After three weeks back in Syracuse, NY, I’ve returned back to Florida, and I must say I love the weather here. As nice as it was back in NY, we really don’t hold a candle to Florida. Anyway enough of that.
I have been assessing my current financial situation and reflecting on the recent market activities and I am a little torn on what to do. I currently have 3500 in cash in my Roth IRA from this year’s contribution. I didn’t contribute the maximum, due to the recent loss of my job, though I probably could have. I like to play it safe and keep that cushion. I have available credit, other than my parents that I could really draw upon in case of emergency — and I like it that way. Cash is king in my life, except for the largest of purchases; tuition, mortgage, etc.
I have $2,500 remaining in my checking account, and another 1100 from my last paycheck. I also collect $250 a week from unemployment. This gives me a grand total of $4,600 by the end of april. After bills and the like I’ll be down to roughly $3600. If I live an extremely meager lifestyle, I should be able to sustain solely on my unemployment checks and keep around $3,000 in my checking account. The choice I have to make is whether I want to continue this lifestyle, unemployed and living in the sunshine and doing as I please, or go back to work and make money again.
Ideally, I could do both. To those that are, you live my dream.
Things tend to happen in odd ways. The past three weeks have been one long drawn out party with my old friends. It was much needed. I’ve become pretty content with not working. Financially, I’m not in any immediate trouble due to a healthy nest egg from being uber-frugal, the assistance from unemployment, and my low cost lifestyle. I decided to take this time to think about what I really want to do with my life, and if working an 8-5 job is the right lifestyle for me. I still haven’t decided what the best course to follow is, but I know that 8-10 hour workdays just aren’t for me. I need flexibility. I’m a quick and diligent worker, and logging a 10 hour day, when I could probably pop off my entire days workload in a few hours is nonsense. I’m going to try my hand at developing some passive income streams to supplement my lifestyle. If I am able to develop enough alternate income, then I see no reason to go back to work, and can pursue my real interest, which is starting a legitimate business. As I mentioned in a previous post, these alternate income streams will flow hopefully from affiliate marketing, and the facebook application I am in the process of developing.
So as for the title of my post, sometimes things happen at odd and unexpected times in your life. Here I am content as a pig in shit for the time being. I’m studying for my graduate entrance exams, working on side projects, and going out with the guys every night like the world might run out of whiskey at the end of the week. I meet a fellow over a game of pool that works for a local defense contracting company. Sure enough he is a Sr. Software Engineer for said company and tells me to send him my resume as his boss is a fellow RIT Alum. Now I have an interview tomorrow morning for a position I wasn’t searching for. Great! It is certainly a mixed bag as far as feelings go. On the one hand, if I did happen to get the job, as far as jobs go, it is pretty fricken’ sweet. Great pay, security clearance, great benefits, relaxed workplace. On the other hand, it is a job. And I don’t like “jobs”. It would require me to relocate back to Syracuse from Jacksonville. I’m not sure if that is the best course of action for me either.
Either way, I’m really excited for the prospect, and it just shows that if I did happen to need to actively look for a position, it wouldn’t be very difficult to sniff one out. Anyway, I’m off to brush up on my C++ skills. It has been a long time since I looked at C++ code, I spend too much time in .NET!
Beautiful day here in Syracuse. I’ve been back at home for nearly three weeks now, after spending the last 9 months of so in Jacksonville, Florida, and I must have brought the nice weather with me. I couldn’t have asked for a more pleasant stay. It isn’t everyday you see sunshine in New York.
I’ve been staying in Syracuse on “vacation” — I was recently fired from my job down in Jacksonville — and thought I would use my free time and one of my flight vouchers to visit family/friends. I saved up a decent chunk of money, so I’m in no rush to find a new job, plus I am getting unemployment at the tune of ~$250 a week. Nothing to write home about, for sure. It will keep me going afloat for quite a while though. It should cover the majority of my bills(mainly student loans) and housing costs. I haven’t worked out all the numbers yet, but it is one of the first things I need to do once my “vacation” is over.
After a little pushing from an old friend, I figure I might try to start writing here again. I never really got off the ground last time, as I got extremely busy with work and lost the motivation and lacked the free time during the work day to write posts. Anyway, I am working for myself now. I’ve been learning the Facebook application api lately, preparing for my first full fledged facebook application. I’m also going to be working on setting up a couple affiliate marketing sites, and see if they can generate any income, in addition to doing side work for some miscellaneous websites.
I will keep posting hopefully steadily daily. I am going to try to have markedly shorter posts than previously, though. I think the length of my original posts were one of the reasons I never could keep motivated at writing.
Thank you Andrei.
Recent Comments