by Adam Dawson
Did anyone watch the video Emily posted about finding the right kind of work? Her post, and the video, and one of the comments, really got me thinking about my work and my desires for our life.
The community of full-time business school applicants is thriving. You spend months preparing for the GMAT exam, researching schools, perusing the various rankings, visiting campuses, filling out applications, and writing admissions essays. You find yourself wrapped up in online forums, blogs, and websites devoted entirely to the process. There are even consultants who will review your applications in your quest to get into the best school possible. Invariably, every application asks some version of the question, “Why do you want an MBA? And why this school?”
In those coffee shop moments of self-reflection, many young professionals decide they want to save the world through business. Every applicant wants to import fair trade goods, start a micro-lending business, or something else very noble. Then we all go to school for two years, realize we need to pay back our loans, and take consulting, banking, and management jobs. Nobody ever holds you to what you said on your application. And strangely enough, a couple years later, when you meet up with the alumni group in your city, the majority of folks are complaining about work! Even the most “successful” business people have not found fulfillment in their work.
Thankfully, I have lucked into working for a company that I really enjoy. We are consistently ranked on all the lists of best places to work. I get a good mental challenge from my job responsibilities and am generally happy. But I’ve never REALLY fit in to the corporate culture, anywhere. Some people thrive in this environment, they relish the challenge of office politics; “Aligning cross-functional teams” seems to really get some people going, along with all the wining and dining, bespoke fitted shirts, and the whole thing. I am so grateful for the ability to work in a good job with reasonable pay and benefits. But when difficulties arise, it really drains me. I look around at the leaders in companies I’ve worked with, and I’m just different somehow. I don’t care about the same things.
I’ve always desired to do meaningful work. And for me, meaningful means connected to others around me. The first step in the “Live Your Legend” system that the Ted Talk mentioned was being intensely self-aware. I know myself well enough to understand that I thrive the most when I’m helping, teaching, or guiding people, and when I’m living out my values. I had a long talk with Emily and decided there are 4 general career paths that I would really, REALLY thrive in.
- Working with college students (career counseling, teaching)
- Real estate investing (rental properties)
- Financial planning (they say mental health professionals are the craziest people – maybe being in a financial hole doesn’t stop you from helping others)
- My ultimate career dream – owning a retreat/farm where people can come live the simple life. I don’t want to be a farmer, exclusively, but I envision a place with a large farm market, pick-your-own operation, cider mill, hayrides, etc., combined with a retreat center where groups or families could come live in the wilderness for a weekend or a year and learn simple, traditional living. People could learn to grow and prepare their own food, raise and care for livestock, and learn sustainable practices.
This is a very long post – thanks for hanging around! What does this have to do with our debt payoff? Easy! I am willing to do the work I’m doing now, and focus for the next 4 years on paying off debt, so that I can realize my dream of this kind of meaningful work at some point in the future. The hope of what’s ahead is what keeps me focused.
What about YOU? Are you living your legend? What is the work you can’t not do?
I hate being the first commenter because it shows how early I am slaving my life away at my job (been here two hours..california time).
But i just had to commment regarding Adam’s ultimate career goal!
My S.O. has a very very similar goal when I ask him what he wants to do that will make him happy. I always think it can’t be done because we just don’t have the money to sustain something like that. I’d love to something like this too if i don’t have to worry about daily bills.
Keep us readers updated on how you’re doing with this goal over the next few years on this blog!
you might be surprised! What really got me going on this post was when I looked up farmland for sale in Michigan – there are some HUGE plots available for like $500/acre!
your comment makes me want you to read James Altucher’s blog. that guy is a nut. a complete wacko. but he might help you build confidence in pursuing your dreams.
You’re giving us hope! Everyday, I think about selling our small but expensive (for us) place when it miraculously comes above the water line, and moving where a dream like this can happen!
James Altucher’s blog, thank you. I’m going to read up on that. Thank you so much.
I’m trying to figure that out. This isn’t it. Eventually I want to own properties and work for myself.Fortunately, I have been a Property Manager so I know what I am getting myself in to. I have never been happier at work than when I was leasing apartments for no money. These days I’m way further up the chain and miss the interaction with people and Home Depot runs.
