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Jun 22, 2015    |      1 comment

Father’s Day Recap

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Our Father’s Day this year was really low-key. Unfortunately (or fortunately, considering our no-income month of May!!!), hubs had to work the entire weekend, including a full day on Sunday.

Also, my recent travel last week made it feel like Father’s Day really snuck up on me this year. I’ve gotten pretty good with frugal gift-giving, but I hadn’t adequately planned or prepared for anything this year so I was left scrambling at the end of the week to figure something out.

Just one of the many, many reasons I’m grateful for this blog!

I blatantly stole –ahem- “borrowed” Matt’s idea and decided to do something that I knew my husband would really appreciate, but wouldn’t take a lot of time or money. I made him a bag of his favorite things!

I went to the store pretty last minute (cough, Sunday morning, cough) and got all kinds of goodies that I would never normally splurge on at the grocery store (e.g., expensive nuts, cereals, pudding snacks, etc.). All in, I spent less than $30 for a bag full of stuff that hubs loves.

Plus, this was my third annual Father’s Day D-A-D picture! I think this is the best year yet!

DAD

 

See last year’s pictures here

For the other Fathers in our lives, I did my usual thing – I made the girls do a craft! It was a little more low-key than some of our other crafts simply because I was out of time! I didn’t even get our cards into the mail until Friday afternoon so I knew they were going to be late and I really just needed to get the project done! I had the girls color on some white paper and then I cut the paper into rectangles. I glued the rectangles onto heavy cardstock to give it a more “finished” look, and tucked it into the card envelope along with a couple recent pictures of the girls. Easy-peasy, DONE!

I’ve said it before, but one of the biggest changes I’ve made since starting to blog here has been in scaling WAY BACK on the amount I spend on gift giving. When my sister and I were visiting my Dad we talked about what our plans were for Father’s Day. My sister took her hubs to a hotel on the San Antonio River Walk and was contemplating whether she could swing his “dream gift”: An Xbox One. AN XBOX ONE!!!!! We’re talking a $350 gaming console. Add the hotel, eating out, and they’re looking at about a $500+ Father’s Day. I love my sister and am saying this not to pick on her, but because I would have been in the same boat! Before blogging here I would have thought nothing of spending a couple hundred on a Father’s Day gift for hubs ($500 would have still been a little pricey for me, but I could definitely see spending in the $150-200ish range!). For his first Father’s Day (pre-blogging days) I bought him 6-week long golfing lessons! I know he enjoyed it, but talk about pricey!

Cutting back on the amount we spend on gift-giving was a little scary at first. I know its silly, but I was kind of worried at first. It’s like we equate dollars spent to love. If I went from spending $50-$100 on gifts down to $15-20, would people be mad? Offended? Upset?

You know what? Overwhelmingly I feel like they don’t even notice! Many of these gift-giving occasions are bulk gift-giving things (like weddings and baby showers). Recipients write down the gift so they can write a thank you card, and then promptly forget who gave what and how much it might have cost. Also, I’ve gotten a lot better about writing personal and heart-felt notes. Instead of just sending a $50 gift card with a generic “Congratulations” card, I send a much cheaper gift (but one that I actually put thought into to make sure the recipient will enjoy/use), and a really nice card. I’ve even taken time to think up little rhyming poems that are funny and sweet and match the occasion.

So if anyone is reading that’s just starting the debt-reduction journey, might I humbly suggest really taking a knife to your gift-giving budget? I’m not suggesting you be stingy or cheap. But I AM suggesting that you could spend more time actually thinking about a meaningful (and less expensive) gift and writing a really nice card. It’s made a huge difference in our budget! I hope it can make a difference in yours, too!

What did you do for Father’s Day? Do you send gifts to all the fathers (or grandfathers) in your life?

Jun 21, 2015    |       52 comments

I GOT AN OFFER!!!!!

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First – Happy Father’s Day to all! I’ll be back Monday with a Father’s Day recap post to let you know what we’re up to. But in the meantime, I wanted to get this post up sooner so I can try to get as much feedback from readers as possible, given that this is a time-sensitive issue. Thanks so much! I hope you’re all having a great weekend!

 

Hallelujah, y’all! I’m not even going to lie. I was starting to wonder if this would ever happen. I’ve come up with a whole contingency plan of what I’ll do if I never land a full-time position (continue working part-time teaching online, then also go back to in-person adjunct teaching once the girls start public school).

So I am THRILLED to announce that I’m on the verge of signing the deal with an awesome department where I will be so excited to work!

I really, really want to spill all the details about the salary negotiations but I’ve decided to hold back because I certainly don’t want it to get back to the department and jeopardize anything. So instead of dishing everything, I’ll give you some general information about the first round of negotiations and tell you some more specific details about the benefits package to get your feedback there. This is a bit of a long one, so prepare yourself.

