DutchGirl's journal

Where are you and where are you going?
IlliniDave
Posts: 3845
Joined: Wed Apr 02, 2014 7:46 pm

Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by IlliniDave »

What worked well for me when it came to paring down frivolous spending was to use a variation on a technique from Your Money or Your Life. It can be tedious because it requires keeping a detailed record on spending. Part of the process is to essentially grade each expense on whether it improves your life (I'm sort of paraphrasing), makes it worse, or is neutral. Neutral or worsening items are candidates for reduction/elimination, bettering items are candidates for maintaining or even increasing. I found a lot of things I bucketed as "fun" money expenses weren't really all that fun, and sometimes had costs that went beyond the actual money spent.

That approach made the chopping process much easier because it made sense in the big picture. Having a "reason" to cut back somewhere rather than just for the sake of being a cheapskate made it more sustainable, and I wound up with a higher quality of life and a higher savings rate together. Very simple and intuitive, but I needed prompting from a book before implementing it in earnest.

DutchGirl
Posts: 1646
Joined: Tue Sep 06, 2011 1:49 pm
Location: The Netherlands

Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by DutchGirl »

Yesterday was the big meeting with my two supervisors. They asked me how I've been. I told them about how terrible I've felt. I was met with disbelief. They could not understand why I would feel so bad. And I could not explain it to them. They told me I was 80% there, I know that the remaining 20% is not something I want to go through. The remaining 20% is licking their heels and them pissing all over my work to make it theirs. They've done this with the 3 papers I've published so far. But I can't take any more. I'm done. I've had it.

It could be that this is because I was teased as a kid and I can't take what feels like a lot of rejections. It could be because I was raised on a farm by two people who are honest and whose words are honest, simple and true. It could be that I'm not made to be this competitive or able to stand this underdog position for long enough to become a top dog. I don't wanna be a top dog anyway.

As I said before, I don't need this diploma for my own future or for my current career. I actually like the fact that at my current career I'm considered an adult who can be trusted to do things the right way all by herself. I also like the fact that people (both colleagues and the blood donors I talk to) appreciate my work.

I guess I have become too old to be an obedient PhD student. Well, too bad.

Now I have a lot of free time on my hands. My job does take me something like 30 hours per week on average. What shall I do with the rest of my time?

Hankaroundtheworld
Posts: 470
Joined: Mon Feb 24, 2014 4:50 am

Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by Hankaroundtheworld »

Very brave decision, wow, read it twice :-)
If you suddenly have free time and most important free in your mind, then you can start planning your next step, and if you focus right, it will be at the center of:
(1) That which you love
(2) That which the world needs
(3) That which you are good at
(4) That which you can be paid for
It might be a bit like searching for the holy grail, but if you get close to the center of these 4 goals, it will feel like a riding a nice wave
good luck !
Henk

m741
Posts: 1187
Joined: Tue Jan 18, 2011 3:31 am
Location: Seattle, WA

Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by m741 »

Wow, what a bold move!

You always sounded really unhappy with the PhD life, so it seems like this is the right decision for you. And so much free time!

George the original one
Posts: 5404
Joined: Wed Jul 28, 2010 3:28 am
Location: Wettest corner of Orygun

Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by George the original one »

Cutting the ties that bind and onward to the future!

IlliniDave
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Joined: Wed Apr 02, 2014 7:46 pm

Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by IlliniDave »

And here I thought I was on the cusp of a monumental decision. I salute your courage and conviction.

Initially for a couple weeks at least, I'd suggest using your extra time to decompress and allow some of the negative energy of that situation drift away. I don't know you well enough to suggest specifics, but I would hike and fish--being outdoors and in natural settings tense to have a cleansing effect on me. I would also write, just some sort of journaling, a throwaway notebook where I'd just explore thoughts and possibilities for the future, where I'd write the things I would hesitate to say aloud.

In time there's a good chance a path will appear. Good luck!

chenda
Posts: 3289
Joined: Wed Jun 29, 2011 1:17 pm
Location: Nether Wallop

Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by chenda »

Congratulations on your decision. I would spend your time at first just enjoying the freedom, then you can decide what else you want to do :)

I(E)reland
Posts: 36
Joined: Mon Jun 02, 2014 3:07 pm

Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by I(E)reland »

Congratulations....other opportunities will open up...and interesting to hear your comments about people being fair and honest. How much easier and better the world would be if people were more straightforward!

