New Gig

After searching long and hard for a new job, I finally got one. Starting Monday I'll move from the government to the private sector, working for a large company. Should be a big change I guess, although people are pretty much people, and I have the benefit of going to work with a friend from an old job. I'm looking forward to it.

Financially speaking, the new job should help us a lot. There is a medium sized jump in base pay, plus a small signing bonus, the prospect of a bonus after a year or so, and the possibility of buying company stock at a discount. But the real upside, as I see it, is further down the road. This new job is with a very small, fairly new group that is seeking to change significant company culture. The reporting is high up within the company, and I think that the experience will afford me will be an excellent entre into other financial/legal operations positions. Bottom line is: this one will help us pay off our loans faster, will allow me to work with someone I know and like, and could lead to higher paying, higher ranking jobs in the future. Plus it is at a company that should be able to weather any economic downturn. So leaving the government felt like a risk, but this feels like an almost ideal place to take that risk.

Oh, did I mention that the hours should remain fairly regular? Huge plus with our growing family.

Financially, we've been putting about $350 toward our loans each month. I figured that by doing that we'd cut down our debt repayment timeline from 25 years to 12 or so. The new job should allow us to put $600 in addition to all of the monthly minimum payments, and should allow us to pay all loan debt (except for the mortgage) within 6 years. I'll take it.

So what we're doing is: paying the minimum payments on every outstanding loan and adding what we feel we can stretch to afford toward the highest interest loan we have. Then once that loan is paid off, we'll roll over the minimum payment amount from that loan, plus the extra toward the next loan, and so on down the line. Watching the cash flow in and out of our bank accounts is amazing. I can't believe how much we make and how much goes right back out. But it's better that it does not sit there and tempt us. It's all on automatic pilot.

Total outflow each month toward loans (not including mortgage) = approximately $2000. So in 6 years, we get an automatic $24,000 raise (almost all of which will go to savings toward early retirement).

I should also say that our retirement savings is also on track and automatic: as of last month, we crossed the $100K mark. That amount at 8% over 25 years is more than a million bucks. I still see, though the graph of our savings increasing as we age - god willing and the creek don't rise.