Here we go…

At my meeting last Friday, I was offered a position and money was discussed almost immediately. I nodded and smiled and then proceeded to discuss job duties and responsibilities for the next hour without ever mentioning a salary amount. When the conversation was wrapping up I was point-blank asked what I had hoped for in terms of salary. I’m kicking myself now because I asked for more money, but I was met with an immediate “DONE!” which definitely leads me to believe I short-changed myself a little and could have asked for more. In all, the pay is more than I’d expected they’d give me, but less than what’d I’d really wanted.

In terms of benefits, it’s a mixed bag.

The university gives excellent 401k matching (up to 7% immediately, and up to 11.6% after six months of employment!!!). They also offer a child care voucher of $1500 (literally only covers one month of full-time childcare, but it’s free money so I’m thankful for it). Additionally, they offer a flexible spending account where I can put up to 5,000 pre-tax dollars aside for childcare – essentially saving the taxes from that $5,000.

So all that is good. Here’s some of the okay-not-great part of the benefits package…

The health/dental/vision package isn’t as good as I’d hoped.

For health, my options are between a PPO and a health saving account (HSA) option. The PPO is $486/month and has a $1,000 deductible. The HSA is $193/month, has a $2500 deductible, and the university contributes $120/month to the account. I’m leaning toward the HSA, but there’s a HUGE caveat. The info I’ve been given says “You must submit valid claims before the end of the claims period runs out. Any unclaimed remaining funds will be forfeited to your employer, so estimate your expenses carefully and set money aside accordingly.” So I’m not super thrilled that the money doesn’t just sit and accumulate, but can actually be lost. Anyone with strong opinions one way or the other (regarding PPO versus HSA), please comment. I’m new to this, so I’d love to hear from others’ experiences!

The vision is simple enough – only $16/month.

The dental is kind of disappointing. $105/month covers free preventative care. But they only cover 50% of other procedures and there’s a $2,000 annual limit per person. I’m really giving this plan the side-eye. I feel like it might be more beneficial just to stay without dental and pay out of pocket as we go (or buy the cheap dental discount programs that you can start and stop easily). Still – I may choose to enroll in the dental for the first month or two of employment to try to get hubs to have his dental work done, and then quit so we don’t keep paying the premium year-round. Thoughts? Opinions?

To sum up, we’re looking at:

  • $193 (HSA) + $105 (dental) + $16 (vision) = $314/month, not including any contributions to the health savings account and not including the fact that we’d have to pay the first $2500 out-of-pocket.   OR
  • $486 (PPO) + $105 + $16 = $607/month. That seems like a lot for health care! We only pay $350/month currently for health/vision, but that’s a non ACA-approved insurance that was grandfathered in. It expires December 31st of this year at which point we’ll have to upgrade to an ACA-approved plan. I’ve priced independent health insurance to be about $1,000/month so this seems to me like the university paying approximately half of the premium (note: in their benefits materials they say they pay 85%…but that figure seems a bit high. It would mean the insurance is incredibly expensive before their contribution).

When I left the meeting, we had negotiated a salary and I essentially gave verbal assent. BUT I did leave myself some wiggle room by specifically saying I was eager to look over the full package in writing, including benefits, and that I’d give my final decision in a few days.

Given that the benefits aren’t quite what I had hoped (meaning, the university doesn’t pay as much of the health/dental/vision as I had hoped), would it be tacky to go back and try to negotiate for a little bit more money? That’s what I’d like to do, but I’m also a little nervous. I’ve read horror stories online of people who took negotiations too far and ended up having the offer rescinded. Thoughts? Opinions? Advice?

I’m leaning toward sending a very complimentary email talking about how genuinely excited I am to start this position (which is 100% true), but then to say that after looking over the full offer package I was a little disappointed about the benefits package and wanted to know if they would be open to raising my salary a little to compensate for the benefits. – Ugh! I cringe just writing that out! I have no idea how to write it so it still comes across as thankful for the job offer and conveys that I’m excited to start….but that, ultimately, I’d like a little more money. Again – thoughts? Is it okay to handle this in email or would a phone call be more appropriate? Give me your tips!!!!

Thanks in advance for any advice!

Also, thank you for all the comments on my negotiations post! You guys are awesome and gave me so many great ideas! I’m very thankful for your collective insight! You readers are a smart group : )

Happy Father’s Day to all the Dads, Granddads, and special men in peoples’ lives. And Happy Day to single parents doing it alone (Moms or Dads), and to all those who no longer have a living father….my thoughts are with you all!

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