DutchGirl
Posts: 1646
Joined: Tue Sep 06, 2011 1:49 pm
Location: The Netherlands

Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by DutchGirl »

I am a bit surprised and very pleased with all of your responses. Thank you so much, guys!

I've spent yesterday celebrating my father-in-law's 77th birthday, today is a day off. I found this post on the Simple Dollar yesterday, and perhaps I could use this technique to think more about what I want my life (or at least the next few months) to be about.

Keeping a diary is also a smart move.

I've got some things to explore, for example writing, and accounting (I've got a basic diploma and quite liked it). I definitely could use some time and effort to lose some weight, and I've lost one excuse to eat chocolate now... That could be one of the things to focus on, because it's important for my health.

saving-10-years
Posts: 554
Joined: Thu Oct 31, 2013 9:37 am
Location: Warwickshire, UK

Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by saving-10-years »

This sounds like it was the right decision. Hoping that those supes of yours have some explaining to do about why this happened on their watch. If they've done this to you then they have done it to others too. A bold move and enjoy the new possibilities you now have time for and basically being in charge.

How a PhD becomes what some other people make you do (even though you don't want to) to serve their needs rather than yours is a common and sad story I've heard before. So enough of that book, you have the skills and passion to write your own new (and better) book. Good luck.

DutchGirl
Posts: 1646
Joined: Tue Sep 06, 2011 1:49 pm
Location: The Netherlands

Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by DutchGirl »

I'm quite happy about my expenses in June! I spent 1350 euros instead of the budgeted 1300 euros, and this was due to a sudden bike repair for 30 euros (replacing the inner and outer back tire of my bike) and an unplanned train journey for 20 euros to visit my very old and now very frail grandmother. (I categorized both as "traveling" expenses and overspend 50 euros in that category).

Generally it was a month with no "extra" expenses, just the barebone rent - groceries - health insurance things that come back every month. During many other months I'll have an annual or semi-annual bill coming due, but not in June.

Also, I experimented with a new way of budgetting for "extra / fun expenses". I used to do this per month and allow myself 150 euros per month for fun expenses, dinners, unexpected expenses and gifts. But I would run out of money by the 15th more often than not, and then I would go over. Now I budgeted 50 euros for gifts and 20 euros per week for the rest. It turned out that it made it easier for me to reduce the extra expenses, apparently I'm still not very good at planning for a whole month... I still overspend by 3 euros, so I spent 153 euros in total in that category... :-) . I'll be continuing to budget this per week.

(You could discuss whether the "unexpected" bike repair and the "unexpected" extra train trip belong in the "unexpected" budget category... In which case I did overspend there, but anyway...).

My income was a roughly 2300 salary and a 770 euro tax return from 2013... So my savings rate would be over 50% if you count the tax return, and a little bit under if you don't.

Onwards to July, which will, by the way, see some very big annual and semi-annual bills. Expected expenses are 2100 euros...

1taskaday
Posts: 463
Joined: Wed Dec 04, 2013 11:45 am
Location: England

Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by 1taskaday »

Hi DutchGirl,

Just caught up with your latest journal entries.

I have made some decisions like this lately regarding career moves,(or "no moves" as I decided).

Never regretted it for a moment.

My path is clear I just want to suck the most (that is possible) out of life.
Enough with the hardship and "bettering myself".

If we could just let ourselves enjoy what we enjoy and stop wanting more-I think this is the recipe for a happy life.

Remember there are no mistakes-always only learning ...

DutchGirl
Posts: 1646
Joined: Tue Sep 06, 2011 1:49 pm
Location: The Netherlands

Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by DutchGirl »

Busy weeks ahead of me... At my work, people are going on holidays, and I picked up a few extra hours because of that. So I'll be working 140 hours per month in July and in August. Others will laugh at this low number, but it's a lot for me since I am used to working 100 hours per month or so. Of course, it will also increase my salary, which is good.

