Lazy Man and Money

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How to have a successful budget meeting with your spouse

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Glblguy is the author of Gather Little By Little , a Christian personal finance blog focused on growing wealth using common sense biblical practices and based on the wisdom found in Proverbs 13:11 – “He who gathers money little by little makes it grow.” I encourage you to subscribe to his RSS feed.

Prior to getting control of our finances, the main reason my wife and I would fuss (that means fight/argue here in the southern U.S.) was over money and finances. Turns out, we weren’t alone. The number one reason couples fight is over money. Studies also show that the number one cause of divorce in the U.S. is due to money. Why? Here are just a few reasons:

  1. Communication – Really this is lack of communication.
  2. Control – This involves one person in the relationship having primary responsibility over the finances.
  3. Family – Examples include: Cost of children and how money is spent on them, in-laws or parents having influence over your finances

If you’ll note, none of these issues really have anything to do with money. The reason couples fight over money isn’t due to money itself, but due to the core feelings and emotions they have surrounding money. Money is the symptom, the 3 reasons above are the actual problem.

Fortunately, these three problems can be easily resolved, assuming of course you have a strong and healthy marriage. How? Have a weekly or monthly budget meeting. Personally, I prefer weekly, but for some a monthly meeting works as well.

What is a budget meeting? A budget meeting is an opportunity for you and you spouse to sit down together and review your finances and your budget together. If you didn’t quit catch the key point here, let me state it again: together.

Here’s what you need to do:

Decide who will be the accountant
General management of your day to day finances is best handled by one person. Updating your budget and net income statement, and tracking your day to day expenses is logistically difficult if 2 people are doing it. Who should do it? The detail oriented person. In our marriage, I am the detailed person so I do it. If you feel like neither of you are, then just decide which one is more than the other. Typically this isn’t a hard decision to make.

Formulate a budget and make it the controller
The next step is to formulate a budget together. Pick an evening and a time when both you and your significant other can sit down by yourselves in a quiet setting and spend 1 – 2 hours working up a budget. If you aren’t sure how to do this, please read my article on creating a budget.

Creating the budget together is important and allows both of you to have equal input into your finances. Each of you has a “vote” regarding where the money goes and how it will get spent. Having a “vote” is important, it gives you ownership in the budget and the process.

Once you have the budget in place and have agreed on what is being spent where, agree to follow it together. I would suggest you come up with some physical or verbal way of agreeing. This can be as simple as both of you signing at the bottom of your budget, verbally saying to other “I agree to follow this budget” or just simply handshaking. My wife and I do a pinky shake. This seems a bit silly at first, but has a powerful and lasting effect. For example, when I’m over at our local electronics or book store and I see something I really want, before I just go and buy it, a mental picture of that pinky shake always appears in my head reminding me of the commitment I made. At that point, unless we budgeted for it, I walk out.

By doing all of the above, you solved both the #2 and #3 reasons couples fight over money: Control and Family. By doing the budget together and agreeing to following it, the budget now becomes the controller of your finances. Since you both had input and both agreed, the issue of one person controlling the money and the other person feeling powerless is now gone. The budget, that you both agreed to, now controls the money. All blame for control is the budget.

You also solved the family problem since you both had input into the budget and you both agreed to follow it. The budget can’t be changed unless you both agree. Since you both did it together and current or previous family influence to the budget was factored in as you did the budget together.

Call a budget meeting
Here is where we solve the #1 reason couple fight over money: Communication.

Pick an evening where you and your significant other can meeting for about 15-30 minutes to review the finances. I would suggest doing this weekly, but at the very least it needs to be done monthly. The person that is responsible for tracking the budget should update the budget and current expenses prior to the meeting and come to the meeting with an updated budget report. The report should show the budget, how much money is remaining in each budget category, and any remaining bills or expected payments they are aware of.

Both of you should walk through the budget report together. Discuss areas where you have to much money allocated and where you don’t have enough. Make adjustments as necessary to cover upcoming expenses, but agree to those adjustments together.

Reviewing the budget weekly has a profound impact on communication. Communicating weekly lets each spouse know the current status of the finances, provides an opportunity to discuss areas where too much money has been spent and discuss upcoming unplanned expenses. These are expenses you may not have been able to plan for when you initially did the budget.