Step one accomplished, you know what you like doing!
I did not watch the video although I do believe people should be passionate about what they do.
I guess in looking at your debt situation, I would be more in favor of Emily taking on a corporate job for say, 2 or 3 years until the debt is paid in full. This would allow for an earlier payoff as well as some other benefits:
*If Emily were to net $4k a month over her current salary, that would allow $96k net of your debt in only 2 years.
*If Emily had health insurance through her employer, it may be less than what you are paying now (not sure if she is on yours or has her own).
*If Emily took this corporate job, there would most likely be a 401(k) and therefore by contributing you could be eligible for a corporate match on the 401(k).
*The last advantage is that paying off this debt early would help since all of the debt would be paid off before you start a family.
*In addition, if you paid off the debt and then she got pregnant while still working, she could get a paid(?) maternity leave (not sure if maternity leaves are paid today since it’s been a while, lol).
*And finally, there would be some back up in case Adam lost his job since Emily would already be employed.
Once the debt is paid off, then Emily could return to her passion and do this while the kiddos come along.
Right now, I still view the debt payoff as very shaky-you guys are just starting to live on a budget, you still go out to eat for lunch and out to restaurants, etc. so there is a lot of fat in the budget so to speak. I would not be doing that if I were paying off debt but that is your call and your experience. You haven’t started cooking at home much yet and my guess is that you don’t really know exactly how much it costs per week at the grocery store if you were to be really frugal. Also, there are so many variables that could change everything right now: Emily could get pregnant, the renters could leave, Adam could lose his job and there could be umpteen house repairs/emergencies. Jobs can be hard to find and if Adam were to lose his job, or any of the scenarios happened, it could change everything overnight.
Just some things to think about…
THANK YOU!! Having a job you enjoy and are passionate is great but you still have to live. I love to do furniture restoration as well as a HOBBY in my spare time! I really think its more important to me at least to have a well paying job that I reasonably enjoy and use all that money to live my dreams. I am afraid that if I were to have this “dream job” that my dream would turn into just that, a job. I would much rather go live out my dreams with no restrictions rather than trying to moneytize some hobby or interest.
On a side note, I understand spending some money on hair/looks is important for women from a career standpoint, but Emily is a self employed painter I gather? You guys are in over 100k of debt! Buy the salon hair dye online or from Sally’s and have a spa day with mom or some girlfriends at most.
I did not understand that first paragraph. Did I have too much wine or did that not make any sense?
Um ok…, let me try again. I am saying if you have a great paying job and pursue your hobbies in your spare time you will have less to worry about financially and more money available to explore your hobbies and interests with.
I enjoy painting, but I would not want to paint for a living because it is what I do for fun, not profit. I would not want to pressure myself with having to make money from my hobby as that would make it less fun. If I don’t have to make money I can paint what I like and not worry about what other people want.
I have a good friend who always says the exact same thing about not wanting to turn her beloved hobby into “work”. She’s not saying it so much anymore when she sees my hobby is now making me more monthly than her 9 to 5 admin job that she despises.
I still LOVE my hobby! I love being able to do what I love AND make good money from it!
Yea I gotta say that I am with you. I was looking at your debt break down and it seems like right now you guys are focused on paying off debt that is yours (Adam) in origin. Is this why Emily is less focused on your debt payoff than you are? I would be interested to hear about how you guys feel about those Direct Loans (what is a Direct Loan anyway)?
Direct Loan is a student loan. I hate them.
I think Adam is more interested in paying off the debt because of his personality, not because they are “his” loans. We are very much a team. I would never want to see Adam struggle alone with such a huge burden, and I try to support him in all his endeavors, not just paying off the debt. As you can see, he supports me in all MY endeavors. It’s pretty great. 🙂
Ok and also, did you really ask us how we feel about the direct loans??? It’s debt. Debt sucks. Any other questions? 😉
Dream Mom, you seem to be very worried about everything that might go wrong in our lives. Thank you for being so concerned.
