Posted by Canadian Dream on February 16, 2010
I was reading a post over at Retirement: A Full-Time Job on underachievement in your career which got me thinking. The reality is early retirees do face a particular difficult balancing act on one hand we have tons of ambition but on the other it usually not directed solely at our careers.
I know I’ve personally seen enough of the careers of senior management and it seemed to me that many of them had sacrificed their personal lives on the alter of their career. For example, coming back in from your vacation to help out with a special presentation. Yes, they got their Vice President or Manger title and good salary, but they paid a price that goes against just about everything that I am. I value my own time more than my job. So are early retirees doomed to be underachievers?
I personally don’t think so. Rather I think early retirees have the extra challenge of right sizing their career ambition. We want the most money for the least amount of personal sacrifice. We are willing to work hard when need be, but at the same time we much rather just work smarter and take off Friday afternoon as well.
To achieve that delicate balance I’ve done the following things:
- I seek interesting work. There isn’t enough money in the world to make me work a job that I hate or that I’ll be bored at. I’ve done it and promised myself I’m never doing it again. So I’ve never had a nice linear career, I’m more of a polynomial curve.
- I’m a corporate mercenary. Yet I don’t go solely by pay. Instead I’m smarter and go for the most pay with the least amount of hours and good benefit package.
- I aim my ambition at the corporate ladder sweet spot. You know the job, the one that seems at odds with everyone else and gets overlooked all the time by others. Like the Manger of Special Projects down the hall, who has the title and the pay, but no staff to worry about and who’s job description changes yearly to usually the most interesting project in the company. That’s where I want to be.
- I do skill development. Yet not the skills that most people would go after. I don’t want an MBA, instead I’ve worked on communication skills: oral and written. So I end up with different package which makes me stand out from others when I apply for jobs.
- I expand my career past just one path. Do other things not related to your job directly to gain experience on new things that also make you happy. The reality is just about every organization uses similar concepts from Education to Finance to your hobby business. They all have budgets, forecasts and customer complaints. So learn from what ever you do and be happy doing it.
So how about you? Have you ‘right-sized’ your career ambition? If so, what job are you after and why?
Posted by Canadian Dream on February 12, 2010
Occasionally I’m amazed on how long I can keep reusing something. Case in point we just converted our crib for our youngest son into a toddler bed. So far it’s been used for two kids and still looks great and can now be used for a few more years. Not bad for something I paid less than $150 for it five years ago.
This is not the only thing that gets reused between the boys. Most of our youngest kid’s clothes, toys, books and furniture all are being reused from our oldest. Mainly during the youngest kid’s birthday and Christmas does he get some new things that are just his, but other than that we managed to save a small fortune just by putting something in a box for a few years.
Of course it will just keep on going for a while yet. For example, I still have the desk I used as a elementary school student. It’s had a new coat of stain and a new chair for it, but otherwise it should be in good shape to move into my oldest son’s room in a few years time. My oldest son also had my old chest of drawers from when I was a teenager and his captain’s bed is also used.
So with all this reusing of things do my kids actually care? So far I would have to say they don’t notice it all. They are much more interested in getting the occasional new toy or getting some cool Hot Wheels bedding than worrying about having a 25 year old desk. As teenagers this might change, but I’ll worry about that when we get there.
With that in mind, what’s the longest thing that you have reused in your house? Beyond the kid stuff, I would have to guess in my house that my dining room table is the oldest thing. It was at the cabin my parent’s bought over a decade ago and it was old then. The finish has broken down in spots so I would guess it already had a good 25 years on it before I ever got it.
Posted by Canadian Dream on February 11, 2010
Well finally the government did something reasonable and extended Employment Insurance (EI) to self employed people. You would think this would be a great thing, but it may not really be for everyone.
There are a few requirements you should be aware of if you are thinking about this:
- The program states that you must pay in for a full year prior to making your first claim at the regular employee rate (1.73% of earning in 2010 up to $747.36 a year).
- If you ever make a claim you must continue to pay into the program as long as you are self employed. If you don’t make a claim you can stop paying in (no refunds).
- You can only qualify for special benefits such as maternity, parental, sickness and compassion care leave. Since you can’t lose your job (in the traditional sense), you can’t claim regular benefits.
- You must make at least $6000/year of self employed income to be part of the program.
So in reality you would only really pay into EI if you planned on using maternity (max 15 weeks) or parental leave benefits (max 35 weeks), otherwise it would be somewhat wasteful to pay that much money in only to occasionally claim sickness (max 15 weeks) or compassion care (max 6 weeks). I’ve never claimed sickness or compassion care leave myself yet. Keep in mind too that the maximum you can get from EI is about $1600/month. So its not a lot of money.
So what’s the break even point of this program? Well if you claimed the full 50 weeks of maternity or parental leave at the maximum rate you would get about $20,000 for the year. So divide that by the max contribution rate of $747.36, you need to pay in for 26 years to be even. So if you have more than one child this program is likely a good deal or you could be ok with a child if you are older (30+) and plan to retire early you could do well at least for right now.
You have to recall that the EI program is currently under a rate freeze but you can expect a sharp increase right after 2011 so that will change these numbers a fair bit.
So is getting EI a good idea for a self employed person? If you plan on two kids or more and will be taking the majority of the maternity and parental leave, then likely yes it is a good idea. If you only have one kid, you might want to think about. If you aren’t planning on kids, skip it.