Also, I will be working for a few weekend days as well. I will be promoting the blood bank at certain events. A few weeks ago I did the same, it was outside and very hot that day. I survived by drinking a lot of fluids and by using the sunscreen lotion enough times. No sun burns and no headache... But this is one of the reasons why I'm not looking forward to the next set of events, they will also be outside and who knows what the weather will be like? Maybe I was a bit stupid to volunteer for this (volunteering as in I don't have to do this; I will get paid about half my regular hourly wage).

My normal work involves sitting behind a computer and talking to people and walking around in a more or less airconditioned environment. This will be standing a lot, talking to more people, and no air conditioning :-) . Maybe I should just toughen up a bit :-D

Anyway... The busy time ahead of me makes me want to reach ERE even more, so I have been looking for jobs-on-the-side for when this busy period at my current job has passed and my income drops again. So this busy period encourages me to get more busy in the future as well, even though I am not looking forward to being so busy. Hmm.

Also, I have invested a few more of my euros in a wind turbine cooperation (should give 5% per year returns, plus I like the environment-friendly part of it) and in a mutual fund at my bank. Now I actually need to sit tight for a while and replenish my savings account. It is at 1400 euros currently and I would like it to be at 5000 euros... It will take me a few months to get that back up again; but I like investing so much more...

I do not have a lot of patience...

DutchGirl
Posts: 1646
Joined: Tue Sep 06, 2011 1:49 pm
Location: The Netherlands

Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by DutchGirl »

Tropical temperatures expected for this weekend when I will be outside trying to promote the bloodbank. Just my kind of luck... :-) . The only upside is that it's "only" for five hours and starts right during the hottest hours of the day (so will hopefully cool down a bit over time).

Today I'll have my annual job performance review with my boss. My boss is a nice person, so I'm not too worried that she'll misinterpret everything I'll say etc. I think they're still happy with my performance. I am too, mostly, although I do remember some mistakes I made this past year. Also, we'll discuss the future... and I have my "hidden agenda" of quitting in the next 5-10 years (probably if I quit five years from now I'll need to find other work to do to get to FI, but perhaps that would be best for me). I believe my boss and the boss of my boss see me potentially have a career and I'm not sure whether I want to deal with climbing the ladder...

Hankaroundtheworld
Posts: 470
Joined: Mon Feb 24, 2014 4:50 am

Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by Hankaroundtheworld »

I feel with you, promoting bloodbank while everyone else is cooking their blood in the sun and drinking white beer :-)

Pretend to have a career to your boss, and get some Salary raises !!

DutchGirl
Posts: 1646
Joined: Tue Sep 06, 2011 1:49 pm
Location: The Netherlands

Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by DutchGirl »

Performance review went ok. I told my boss that I want to have a 24 to 28 hour contract instead of the current 20 hour/week contract. She wrote down "wants to go up to 24 hours/week" and I corrected her and said: "No, 24 to 28". She was smiling at that and wrote down "- 28", I guess my persistence amused her.

She said that she could probably give me more hours by October and on Friday I understood why as an older colleague of mine gave us all cupcakes and announced her retirement three months from now. She work 30 or so hours per week, so now everyone else can get some of those hours... (And this colleague will enjoy some "early" retirement as she is in her 50s, so I wished her a lot of happy years of freedom* - maybe I gave away my ERE-inclinations there! ).

I didn't ask for a raise, but I'm still getting annual raises that everybody gets when they first start out. The first ten years you get a raise every year. After that, only a correction for inflation every year (if you're lucky).

The extra hours will probably be office hours and will mean I'll be working with the blood bank lab on "weird" cases: patients who received blood and then developed a lung disorder (TRALI) - the lab then has to run some tests on the blood and on the patient's blood to maybe find a reason, and, another task, blood products that didn't pass our quality tests (which may have something to do with the donor of that particular blood, so I'll have to contact some donors as well and explain to them why they should go see a doctor). For me this is interesting work, somewhere in between lab work (which I've done and liked, as long as it doesn't involve writing scientific articles/applying for funding) and talking to people about their health (which I like in general, although not always).

Tomorrow I'll be working that extra job of standing outside and asking people to become a blood donor. Promoting something is really outside of my comfort zone, but now I've done it 3 times and I must say that I'm getting a bit used to it. Yesterday and today were tropical days here, temperatures above 30 degrees celcius (86 Fahrenheit). Luckily it seems like tomorrow it will top off at 26C/79F... Still hot but manageable. Now I'm not so afraid anymore that I'll develop a heat stroke.