Our meetings take all of about 10 minutes and since we have been doing this I can’t recall the last time we fought about our money. Here’s a few things I’ve learned along the way though to help you out:

  • If one of you overspends the other shouldn’t get upset. During the budget meeting, just move the amount overspent from another budget category. If there isn’t enough money, pull it from the emergency fund. With my wife and I, just having to do this is punishment enough for overspending. I feel terrible when I overspend, as I broke the commitment, and feel the impact of overspending when we have to move money around.
  • Realize this is a journey and you will get better with time. When we first started budgeting, I was too detailed about it. I wanted it to be correct the first time and managed it to the tee. As a result, my wife didn’t want to follow it anymore as it was causing her too much stress. Realize that each month you do a budget you will get a little better at it. If you overspend or don’t follow it exactly, it’s ok. You will get better at it, it just takes some time.
  • Do the budget for the upcoming month before the month arrives. Spend your income on paper before you even get it. Trying to keep a single budget to cover all months is confusing and difficult. Do a budget for each month a few days before that month arrives.
  • How you keep your budget doesn’t really matter. I use a spreadsheet, but paper works just fine and so does extensive software like Quicken or Money. Just use what works for you and makes it easy for you to manage and track. Remember, we are trying to reduce stress not increase it.
  • Mistakes of the past are forgotten. Don’t bring up mistakes from the past. What happened happened, and you can’t change it. Decide to move forward together. Bringing up mistakes from the past just causes stress, tension and breaks the team environment that’s being established.

Wrapping Up
I challenge you to give the above process a try for 3 months. In my experience in will make significant and positive change in your
relationship and in your finances. This process changed our lives, hopefully it will change yours as well.

Readers, what are your thoughts? What ideas do you have for reducing financial stress with your spouse or significant other? Do you budget? Why or why not? I would love to hear your insights and perspective via your comments.

Visiting New Orleans on a Budget

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Last week, I found myself in New Orleans. I dovetailed on my wife’s annual pharmacy conference. I find it’s a good motivating factor to get me to see a new place. It was just a couple of years that I used it to motivate me to see Washington D.C. for the first time.

The first thing I noticed is that New Orleans is full of life. By that I mean, something is going 24-7. I had a friend say that when he was last in New Orleans he thought that he might die if he stayed another day. That’s just the famous Bourbon Street bars and clubs. However, on this visit New Orleans was taken over by Kentucky basketball fans for the SEC conference. In addition to that, Russell Brand was filming Diablo Cody’s new movie (which is untitled). We got to talk with the movie’s publicist which is something that really doesn’t happen to me every day. Later that weekend, Brad and Angelina Pitt were in town for a $1000 a person event to benefit their Make It Right Foundation, an organization that works to rebuild homes destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. In town to help was Rihanna, Ellen, Sheryl Crow and a bunch of other people who you know. Yep, I missed my chance to hang out with Snoop Dogg.

On the Katrina front, I was surprised to see so little damage. That’s more a reflection of staying in the French Quarter which only had about a foot of water according to the locals. My wife and I thought about taking a tour to see the damage, but a tour company profiting on the misfortune of others didn’t sit well with us. We kept looking for a tour company that donated money to a foundation to help, but we didn’t find anything.

However, we had a friend go on such a tour and it leads off our saving money in New Orleans tips.

