Now that I’ve had some time to settle into the new job – five weeks in the books and going well! – I wanted to update everyone on my situation, and look for some advice now that my circumstances have changed.
This was definitely a major step up on multiple fronts. Not only am I doing much more intensive and innovative work in the predictive analytics field, but I really feel like this company takes care of its people. They’re also privately-owned (one of the largest privately-owned companies in the country, in fact), and will open up shares to employees after x years of service. It’s definitely there to build in loyalty, though – we’ll see if I ever decide to buy into that. (If we ever went public though, those could be hugely profitable…)
Updated InfoIncome:Gross Annual: $125,000 ($65,000 me + $60,000 husband)
Monthly Take-home: ~$7000
Income/Benefits Breakdown:Me: ~$900 weekly, contributing 6% to 401(k) with 6% match. Most years the company does an additional 4% contribution (to 10%) as their way of profit-sharing.
Him: Hasn’t changed…$3330/month, continuing to contribute to an HSA and his state retirement account to the tune of 9.8%.
Monthly Expenses:This hasn’t changed much from before, BUT – now we’re only paying
$25 (!!!) for phones each month! My husband switched to Republic Wireless, and my new job gave me an iPhone 6. They encourage us to use it as our personal phone if we wish, even assuming my personal Verizon contract and porting my number over, so I now have a free phone! Instant $1000 a year savings!
I’m also working to optimize our grocery budget as much as possible. Current goal is to get it down to $350 from $400. Found an Aldi in town and that’s helping!
Total Expenses:
~$2380, leaving
~$4620 left over.
New questions/plans regarding savings: - New 401(k): Our plan is with Wells Fargo (yuck) without the quality of fund choices I had at my previous employer’s 401(k). That one was through Fidelity. Has anyone dealt with Wells Fargo’s funds before? I’m tempted to just throw mine into their Target Retirement Fund and not worry about it.
- I’ll be rolling over my old employer’s 401(k) into a Vanguard Traditional IRA. This account will become the one I continue to make IRA contributions to going forward.
- What should I do with my Roth IRA? It has about $1050 in there, but at this point it’s more advantageous to contribute to a Traditional. I know you can convert a Traditional to a Roth, but does that work in reverse? Or should I just leave it alone?
Going Forward:- The car from the original post is now paid off! Just got the title in the mail. The only debt we have left is my car (somewhere around $9k at 0.9%). Gonna leave that alone.
- We really want to start looking for a house (and yes, we do want a house) a year from now. Our goal is to save up a $40,000 downpayment, establishing a $200,000 ceiling and ensuring at least 20% down. We’re looking at buying in the $175-$180k range, though. I’ll either keep it in our savings account, or open a separate money market account with our bank…
- That being said, it’ll take about 10 months to save the $40k assuming we save about $4000 a month. Problem is, I’d still like to get something into our IRAs for the 2015 tax year. Competing goals and priorities…not quite sure how to reconcile these two.
Long-term Goals:This is something I really didn’t address much in my first post. Right now, it’s all about solidifying and establishing our careers, which includes stair-stepping as much as we can on the income front. It’s now my husband’s turn to do that – he’s looking to jump ship in the next six months.
As we move forward though, things become more uncertain. My husband and I definitely want to have a couple of children, and our window for that is about 5 years from now (puts me in my early thirties). The thing I am really struggling with is how we’re going to balance young children and our careers. I’m painfully aware of what could happen to my (potentially) lucrative career if I decide to stay home with children, but I also know the consequences of me continuing to work fulltime. Part of the reason for us getting our finances as comfortable and tight as possible now is to ensure future flexibility in our lives.