I would never ask Emily to give up her passions to work in a corporate job to pay off MY debt. She brought about $15k of debt into the marriage and that’s long gone. We are committed to the debt payoff and to working together as a couple but to expect her to pay off $100k of my debt is a bridge too far. I support her choice.
It just feels a little bit like Emily says she supports helping you pay off the debt but chooses to work a low paying job (which doesn’t help you pay off the debt.) And you in turn support her decision to work said low paying job (thereby not helping you get the debt paid off.) But I do realize us blog readers don’t have the full picture either so please don’t take that the wrong way. I am just saying how the 2 of you come across at times.
I think people are being critical because this is a debt payoff blog. We are used to seeing people sacrifice big to reach their goals. It seems like all you have been doing is telling us how great your marriage is, vague seemingly half hearted attempts at budgeting, and describing projects and outings. I am very interested and would love to see you guys get into more of the “meat” of things!
Adam, I was simply offering another perspective. I don’t think I am overly concerned about things going wrong, I do think I am a realist. The amount of debt you have is staggering to me so I was just thinking about alternatives. It’s like having a second mortgage. For me, I’d be more comfortable paying it off sooner and hence having a job where Emily could make more money seems logical to me, at this point in your life. Then if she got pregnant, you have some options. That’s my opinion, it’s not a judgment. Sometimes, I get the sense that you and Emily are comfortable with this debt, because it’s “student” debt versus other types of debt.
Overall, I am blown away in general by student debt today-when I went to college many years ago (and probably before you were born, lol), I worked three jobs from 9 a.m. to midnight 7 days a week every summer to pay for my tuition and spending money and eventually worked full time and went to school full time to pay for tuition. My father died when I was 13 so I paid for my college myself. When I graduated however I didn’t have any student debt, which was like most of my college classmates. I know that isn’t the way it is today however maybe that’s why I have such a hard time with that amount of debt, not sure. I still remember one of the women who lived in my dorm, she lived on $5 a week. That was her spending money. She wanted to be a CPA, lol. I thought $5 a week was drastic back then.
Good luck in your journey.
Check out the “No More Harvard Debt Blog”-he has a great series about paying off student loan debt and offers several options for someone to pay off large amounts of debt. It’s really quite good and I think it would offer some perspective about budget cuts required to pass off massive amounts of student loan debt.
Yes, it is a staggering amount. I think maybe we’re more “comfortable” with it just because we’ve been living with it for 3 years already. There’s so much that doesn’t come through in a blog, but suffice it to say I don’t see Emily in a big corporate job, although you’re right, that would get the debt paid faster. Thanks for offering some suggestions and trying to see things in a new way that we may not have considered.
It’s unfortunate that the student loan industry exists at all. It’s the cheap debt with no credit requirements that inflates prices, as we saw in the housing crisis. The student loan industry has allowed education to wildly inflate prices. It’s a shame.
I will say I have to agree about the hair. I didn’t know at the time of the big hair cost discussion exactly what it was that Emily did for a living. To find out that she restores and re-designs furniture makes me really question such an exorbitant expense on hair. If she were working in a professional office, such as in a commercial/international bank or a law firm, etc., I would be more inclined to understand about the hair. But working from home, outside, re-doing furniture?????
I also agree with the poster above that at this point, two jobs with guaranteed paychecks and benefits are what the two of you need right now. Emily can still do the furniture in her spare time, but you both need to be working as hard as possible to erase all that debt and get a large emergency fund saved up and then of course you need to get going on retirement savings. Once all of that is done, then Emily might re-visit doing the furniture thing full time.
Emily also meets with customers for sales appointments.
So, are you saying only women with “real” jobs (in banking or an office) get to have their hair done?????
Yes I work from home, yes it’s outside, yes I re-do furniture. No, I do not live under a rock.
No I think were all trying to say women with over 110k of debt don’t spend that kind of money on their hair (especially when it doesn’t impact their career/earnings.) Sorry I don’t mean to sound antagonistic, I am just being real.
I’m curious what the earning threshold would be where it would be acceptable for Emily to pursue this passion. How much would she need to make? It almost seems like it only counts as real money if it’s on a corporate paycheck with a deduction for benefits.
