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Job training blues, 403b choices, budget windfalls

August 18th, 2011 at 12:25 am

I started my new job on Monday. It requires a ton of training classes and paperwork to get started. I am so anxious to be able to contribute to my department. I spent the entire day today taking 3 online training courses and the required assessments. Honestly, it was totally exhausting to do that for 8 hours. I am now qualified to take the advanced training classes required to actually do my job. They will be done in the classroom at some point. In the meantime, another staff member is going to get me started tomorrow on some real work. I hope I can catch on fast and start making a contribution. My boss told me that it would take me at least 6 months to be competent and a whole year to really know what I am doing. I won't be truly happy unless I know that I am doing a good job so I hope to get my training in and really do well. I'm pretty confident in my abilities to catch on fast. I just don't want to be a pest to the people who currently know how to do the things that I need to be doing.

I get my first paycheck on the last day of the month and am really looking forward to it.

I need to figure out how I want my retirement plan contributions allocated on the benefits enrollment form. I am super excited to be able to start contributing to retirement savings again. They offer a Roth fund in the 403b so I am seriously considering putting most of my contribution into that while my DH has his in tax-deferred accounts. This way we can diversify our tax liability in retirement. I haven't quite decided what to do yet. I may go to the forums and ask.

My DH also works for the same employer. In looking at the health and pharmacy plans, it will be cheaper for us to enroll one of us as a single person and the other as a parent with multiple children. It is less by almost 50%. Our budget is looking so good. In addition to the lower health care costs, we are saving a ton by riding the bus. I did find out that we both can ride for free. Our gasoline usage will go way down as well as our oil change costs and maintenance frequency. And with our younger DS in public school this year instead of private school, we are saving a bunch of money there, too. I feel so rich! We ate out to celebrate my first day of work and I let the kids get whatever they wanted and even let them order an appetizer. No more getting the smaller portions or splitting plates or always eating off the kiddie menu for us! It is so great after 12 years to not have to worry about how every single penny is spent. It is so wonderful!!

Lastly, I thought we'd have to delay my retirement contributions until the first of the year to build up our emergency fund. When we were in Sweden, we did some extra traveling and took money out of the EF. However, the tuition refund from removing our DS from the private school has replenished the fund. I am so glad we did the traveling but even more so now.


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