  • Go on a tour of the Katrina damage – It was a mistake for us to skip the tour on principle. The friend said that the tour was around $25-30 for 3 hours and she came back with some amazing pictures. the pictures weren’t of wreckage like I expected, but showed water lines on places that still seem inhabitable. There were also pictures of the new houses that they are building which are extremely eco-friendly.
  • The Rat Hole – For all the people who are Bourbon Street looking to save a little money on their beverages, I recommend this place. It’s easy to get sucked into the marketing of “Huge Ass Beers”, but I found that The Rat Hole had the cheapest beer on Bourbon Street. The selection isn’t great, but Bourbon Street deals in quantity not quality. I’m not advocating going the quantity route, but I recognize that it’s a part of Bourbon Street. I might as well save people a couple of dollars.
  • McDonalds – I know this is an odd item to have on the list. However, for this northerner, it was interesting to see grits and sausage biscuits and gravy on the breakfast menu. I may be weird in that I like to try any unusual McDonalds items when traveling. For $3 this combo didn’t disappoint. (Again keep in mind that I don’t typically eat these foods, so I am not one to judge quality of them.)
  • Eat at Mother’s – This place is a cafeteria style restaurant. It isn’t much to look at with the old basic furniture and the original sign from 1936. The place puts its efforts into the food. I liked the Jambalaya, while my wife preferred the red beans and rice. We got a side of the ham, because it seemed to be their specialty (it’s on the sign from 1936), but it wasn’t that much different from sliced deli ham. That’s one thing to skip. Be sure to take a few minutes to see the autographed pictures (Howie Mandel with hair!) and the funny signs. My favorite was, “Our credit manager is Helen Waite. If you want to pay with credit, go to Helen Waite.” (Note: They do accept credit cards, the sign was for people using credit in 1936.)
  • Window Shop – My wife and I spent some time on Royal Street (the next street over from Bourbon St.) window shopping. The danger with this is that we passed some enticing items. One place, Vintage 329 was never open despite a sign saying that it was open 8 days a week. We wanted to visit it because they had a first edition Harry Potter collector’s set of all US versions of the book signed in the window. I asked my wife (a big Harry fan) how much she thought it would go for and she said around $500. I told her that if it’s under $1000, I would buy it on the spot. We never could get a price since it wasn’t open, but I see a new one on Ebay for $8900. The Vintage 329 didn’t seem to be in as good a shape, and they kept it displayed in direct sunlight (why?), but I think they would have been asking for more than $1000.

There are surely plenty of other ways to save money, but this is the last trip we have planned for some time. I also don’t know when I’ll have the next opportunity to go to New Orleans. The combination of the two left us spending a little money than when we are in our usual frugal mode.

On the “anti-save money” front, The Old Coffee Pot and the Court of Two Sisters are perhaps two of the best places to have brunch. I wrote about The Old Coffee Pot last week, but the Court of Two Sisters put on an excellent jazz brunch in a courtyard with historic fixtures and the smell of lilacs. It’s not low on price, but it is high on value.

Personal Finance Links (Meeting Personal Finance Bloggers Edition)

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Blogging is usually a solo act. I write articles without a lot of input of others. However, I have a lot of digital communication with bloggers via emails, forums, and Twitter. Many of them have become much better friends than I ever had in high school. The unusual thing is that I rarely get to meet them in person. I like to say that I scatter my friends around the United States.

In the last few months, I’ve had the good fortune to meet a lot of my personal finance comrades. In one night, Gobankingrates.com hosted a meet-up and I got to meet PFStock, The Bag Lady, Ask Mr. Credit Card, Upside of Money, and Nerd Wallet. Last night, my wife and I got to have dinner with Jeff Rose, the Illinois CFP of Good Financial Cents and The Digerati Life and their spouses. While we knew The Digerati Life, this was my first meeting with Jeff and his wife. I had no idea how much they do, in addition to raising a family. It made me feel extremely unproductive. When it comes out in a few years that they were part of a secret government experiment to find out what happens when people don’t sleep, please remember you heard it here first.

In the meantime, here is some reading from last week:

Money Writers:

Top PF Posts:

Alternative Income Update: July 2018

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July is in the books. Now it’s the time of the month that I pause and think, “I can’t remember what I ate for dinner last night… how am I going to remember last month?” LOL.

I think July, 2018 will always be known as the month of fighting for air conditioning. We had central installed in 2013 and I think we’ve had to have it repaired around 5 times now – an average of about once a year. We had Restivo’s by about 3 times in July and finally by the end of the month, they were able to get the system they installed working as multiple parts failed this time.

It was also a month where my 5-year old went to a wilderness camp while my 4-year old went to a more traditional camp. That meant for a bit more driving and an earlier pick-up (day ending at 3PM instead of 4:30PM). These are also my wife’s busiest months. When she had time off we tried to make the most of it. Summer in Newport, Rhode Island is a special time and it really feels like you are living the island life.

Let’s get to the good stuff. (Regular readers may notice that I have a template for this article, but new readers will need all this information for it to make sense.)