Thanks Adam! As a work from home woman, I’m taking great offense to all this corporate nonsense!!
I have to say that to some extent I can see where the last few commenters are coming from, but it still comes off as unduly harsh to me.
From all the information we’ve been told, there are a few things that make this different than many other debt situations:
1. While it is true that there is a substantial debt, there is no credit card debt.
2. While it is true that there is substantial debt, the ship has been righted (e.g. Adam and Emily are making more than they are spending).
3. Not only has the ship been righted, but there is already a very substantial track record of almost 60k of debt paid off in a relatively short period of time.
4. Any changes that Adam/Emily are making are for the laudable goal of EVEN FASTER debt payoff.
In light of #1-#4, I say we should cut them a little bit of slack as we learn more and more about the new plans, further details about the payoff timeline, etc, etc.
Joe, I’m so glad to have your perspective of the big picture. Thank you for pointing that out to us, sometimes we get distracted or discouraged, but numbers 1-4 are true and it’s good to remember our progress- it he,ps us stay on track!
Yes and we’ll share more about the numbers in time I’m sure. Believe it or not, putting your finances on full display is a vulnerable thing to do and isn’t coming easy. You’d think with such an encouraging crowd it would be easier…
I like my job but I would rather be fixing rental properties and renting them out, too. But I need a lot of income….so I keep working so I can keep investing and believe that one day I will get there!
You will get there! Good luck with your investments!
This is a great post! It’s always been important to me to connect meaningfully to my work. I work in mental health and we are crazy!
It sounds like you’re doing some soul searching and finding ways to make your work matter to you. Well done!
The comments on here are just out of control on this one! The judgment being passed is unbelievable!
Some of you seem to believe it would be easy for Emily to get a corporate job. Um…hello? Have you seen the job market lately?? It’s assuming an awful lot to think she could just get out there and land a great paying job making 4k more a month.
I was told the same things a few years back because I was a stay at home mom. We had no cc debt, a few car loans, a mortgage, but other than that no huge amount of consumer debt. I’ll never forget the judgmental so-called “well intentioned” person that kept harping on me about how much more we could have in our retirement savings and how much faster we could pay off our house if only I would go out and get a job.
Yes, this might have been true, but this person never thought that we might just be happy in our situation and living our life the way we want. It was all about more money for them.
Adam and Emily make a good income, have made significant progress on debt paydown and are making some changes to move that along faster. Tearing Emily down for not providing enough or pursuing a “REAL” career is just UGLY.
Cathy,
I absolutely agree—tearing people down is just unkind and unnecessary. It takes courage to post the updates that Adam and Emily are giving and to put themselves out there for all of us to read about and comment on. There is something to be said for having a job that one loves during a “stressful time” (like paying down debt) that makes the time much more peaceful and the goal more attainable. I accepted two jobs for more money and both times the results were not pretty. I now have a job that I enjoy and can focus on some goals I have made for a healthier and happier me. Adam and Emily need our encouragement and support.
Thank you.
Exactly.
Adam & Emily are feisty! I like it! Keep up the eye on the prize and remember, while there may be good intentions and even value in some of the critiques most of us are totally rooting for you.
Thank you Angie! We talk about almost every single one of the comments, and that helps us put things in perspective. Sometimes the critical posters ARE right, and sometimes they’re just being rude and judgmental. When we talk through whats being said, it helps us focus on the helpful advice. Also, commenters tend to disagree, so if one person writes something kind of rude/ unhelpful, another person will tell them they’re being rude. It’s pretty fun to watch. 😉
I’ve never been called “feisty” before but I’ll take it! 🙂 I’ve NEVER been one to stand up for myself, ever! I know I can’t change someone’s mind or their behavior, and I’m not one to fight back if a person is being a bully. I just never saw the point in it until recently. I’ve been feeling like I should at least speak my mind, even if I know nothing will change. I’m gaining confidence with age and experience, and if that means I’m becoming more feisty, then AWESOME. Bring it! 🙂
Adam & Emily
I’m glad to hear that you are both looking to pay down your debt – it’s a great thing to take control of your finances.
I run a debt blog myself and I get a wide range of viewpoints in my comments section. However, you can’t misbehave every time someone disagrees with you on how you spend your money.