*As for the colleague who is retiring... We had a meeting and she announced it there to roughly fifteen of her colleagues. The first reactions were: "And you aren't going to get another job?". "You're retiring? But you aren't old enough to retire, are you?". And even: "But what are you going to do with all that free time?". Then I had enough of the negativity and I congratulated her on regaining her freedom. She always took her leave in winter and went to Portugal for four weeks straight, enjoying the sun, so I said something like: "Congratulations! I'm pretty sure you'll enjoy the freedom. You're going to enjoy your life now. I bet you're going to spend the whole winter in Portugal this year?" and then finally this colleague could tell us about her plans to enjoy her life, travel, spend the winters in Portugal indeed, spend more time on her hobbies, etc. Then my colleagues started congratulating her as well. She later came to me and told me that she liked my reaction very much. I bet!

Hankaroundtheworld
Posts: 470
Joined: Mon Feb 24, 2014 4:50 am

Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by Hankaroundtheworld »

Great, especially liked the last part, and how you were able to congratulate your ER colleague with the right attitude :-) and I am sure you will follow into her footsteps or even sooner !

skintstudent
Posts: 82
Joined: Thu Feb 07, 2013 12:52 am

Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by skintstudent »

DutchGirl wrote:Yesterday was the big meeting with my two supervisors. They asked me how I've been. I told them about how terrible I've felt. I was met with disbelief. They could not understand why I would feel so bad. And I could not explain it to them. They told me I was 80% there, I know that the remaining 20% is not something I want to go through. The remaining 20% is licking their heels and them pissing all over my work to make it theirs. They've done this with the 3 papers I've published so far. But I can't take any more. I'm done. I've had it.

It could be that this is because I was teased as a kid and I can't take what feels like a lot of rejections. It could be because I was raised on a farm by two people who are honest and whose words are honest, simple and true. It could be that I'm not made to be this competitive or able to stand this underdog position for long enough to become a top dog. I don't wanna be a top dog anyway.

As I said before, I don't need this diploma for my own future or for my current career. I actually like the fact that at my current career I'm considered an adult who can be trusted to do things the right way all by herself. I also like the fact that people (both colleagues and the blood donors I talk to) appreciate my work.

I guess I have become too old to be an obedient PhD student. Well, too bad.

Now I have a lot of free time on my hands. My job does take me something like 30 hours per week on average. What shall I do with the rest of my time?
Well done on standing up to your supervisors. Quitting a PhD at this late stage is not something done easily. Yet however late it seems, supervisors seem to have a knack of dragging it on yet further. Congratualtions for having the guts to do what you think is best for you.

I'd love to quit my PhD, but I do know that it would reflect badly on me. I'm writing up too, so I can sympathise with how it feels. That 80% done is like a windows progress bar, it seems to stick near the finish. Getting a PhD won't benefit me - it has definitely cost me in the long run. However, in my circumstances, not finishing will be even worse for me. You seem to have that sorted - in employment and not wanting to follow a career where a PhD is a plus. Good luck for the future.

DutchGirl
Posts: 1646
Joined: Tue Sep 06, 2011 1:49 pm
Location: The Netherlands

Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by DutchGirl »

Thanks...

This month my income was finally a bit higher again, € 2600 came in after working hard in June.

My expenses were quite high, too, at € 2135... However, 235 euros were travelling costs for work and I will get that money reimbursed (my paycheck will be roughly 250 euros higher next month because of that). Also I donated 600 euros to a charity as my annual contribution to them, and I will get rougly €240 of that back come tax time next year.

But anyway, savings rate therefore a measly 18%. I hope to do better again next month.

DutchGirl
Posts: 1646
Joined: Tue Sep 06, 2011 1:49 pm
Location: The Netherlands

Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by DutchGirl »

My boyfriend was contacted to apply for a contract position in Germany, with a company he really really likes. He had to think about it for the whole weekend, and now he has sent in an e-mail stating that he wants to apply. If it all works out, work would start in January 2015. I think I can't tell anyone else just yet, so I'm telling you guys. It would be for three years and it would mean a move and learning more German (Ich spreche es ein bischen) and getting a new job there, myself, but it is an exciting idea. Quite the adventure! I'm keeping my fingers crossed here...

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