requires tradeoffs.

Living with roommates right out of college is also a healthy experience. Property taxes are hardly something he needs to worry about at this point.

A friend of mine is a communications PhD and has a fantastic life, makes good money, etc...

A) our generation is unlikely to receive social security, in a lot of fields pensions are a thing of the past, we're taking longer to get good jobs (I know people who have been out of good schools, good grades, good degrees, good people who five years later are lucky to be an assistant manager in a shitty retail environment). Since we can't bank as much, we have to start banking early. I don't understand why you think being broke is a healthy experience. I grew up broke, thats why I do everything I can to not be, and I think its irresponsible to actively advocate not planning for the future or achieving your maximum possible level of prosperity in general.

 

B) most people don't want roommates. I've had them in the past, and given the choice between moving back to some inner city shithole and taking a roommate, at this point i might just take the shithole. he probably had roommates in college, so he's not going to benefit from that experience more than he already has, and I don't understand why it's categorically healthy anyway.

One thing that you are missing that most people for whatever reason fail to realize is the fact that humans are living longer than ever before and people still have this idea that they are supposed to retire at 55 and freak out like this is some sort of deadline for financial survival. Working longer is always a viable option.

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Exactly. If you're used to living on 100k a year, and can reasonably expect to live to 75 (which will probably be be the life expectancy by the time I'm that age) and you retire at 60, you need at LEAST 1.5mil because you can't count on pensions and Soc. Sec. anymore, medicare/medicaid are having issues, and you're probably going to have expensive health issues that may no longer be subsidized. That is a LOT of money to rack up if you don't start earning 50k til age 30, which is a more and more common situation these days.

I don't know though. I mean you can work longer, but you may not need the same grueling job. I am 26, I can't see myself spending nearly as much money when I am 70 as I do now. I doubt I will need to maintain my highest level of income. It would be nice, but I don't think I would need it. Inflation is always an issue, though.

Easy, tiger. Yes, one should save early and often if possible. But on a lifetime NPV calculation it is much more important when you are young to focus on your long-term earning potential rather than maximize current earnings. That is the time in your life to take risks, because the cost of having low earnings only increases as you get older - you definitely won't want to be taking a lot of career risks when you are 35 and married with kids, mortgage, parents entering retirement, etc.

Besides, how does turning down a $30k job help the OP on this front in the first place when the current alternative is a $0k job? Nothing stops him from looking for another job while he is working, so better to at least have SOME income than no income.

As for roommates, having roommates after college is different from having roommates in college, because it is "real life" and college is not. In college you don't have to figure out to nearly the same extent how to coexist with other humans while sharing the responsibilities of cleaning, dishes, shopping, rent, utilities, etc. It helps most people figure out that part of growing up is learning to take care of those things, and after a short while they will figure out why living without roommates is better. And it sounds like you are the exception - most people DO want roommates when they are young, because they think it is more fun than living alone. If nothing else they need to be disabused of that notion.

Also, in my experience people who never had to live with roommates in the "real world" are more likely to have difficulty forming and maintaining long-term romantic relationships as they get older. They have their patterns and routines, their way of doing things "just so", and they never learned how to make room in their life for people with differing opinions on how to navigate the banalities of daily life. Granted this is hardly scientific, just an anecdotal observation.