Alternative Income Update: July 2018

For those that don’t know the term, “alternative income”, I started using it 11 years ago to be purposely vague. I needed something to cover blogging income. Blogging income can be very erratic, but there’s a residual nature to it as well. Some popular bloggers are still struggling to categorize it. I think alternative income was more passive back in 2007 before social media, podcasting, and video. Today it seems like every blogger talks of hustling (as in moving quickly, not grifting people) and by that they mean “being everywhere.” I feel like the only one dumb enough to just keep writing blog posts… blog posts that often don’t have cool “pinnable” images. My kids say dinosaurs are cool, so maybe dinosaur bloggers are cool?

In general, I call alternative income everything that comes from passive investment and these side hustles. The best way to think of it is income where you aren’t directly trading your time for money. This report is about all my alternative income. To include my investments into that paradigm, I have to fudge the numbers a bit. You’ll see what I mean as we go along… or you can see a more detailed explanation back in January, 2017.

The last month I reported, June, my alternative income added up to $7,403.28. June was the best month of the year, despite the fact that I was away on vacation or on adventures with kids for half the month. I had also started a freelance customer support gig that wasn’t included in the numbers (but certainly takes time).

In any case, June is ancient history now, so let’s move on to more recent history… July.

Lazy Man’s Alternative Income – July 2018

In looking at our alternative income, I break it down to 3 main sources… each with their own caveats.

1. Blogging + Dog Sitting Income

My “real world” friends have asked me, “What do you do?” I’m not a fan of the question… because it’s simply rude. I feel it’s used to size up or pigeonhole someone. My responses of “software engineer” has received very differently reactions than “dog sitter.” Nonetheless, some response is required. I rotate among all the things that I do. What are those things:

I suppose the best answer is that I’m a stay-at-home dad. The kids go to school for about 6 hours a day. So my “non-Dad stuff” is 30 hours a week. That gives me time to do some basic family errands (shopping, cooking, dishes, laundry, walking my own dog, etc.) and dog sitting and blogging fills in the gaps.

At blogging conventions a popular question is “Are you a full-time blogger?” I say yes, but then explain that I spend very few hours blogging. I don’t think most people grasp the concept of not having a full-time job, but still having a full slate of activity. I’m doing much, much more now than I ever did at a full-time job. If you really cared to read much more this gives you even more on that. I think everyone assumes that Boss Lazy Man will tell Employee Lazy Man to take the day off from the blog to do non-blogging stuff. That’s not really how it works. People with standard jobs have a lot of insulation where they can say, “See, my boss says that I’m not available.”

I’ve spent too many words on it, but if you want a very short list of what I’m doing check out my “Now” page.

I don’t break out blogging income vs. dog sitting income. One impacts the other. When I have a lot of dogs, I don’t have as much time or the focus to blog. When I’m blogging a lot, it’s usually because I don’t have too many dogs to sit… and there isn’t some other great catastrophe going on. (Sometimes it feels like life is a series of catastrophes. Fortunately, for me, they’ve been minor. I’m sure I’m not alone in feeling that it’s just one thing after another derailing your progress.)

You may be asking right now, “Isn’t alternative income about NOT trading time for money?” Isn’t dog sitting and blogging TRADING time for money? That’s a solid point. However, I don’t do it directly. Let me explain:

Sitting dogs itself isn’t a time-intensive job… at least with the number of dogs I typically have. However, there is considerably more overhead than you might think between booking dogs and meeting dogs for suitability. The important differentiation with dog sitting is that I can “double-dip” and earn money from another side hustle, such as blogging, at the same time. It’s very different than being an Uber driver. The police tend to frown on blogging and driving. (Hmmm, maybe if I had a voice recorder and translation software I could compose some rough drafts. Nah… I’m sure clients wouldn’t want to climb over my kids’ child seats. Also studies show that Uber drivers make far below minimum wage when accounting for their expenses.)

If you are interested in dog sitting, I wrote a very detailed article on the subject: Pros and Cons of Dog Sitting on Rover.

Blogging is usually much more time-intensive than sitting dogs. (The summer months are the exception). However, it isn’t directly trading time for money either. If I write an article for the blog today (such as this one!), I don’t necessarily get any significant money for it. The money I make from blogging now is a direct result of having built a reputation and a collection of nearly 2500 articles over 12 years of blogging.

Like June, July was a great month for sitting dogs. The locals took advantage of kids being out of school, while the strong tourist season brought in more business. July has always been one of the best months, so this was no surprise.