There’s been a couple of lashback comments about “judgmental” readers but I’ve been reading some of your “Was I drinking wine or does your first paragraph not make sense?” replies and that’s pretty nasty.
If you guys want to budget $100 a month for hair appointments, it’s no sweat off my back. However, posting that on a debt blog and expecting everyone to celebrate your budgeting wisdom is probably a little unrealistic.
I had a guy tell me “my Excel spreadsheet should have gotten up and slapped me across the face” when I wrote about over-spending one week. Kind of over the top but he had a point.
You’re debt repayment is going well so you guys are doing something right. However, you could benefit from being more flexible with how you hear your feedback.
Your readers care enough to read your blog and post their thoughts to you. This is a gift – they are giving you their time and their experience. That doesn’t mean you have to agree with them but they deserve more than the ten or so snarky responses I’ve seen you guys dish out in this article alone. You come off as spoiled and entitled – not feisty.
Smarten up. If you can’t take the proverbial debt blogger heat, please just get off the internet. There. Now you know what judgmental looks like. I’d hate for you to not know the definition of judgmental. Consider it my contribution to your ‘people like to tear me down’ complex.
Oh yeah, and putting a smiley face emoticon on a bitchy comment doesn’t make it less bitchy. 😀 See?
And now you’re a bully, a sarcastic jerk, and childish, yourself. Emily may not be perfect, and she isn’t the first to be snarky to people (Claire certainly was high and mighty) but your posts are awfully rude! Who do you think you are to act like this to others? You write a blog that I certainly won’t go support.
It wasn’t Emily that left the bitchy comment with the emoticon, actually. I think it was her husband. Adam, I think his name is.
I don’t think I’m being super childish. Only medium childish. And I did manage to hold back the bullying and the sarcasm until the end of the post so I think I should get some points for that, too. Trust me, that was hard.
As for the last question, I think I am someone who appreciates honesty. I do go overboard with the sarcasm – you have a valid point with that one, M – but I also like fair play. And there was a whole bunch of not-fair-play going on here.
I also think that if you have a debt blog, you should probably be okay with some missiles being fired at you from time to time. Emily and Adam were having some troubles with the little stuff so I thought I’d give them some perspective. Maybe they’ll be able to tell the difference between readers honestly trying to help and a jerk like me. Yes, my jerkiness did have a point – it was like a teachable moment.
Oh wait, that’s good. I’m like the Yoda of Jerkiness. “Hate not, your readers, young Jedi.”
So it’s okay if you don’t support my blog. I strongly suggest you set up a club for people who don’t appreciate or support my blog, then start a blog on not supporting my blog, and then drive a whole bunch of hate traffic so they can read my “rude” posts. That would be totally awesome.
I went to look at your blog. You wrote a blog about blogging. And then you came here and wrote a comment about commenting. It seems you’ve found the work you can’t not do. You are truly living your legend.
Of course we can take the heat. Bring it. These are Internet trolls we’re talking about. We have real lives. The comments don’t bring us down. And we do try to glean the truth from each of them. You seem to suggest that we should expect people to fire missiles at us but we aren’t allowed to fire back.
We do appreciate all the readers here and we try to keep it positive but we reserve the right to shoot back when necessary. We also reserve the right to edit your comments full of grammatical errors and spelling mistakes. We have the bully pulpit here.
Good luck in your debt journey.
If I was aiming for “Living Legend”, I would have bought www.Iamawesomeallthetime.com – not Sense & Sensibility.
And you do shoot back. Without rhyme or reason. I think that’s the problem I was trying to point out. But since you guys weren’t able to respond well to fairly polite feedback, I thought I might as well drop a few filters. After all, what’s the point? You’re going to call out anyone who doesn’t agree with you a “troll”.
Finally, a few misplaced commas and spelling mistakes aren’t going to change the message. Maybe you shouldn’t fix the grammar and spelling errors – I’ll probably survive the experience of not being a Grammar Super hero. I didn’t go into copy editing for a reason.
Do what you want with any other information you have about me from my comment submission.
Have a GREAT day.
