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Awesome Job – Not So Awesome Location

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When I read the job description, I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was exactly the type of job my husband was hoping to find (with his field, there can be quite a few variations for the actual duties a job could entail). I quickly emailed the job to him and brought the link to his attention.

He reviewed the job description, and agreed that it was exactly what he was looking for. The location also didn’t appear to be so bad. It was in Virginia, and I’ve heard some good things about the state from a reader.

“Did you look at exactly where this job is?” my husband asked.

Because I was so pumped about merely finding a job like that, I didn’t even dig deep down as to the location.

“There are over 2,500 people per square mile.”

At first, that number didn’t mean all that much. So I looked at the area where we currently live: 90 people per square mile.

Oh my…that’s a big difference. I looked at the area where I grew up and there are 80 people per square mile. What can I say? I’m a small town girl!

The city my husband spent his teen years in has 850 people per square mile. I lived there for about six months (during a past financial hardship), and I remember how much I didn’t like feeling crowded. I was extremely unhappy with the hustle and bustle. That’s with 850 per square mile. I think going up to 2,500 would be too much of a shock for us and in the end we wouldn’t be very happy.

We were hoping that there would be a less populated area within commuting distance of that city. Loading up Google Maps and looking at the satellite view of an area is a great way to check things like that out. The area is actually near Washington DC and it’s all heavily populated. Bummer.

Sadly, we will have to pass on that job. There’s a fine line we have to draw with this job search. Money is important, but we have to try to be true to ourselves and the type of simple lifestyle that we desire. Otherwise, we will end up very unhappy.

NOTE: You can find the info about where you live by going to City-Data.com.

Our 2008 Financial Goals

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Once I have the final numbers calculated, I’ll take a final look back at our 2007 goals and see exactly how we did. It’s hard to believe that yet another year has passed, and it’s time to declare some goals for 2008.

Debt Goal – Kimberly from Alpha Consumer asked me for a financial goal. I decided that we would like to pay off at least $10,000 more of our debt in 2008. This may be tough with a looming financial shake-up. But, that shake-up should be temporary until we get our financial groove back. When that happens, we should have more income overall to go towards our debt. One step backwards…two steps forward.

The only problem with having a goal of $10,000 is that it will mean that we will have about five months to pay off $7,000 by May 2009 (our credit card payoff goal date). A date that I thought was so far away is no longer so far away.

Savings Goal – I think a nice goal for our savings account would be to fund it up to $5,000. But since we may have to use some of it for moving expenses, I am going to be conservative here and have a goal of having it back at $2,500 (or more) by this time next year.

How are we planning on achieving the above goals? The main thing is to increase our income, which we hope to do by my husband finding full-time employment in his field. I also have been keeping an eye out for extra income that I can make. It’s not just any income, though. I am looking for high return income so I don’t have to spend as much time working. That way, I can concentrate on cutting our expenses as well.

Happy New Year Everyone! Here’s to 2008!