. Yee haw! Got a job interview set for this Friday morning.
Once again, it pays to prowl the local newspaper help wanted section. There seem to be a number of businesses that prefer to avoid the onslaught of applicants that an online help wanted ad would generate.
This wasn't even a daily newspaper...it was my local hometown newspaper. The company that advertised is based right here!!! Wouldn't it be great to once again have no commute??
The job is a research and writing job, though the title is Analyst.
It's a small, but well-respected market intelligence provider that does research in certain industries and sells that information. It started out serving mainly the defense and aeronautics industry but looks to be expanding into energy/power and airlines.
What do I know about those industries? Absolutely nothing. But the ads also said nothing about being an expert in those fields.
Since it was so local, I hand-delivered my resume with some writing samples they hadn't asked for directly to the company this past Monday. I had taken a lot of care to write a tailored cover letter seeking to compensate for my lack of specific industry knowledge by talking about how good I am at writing about complex subject matter, like certain financial investments. I had also years back done website copy for one alternative energy company, so that was one of the writing samples I left with them.
Now I had applied for a writing job with this company years ago, like maybe 10 years ago. At the time, I remember this same woman had called me and told me their salary range, which was so low at the time i couldn't consider it.
So I was prepared when she brought up salary again. She asked me what my range was and i hemmed and hawed and she said well if i told you our range was in the low 40s would you still be interested?
I said yes, definitely, and told her I was very close to paying off my mortgage, and that doing so would really free me up to look at jobs that truly interested me, and that quality of life issues, like an easy commute, were important to me.
So she said well let's continue this conversation, but in person. So we're set for Friday. I may be meeting one other person but she's not sure.
I'm psyched. Low 40s is exactly HALF of what I could expect to make at many jobs in lower Fairfield County. However, I have passed many job postings up becus they were just too far away. I just don't want to schlep an hour to work every day, and back. I feel like it's giving up too much of my time, and I'm at a point in my life where I want to slow things down a little and not return to such a frenetic lifestyle.
Now I know I can survive, more or less, on unemployment, though I've deferred a lot of expenses, and that comes to about $28,000 a year. And I know when I worked at another local job, I made it work on $50,000 a year, starting out, and even then I insisted on contributing the max to my 401(k). (Although with such a small salary my 15% contributions didn't add up to so much.) AND I was still prepaying my mortgage an extra $400 a month!
All I really need is a job that will pay my current bills. Based on various retirement calculators, my $500K nestegg should grow to a million by the time I'm 65. Of course, I will still contribute as much as i can, that's just the way i am, but it seems large enough at this point that i could partly put it on auto-pilot.
I'm psyched.
Job Interview!! Happy Dance!!
July 27th, 2011 at 04:24 pm
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By the time you consider the true cost of commuting (including vehicle wear and tear) AND if you use the extra time to work freelance, not sure you will be terribly behind. Certainly not *getting paid half as much* behind.
I'd estimate you will get to take home 85% of your income. Maybe more. After taxes.
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