Blogging income was solidly above average in July. There was a minor hit as my advertising company noted that budgets at the end of Q2 (June) are historically more than the start of Q3 (July)

While on the topic of blogging, I’d like to add that it isn’t all about the money. I highly recommend personal finance blogging. I wouldn’t aim for creating the greatest blog in the world. Instead, I’d think of it as a way to keep yourself accountable. That’s worked for me. Here’s how to get started blogging with any type blog you might be interested in.

In June, these two categories combined for a year high of $4,280.06. But for July it was…

Total Blogging + Dog Sitting Income: $3,953.29

As you can tell the needle didn’t move much. That’s great considering everything else on my plate.

In addition to the dogs and blogs, in July I added some straight-up, freelancing work. I’m not including it as it is plain old, regular income. I feel it is important to mention it, because it’s another thing that I’m focusing on. At the end of the month, more ongoing freelance work fell into my lap. Between the two gigs, it could be as much annually as the dogs and blogs.

2. Rental Property Income

Here is where I need to fudge the numbers. Sorry, but it’s necessary.

We have three rental properties in our real estate accidental “empire”. (“Empire” is in quotes for a reason – it is a joke.) They are all on 15-year fixed mortgages. This means that we don’t make money on them now, but we are paying down those mortgages more quickly than most people. In 9 years, we should be able to collect an estimated income of $40,000 a year (in today’s dollars, after expenses) on them.

So here’s why I have to fudge the numbers. For the purposes of this report, it doesn’t make sense to count the properties as zero income. I don’t want this report to push me towards a bad decision. It might make me sell them and invest the money differently just to make the numbers look better. For example, if someone offered you a million dollars in 10 years or $10 per year right now, you’d wait for the million (I hope). However, for this report, the $10 per year would give you better numbers.

It’s an extreme example, but it shows how sometimes the short-term plan is the enemy of the long-term plan.

Here’s how I’ve decided to fudge the numbers.

I add up all the properties equity and values. Zillow is accurate for these condos as it has a lot of data points to work with. Next I calculate an equity-to-value ratio. In short, this is the percentage of the property value that we own vs. the bank. Then I calculate the rents of all the properties as if they were owned free and clear. Thus we can say that we are “banking” (in a completely fudgey sense) a percentage of the rent that we would expect to have in the future (rents are typically in line with inflation in the simplest sense).

If you are confused (and you probably are), this article on calculating cash flow of cash flowless real estate explains it in more detail.

Here are the numbers for July. We have 49.64% of the equity in our properties with an estimated combined rent of $3,325. (This number is after insurance, property taxes, and condo fees.) We were able to raise the rents earlier this year a little bit as the rental market has been good and we turned over to new tenants.

Ugh… so close to 50%. We’ve made more progress in this than I thought we would this year.

If you multiply $3,325 by 49.64% you get $1,650 in “fudged” monthly alternative income. At the beginning of 2017, we only owned 36.4% of the properties and they had lower rents. The math worked out to $1,174 back then. So in 18 months, we’ve seen the number grow $476/mo. As the years march on, the ratio will grow to 100% of the $3,325 monthly inflation-resistant rent. That’s what gets us to that annual $40,000 I mentioned above.

In the previous report, the rental property income was $1,614. This number usually moves slowly, but a $36 montly jump is huge. This number only changes if one of two things happen: 1) The properties go up in value. 2) We charge more for rent. I don’t control the housing market, so I can’t change much here. Tenants are typically locked in for at least a year. The monthly paying down of the mortgages creates some equity each month.

In July, Zillow upped the value of the properties significantly. We are finally starting to see a recovery since the crash in 2009, but there’s still a ways to go for it to get to the highs of 2006.

Slow and steady wins the real estate race. In previous reports, I hoped that by the end of this year, we’d be looking at having 50% of the equity with $3,325 in rent or $1662.50 a month in fudged alternative income. I’ll knock on wood, but we might blow it away if the housing market continues to appreciate. Maybe we can get to 53% for $1762.25 for fudged money.

Total Rental Property Income: $1,650

3. Dividend Income

Like the rental property “income”, I’m going to play a game with the numbers. You can decide if the game is fair. I always appreciate comments!

We don’t focus on putting our money in dividend stocks, but I’m going to imagine that we do for sake of this exercise. In reality we a vast majority in index funds, but I do some stock picking with a small percentage of our portfolio. Though the index funds do pay dividends, it’s not their core goal. I’m also fudging the numbers in another way. The money I’m referring to here is in our retirement accounts, so it isn’t something that we would tap as “income.”

