Monday, March 4, 2013

I think I know what I want

I think I know what I want.

I want to work at Graco until I have kids.  I don't want to have kids until I have my car loan and student loans paid off.

I want to be able to have the option of being a stay-at-home mom for a while, only a few years.  We'll see.

Then want to go back to school at the U and get a Master's in education, like what Adam did.  2 summers and 1 full year of teaching.  You get a Master's in education and you get a teaching license.  Maybe I'd even be able to squeeze in a few tech classes I wanted to take before.

Then I want to get a teaching job where I teach kids basic electronics and basic software.  Think EE1301.  Start with binary and basic circuits.  Do cool labs with LEDs and logic circuitry.  Do some assembly on microcontrollers, do some C on microcontrollers, do some HTML5 or Java on a computer (of course, I'd have to learn this too).  HOW COOL WOULD THAT BE?  I wonder if there is a technology magnet school somewhere in town where I'd be able to do that.  Or maybe do it for home school groups.

I know Moose wants to go back to school at some point.  Maybe he should do that sooner rather than later and I could support us for a few years.  Hmmm... hmmmm.

Anyway, I just wanted to post that here because I think it's neat.

Monday, January 21, 2013

Mo money, mo problems

I've been working really hard to reign in my spending. I've been doing somewhat better, but I still spend too much on silly things.

It has worked fairly well for me in the past to compartmentalize things. This is why I have so many bank accounts. I think I may need to split it up further. Here's how my split sits right now:

Joint bank account (rent, gym, other joint bills): $500/paycheck
US Bank account (remainder): $1000-ish/paycheck

Out of my US Bank account:
$425/paycheck - Car or Student loans
$250/paycheck - Savings
$40/paycheck - Gas
$10/paycheck - MPR Membership

This leaves me with about $400 or so to play around with. I tend to blow through this, especially when things like groceries are purchased.

I'm thinking I need to change up the split a bit more...

Joint bank account (rent, gym, other joint bills): $500/paycheck
TCF Bank account (fun money): $200/paycheck
US Bank account (remainder for bills and stuff): $800-ish/paycheck

Then I can only spend the stuff in my TCF account... I dunno how this will work, but I might want to consider splitting my paycheck up like this automatically and see how it goes for a while.