Posted by Canadian Dream on July 27, 2009
Buried deep in your company’s HR polices you might be surprised to learn that there is one for taking an unpaid leave of absence or sabbatical. Which depending on your travel plans or other longer term projects might be a very good way for you to get some serious practice of being retired prior to actually getting there. Yet these leaves can also have some serious downsides. So the question becomes should you take one if you could? And if you do what are the costs?
Well on the positive side of a sabbatical is the ability to get done a larger project like traveling to Europe for three months or building your own cabin or taking some classes to expand your education. You also get the ability to learn what it is like to not have a job and how that makes you feel over a longer period than your typical vacation. There really isn’t much of a limit of what you can do as a project, but usually you need to have something specific in mind. Why? In almost every case you have to be able to explain why you want the leave to your boss and sometimes their boss as well. So saying your going to lounge around the house for six months likely isn’t going to work to get your papers signed off.
Yet let’s say you do manage to get the time off, what are you paying in real terms to do this. Well here’s a list of some more obvious issues:
- No or low income. If you don’t do anything during your leave that brings in some money you are going to be living off your savings so you are going to need a sizable pool of cash to live off for that time period. The longer you are off the more savings you will need in advance. For example, if I wanted to take off six months I would need about $19,000 for living expenses and that does not include any money for any major projects or travel.
- Will push off retirement. Since you are moving a larger amount of savings to take your leave now, you will lose compounding on that money towards retirement and any contributions during this time. So depending on the amount of time you take off and when you could be losing a few years off your retirement date. In my example of taking off six months, my rough estimate was it would cost me an 18 to 24 months of working to make up the difference.
- Reduction or lose of benefits. Depending how long you are taking off and why you might be losing some or most of your benefits while you are off. So if you have dental or eye coverage and you smash out one of your teeth or bust your glasses you might be on the hook for the full amount to fix them.
- Career fallout. Let’s face facts taking off a period of time off has the potential to leave a negative impression with your boss and/or your co-workers and cost you in your career. How exactly this falls out is almost impossible to predict, but it is important to be aware that some kind of backlash is possible from doing this. If you take the leave for educational purposes often these backlashes can be less, but there really is no guarantees.
So that’s my short summary of taking a sabbatical. If you have taken one, please leave a comment on how it worked for you and what tips you would offer to others to do the same.
Posted by Canadian Dream on July 24, 2009
I wonder in the future if people will look back at our time and call it the “The Want Ages” in the same horror and disbelief as people discuss the Dark Ages at times. People may think “you thought what and did what?!?” In our case it will be shock and awe in how on earth did we let everything get so wasteful and people so unhappy all at once.
Perhaps the saddest point for me in our current time is the fact people spend so much of their time trying to fulfill their wants that they don’t even realize that they haven’t even finished fulfilling their needs. It’s a rather backwards world we live in when we keep buying gadgets and the latest movies yet people don’t really have someone to talk to about their problems or that people can’t find a job that they don’t hate.
Now let me state I’m looking past the basic needs here of food, shelter and water. I’m into affection, protection, understanding, participation, creation, identity and freedom. See here.
Perhaps the solution is not about giving up things, but rather demand more of our needs are met and focusing our energy there. After all if you connected to those around you and do something that brings purpose to your live and have someone who you can share affection with would you even care about getting more things? Likely a lot less.
So the up shot of having happier lives and feeling more satisfied would be less demand for stuff. Sure the GDP would go down, but so would our breakneck speed of resources consumption. Perhaps we could then focus more on being more efficient and doing more with less. The change won’t be good for the economy in the short run, but it would be much better for people. Perhaps it is time to say goodbye to the Want Ages and mindless greed that comes with it. Perhaps it is time to move on to do what works better for people and all of their needs.
Posted by Canadian Dream on July 23, 2009
Vices. Let’s face the world is full of them, but weather to invest in them starts to shift pure investment decisions into the world of ethics. After all do you really want to invest in a cigarette company whos product you know hurts people’s health? If you are a none smoker, you might have a problem, but if you yourself smoke you might be fine with it.
I personally limit my vice investments to booze, Corby Distilleries (CDL.A or CDL.B), to be exact. I know booze can be abused by some, but that has never bothered me. My personal belief is there are a lot more people out there using it moderation that those that are abusing it. The product in my mind isn’t the issue, but rather how people use it is. Others may think I’m full of shit, but I’m ok with that.
On the other hand I will never own a cigarette manufacture. I can’t justify supporting that industry with investment from me. I don’t think any amount of their product is safe and I don’t think it’s ok to make money by hurting people directly.
Then drug manufactures start to hit a grey area. It is right to make profit off people’s sickness or are you really helping them? Was Viagra a force for good in this world, or just an over hyped drug which helped people ignore their other health issues like high stress levels? It depends on your personal point of view.
Yet once you start down this path of thinking of things in terms of ethics, where do you drawn the line? After all should you avoid investing in TransAlta due to their coal plants which contribute to climate change or are they just trying to provide power to people with what was near by? Or is Walmart an evil company that abuses workers in many countries or a money making machine that provides goods at a low cost? It depends on how you view the situation and the reality is there is no one right answer.
Ethics should guide your investment choices at some level, but I would caution getting too worried about it. After all just about everyone has done something to someone which someone else would consider unethical on the surface. It takes effort to look at the whole picture and decide for yourself what you can and can’t invest in. Remember there isn’t a right answer, but there is an answer which works for you.