Again, kind of okay until the end. I wouldn’t waste the time. At least you admitted the descriptors were accurate. You’d be a lot more helpful to these new bloggers if you changed your approach. I’m sure they could use a mentor who provided suggestions without being so nasty. Not okay or funny.
Fair enough, M. I take it back.
I wasn’t aware anyone was to new blogging. Blogging Away Debt (since 2006) is an established blog with a very solid following. I only come by once in awhile so I am unsure as to who does what.
I have also only been blogging for about six months. I’m probably still at the stage where I need my own mentor.
And my blog isn’t ‘rude’ – at least not in the traditional sense of one being “rude” to people. It can get a little crude sometimes but that’s different. My blog is a very honest exploration of my own shortcomings and what I’m doing to over come them. It’s generally pretty raw and authentic – I pretty much let it all hang out there. Sometimes I’m successful. And sometimes I’m not.
I use humour (and MS paint) and ask people to look at their own lives through writing about my own. If I’m able to be honest about my own successes and failures, maybe people will be less worried about not “measuring up” to some fake ideal they’ve created in their own minds. This is a huge trap that people fall into – especially with finances.
My readers are important to my process and every comment helps me build my understanding. Most of the time, I’ve received compassion and understanding. But sometimes I’ve gotten a reality check and some accountability when I’ve needed it.
Seeing people treat their readers unfairly does nothing for me. It’s shameful. As I mentioned in my original comment, a reader’s contribution is a gift and should be treated as such. Sometimes there are some full-out nutters out there but I didn’t see any of that here today.
Emily and Adam kind of deserve what they got. It was a lump of comment coal with a kernel of important truth – which is way more valuable than what they gave any of their readers.
Another one here who will never go and visit your blog, nor will I ever speak of it to give you traffic and income.
While you may have thought you were sharing your great wisdom with Adam and Emily, you actually came across as a low-informed amateur and it’s a shame you profit from people actually willing to spend their precious time reading your blog.
Your comments weren’t constructive in the slightest.
Is this Cathy Canton? If so, you like me and are generally a big supporter. I’m @CanadaCents on Twitter.
Either way, you gotta draw your lines where you draw ’em.
Well. I had another whole comment teed up for our friend Lindsey but I’m going to leave it alone.
I do want all our readers to know that we are grateful for their wisdom, advice, and accountability. Even when comments are written in a not-so-kind way, we *almost* always find something constructive in them. Without the reader community here, there doesn’t seem to be much point in blogging. We don’t have so much ego to think that we are here because people are just dying to hear what great thing we have to say next. It’s really about what we hear from you.
And to the previous comments – the submission form says your email addresses will be kept private, and so they will. Even though that’s not specifically mentioned in the privacy policy. And if you ever feel the need to tattle on us, Jeffrey’s email is posted all over the blog, and specifically, the contact us page goes to him.
We do want to keep an overwhelmingly positive presence here on Blogging Away Debt, and so we try to engage politely with commenters. That said, if someone fires a shot at us – which we expect, and allow – we may fire back. It’s not personal and it in no way means we are disregarding the valuable part of your comment. We don’t think it’s our job to be a punching bag. Most of the time, we shoot back to correct misinformation, or if a comment was unnecessarily rude. It’s not willy nilly, as has been suggested. If you look back through all our posts, if you are nice to us, we are nice to you. 🙂
So your comments are welcome and your constructive advice is appreciated. But don’t be surprised if we engage with you. And we may not always agree. But Emily and I do discuss probably every idea that’s floated here. So we are listening.
Funny thing about that. Emily was ready to concede on the hair thing until the readers came to her defense en masse! You empowered her! Then, on this post, some people changed their minds because she paints furniture. The complete picture, though, is that she paints, but she sells, she meets with clients, she does customer service, she delivers, she runs her marketing. She owns a small business. The point here, I guess, is that our perspectives sometimes differ from yours because the whole picture hasn’t emerged yet in 1.5 months of blogging. So perception changes over time as we share more, and our level of agreement over certain topics may ebb and flow.
So, in summary – we love (most of) you guys! if you are in Austin email us and we will have you over for dinner.