Archive for July, 2011

Career Progression

Since graduating school (the first time around) about 6 years ago, I’ve been fairly focused on my career and been agressive at learning new skills to move forward. I’ve always done pretty well in terms of job and pay, but for the last year or so its been a bit stagnant. I’ve explored the idea of jumping ship, and watched job boards, but stated to realize that even though I felt a bit ‘stuck’, I had it pretty good.

It seems the hard work hasn’t go un-noticed, and several changes happened at work over the past few weeks. I’ll be picking up a few new direct reports under me, along with a couple new programs, wider control over the bigger picture of these programs, and a new title. From a career advancement point of view, its a solid move up for me, and rumor has it — though still being confirmed — it will come with a bit of a pay increase too.

Add on top of that, I’m in the early stages of running a project I’ve been waiting a solid 4 years for… and it looks like its going to come to life in no time.

The paradigm shift for me now is, going from doing work, to managing people to do the work. As a type-A control freak, this is going to be an interesting change. But I figure its something I have to learn to move ahead. And for the career path I’m on, being able to understand and manage it, is much more important then physically executing it myself. It puts me in a postion where I can lead strategy, rather than execute tactically. (which, looks to be much more financially lucrative too over time).

I’m not one to really freak out, but this does push me out of my comfort zone a bit. Having the responsibility of people, not only in terms of assigning work, but helping them with their career growth too is a big step for me. But, I think I’ve learned enough over the years to at least give some wisdom now and again.

With this change, it helps me re-focus my resume around having solid management experience, along with overseeing some pretty sizeable projects. This advancement has given me what I need to stick around for another year or two at work… and continue to build up my resume even further, making me much more competitive when it comes to competing for the ‘next level’ of jobs elsewhere.

Until then… its a welcome change, and we’ll see in time how it works out. But I’m fairly optimistic on this one, as I think it’s going to work out really well.

Summer Cooking Challenge

One of my biggest budget busters has been my inability to eat at home… Mostly because I’m lazy, and can’t really cook. So this summer, I’m going to try to change it.

At least once each week, I’m going to go out of my way to make something brand new. This is not only good for the budget, but its probably a lot better and more healthy for me. I figure the internet offers more than enough step-by-step recipes & videos, that even someone like me could cook something edible. As I find something I’m able to make — and like — I’ll add it to the list, and hopefully by the end of the summer I’ll have enough different meal ideas to last me a while.

This is a big challenge for me, as ever since I moved out on my own, I’ve never been big on cooking. Opening the pre-packaged stuff, frozen food from Costco, or the simple meals have been staples in my life… now that I’m done school, and have all the free time in the world, I figure should work on improving that.

Of course, eating at home isn’t just about the budget, its also better food. I’ve been steering away from typical fast food — Burgers, fries, pizza — to “better” fast food, like Sushi and indian food, but even that isn’t the best. Cooking and eating at home will let me see, and control, exactly what I put in my body.

Sounds simple enough…?

 

Small Change = Big Bucks

Today I did something I don’t do very often… I got off my ass, and found the bucket I always throw my spare change in.

Personally, I hate carrying change around with me, so whenever I break a bill, everything else goes into the bucket when I get home. This means, when I make a $2 purchase, and pay with a $5 dollar bill, I have 3 bucks or so in change that starts piling up.

The good news is, when I finally counted it all, I have $351. Thats 1/3rd of a rent payment! I’m going to go cash this into the bank, and then throw the money onto my student loan. I figure its a nice way to use up the money that has just been sitting around – literally – collecting dust.

If you hate counting and rolling money like me, some of the Bank of Montreal locations now have change counting machines that are free. These machines save so much time, in that you just dump in your change, it counts it, then issues a receipt that you take to the teller to cash out.

For a very lazy weekend, it turned out to be quite profitable.

Monthly Spending: July 2011

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