Even though all this money is in retirement accounts, we could pull the money out and use it. We’d get tax penalties so we won’t do that. However, like the mortgages on the rental property, there’s real value here that I feel should be accounted for. My goal here is to capture the nearly 20 years of mostly maxing out retirement contributions.

Just like the rental income, we can pretend what the portfolio would earn if we moved all the money into dividend stocks or indexes. For the sake of pretending, I estimated that we could earn 2.50% in dividends. Most people estimate a 4% safe withdrawal rate, but withdrawal is not our plan here. We are only thinking about the cash that these investments could yield to pay for our living expenses.

July was another solid month for our portfolios. The stock market did it’s thing in going up. We did our thing in putting more money into it. The end result is:

Total Dividend Income: $1,526

Last month, it was $1509, so we gained $17 of theoretical monthly money from theoretical dividends. Like the rental property number, slow and steady wins this race. This keeps moving in the right direction.

Very Close to Passive Income

Most people consider rental property income fairly passive income. It’s not, because you have to deal with tenants. However, when things are going well, there might only be “work” every couple of months. For sake of argument, I think we can agree it is “more” passive than writing blog posts and sitting dogs. I spend a lot more time on the later than the former.

Of course dividend income is completely passive, so I don’t need to argue much there.

This “very close to passive income” category is a combination of “rental property income” with “dividend income.” (Yes, that’s a lot of quotes.)

It’s interesting to me that these two numbers are so close for us. It’s like the stocks vs. real estate debate, but for our personal finances. I think of it as putting them in an arena to fight out which is the strongest. The dividend income started out the year with a big, nearly $50, lead. In June the real property income is up over the dividends by $105.

The stock market goes up and down which makes the dividends fluctuate as well. The rental property income keeps going up, because the mortgages are always getting paid down every month. The stock market can more a lot faster than the housing market. In any case, I like having both of them working for us.

July’s Very Close to Passive Income: $3,176

Last month it was $3,123, so it’s up another $53! That’s grown from a combined $2,354 in January 2017. Since then, this has gone from an estimated annual income of $28,252 from these sources to $38,115. Investing (in this bull market) is awesome! It’s worth noting that, once again, these are fudged numbers that aren’t “real” yet. However, looking forward to 9 years from now when the investment properties are paid off and how the stock market might grow (assuming a conservative 4%), this number could reach 80K a year. I estimate our long-term expenses to be around $35,000 a year (with the house paid off).

Yes we ignored some minor (but important) details. Details such as our investments being in retirement accounts and an unwillingness to sell some rental properties to pay off others. It’s possible that these two could cover our future expenses (without drawing down on principle).

Final Alternative Income

Adding up “dogs and blogs” to the “very close to passive income”, this month we on the investment stuff had $7,129.29 in monthly “alternative” income. That would be $85,551.48 a year. I’m excited even if it is a little fudgey math.

That largely hypothetical $85,551 a year on investments, writing on a blog, and taking care of dogs is fantastic. In the long term, we can get by on half of that income, and it doesn’t include any of my wife’s bread-winning pharmacist income or her potential military pension if she retires next year.

Just like every month, I’m still hoping to writing a book to boost my alternative income. I had always planned it to be an eBook, but if any readers out there know a publisher, I’d appreciate the hook-up. Seriously… it seems everyone in personal finance is getting a book deal except for me. I think I can make a compelling argument for a book that you’d see in a bookstore… that is if bookstores still exist by the time I’m done writing it.

Net Worth Update

Since I don’t share real numbers of our net worth, this isn’t very exciting. That’s why it’s just a footnote.

I truly believe that net worth is one of the most important numbers in personal finance so it is worth sharing in some way. Showing relative growth can be useful, I think? (Let me know in the comments.)

I use Personal Capital to track my net worth and it makes everything easy. It’s free and you should give it a try. For full disclosure, I might make a few dollars if you do.

In July, our net worth grew 0.73%. Yay! That’s a year to-date-gain of 9.42% in our net worth this year. As a reminder, percentages can be weird… Imagine with someone with a net worth of $100 finds a $100 bill on the ground. Instantly it doubles his net worth. As the numbers get bigger, I’d expect percentage to come down.

How was your July? Let me know in the comments.

Job Search Journey: Sink or Swim

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This is a continuation of Kosmo’s Job Search Journey. When we last caught up, Frustration turned into Success.

The Whole Job Search Series:
1. You’re Fired
2. Assessing the Situation
3. Networking
4. Learn
5. The Interview
6. Frustration
7. Success

Four months ago, I began my new job.  I quickly realized that I was going to have to hit the ground running.  The guy I was replacing was heading to a new position the next week.  Not only was he moving to a new team, but he was physically moving to a new building.  I had a week to learn everything I needed to know.

My team would consist of two members.  I would be the business analyst, and the other team member was the developer (programmer).  We were building a system to replace the company’s financial reconciliation system for the investment accounting area.  As someone who was accustomed to large project teams (often a dozen or more people), this was a big change.

Early in the week, my boss spent a half hour with me and another new hire, giving us the basics of investment accounting.  Although I have a degree in accounting, I hadn’t used that knowledge in my previous job, and it had gotten a bit rusty in the twenty years since I had last sat in a classroom.  The basics came back pretty quickly, though.  It was like riding a bike – you don’t forget.

The first week was spent acquiring the access and software I would need, as well as spending time with the outgoing business analyst and the developer I’d be working with.  The learning sessions were helpful, but it seemed like I was missing a lot of context.  I finally asked the BA if there was any additional information, such as meeting notes from discussions with the business partners.  Yes, there were meeting notes.  (Why hadn’t he shared them right away?  I have no idea.)  These helped provide a bit of context, but it became obvious that the high level requirements that had been gathered to this point didn’t capture the whole story.

In my second week, I requested Visual Studio 6 for my workstation.  (Yep, the current system was that old).  I was hoping that the existing code would be well-documented.  Not exactly.  The areas that had been updated recently were pretty well documented.  Other areas had very limited comments, if any.  This was going to be an interesting challenge.

The system was heavily dependent on database stored procedures.  I was aware of the existence of stored procedures, but had never actually used them.  In my previous job, I had done occasional coding work, but even in those cases, I always interacted with an object that did all the database interactions – I had rarely written code that had interacted directly with the database.  Well, it was time to learn.  Once again, the stored procedures weren’t particular well documented, although recently updated ones were better.

I spent several weeks poring through the existing code, trying to reverse engineer the existing process.  I was doing this mostly on my own, as my developer had his hands full with other tasks.  He was always helpful when I had technical questions, though.

By the time I was ready to engage the business area to drive out detailed requirements, I had created quite a few Visio diagrams detailing the process.  These were helpful in explaining things to the business partners and my developer.  At this point, I have a better understanding of the workings of the current system than the developer or the business partners, due to being immersed in it for months.

I had been warned that the business partners might be somewhat difficult to work with, mostly because of frustration at the limited progress the project had made.  I didn’t let this discourage me, and I went into the sessions with the positive attitude.  My attitude was infectious.  Even though I was a contract employee, I think the business partners realized that I wanted to help build a solution that was the best fit for their needs.

We’re mostly through the requirements process at this point.  We still have a few points to drive out further, but we have most of the system requirements hammered out.  My developer is beginning work on screens and some of the basic logics.  Although the project is technically using a waterfall method, I’ll be pushing  it to a more iterative approach.  There’s a lot of complexity in the project, and handing off the entire system for user testing at once would be a recipe for disaster.  I’m confident that the business partners will change their minds on a few things, and it’ll be better to know those changes as early in the process as possible.

The job is a contract to hire position, with the contract set to expire in late September.  My boss isn’t sure he’ll have budget to hire me at that point, but I’m very confident that the contract will be renewed.  I’ve had discussions with my recruiter to push my rate up a bit for the second contract.  When I initially negotiated, I knew that I was probably leaving a few dollars on the table, but I was more interested in making sure I got the gig, so that I could get a foot in the door at a leading company in the area.  Also, after twenty years with the same company, I wasn’t sure how my skills would translate to another company.  At this point, it’s obvious they translate very well.  I’ve gained a reputation for having a willingness and ability to dive into things and figure out how systems are working, as well as a willingness to assist with other projects, and an ability to get along with everyone on the team.

So far, so good.  If the company offers my full-time employment at a salary that matched the salary at my previous employer, I’d definitely take it.  It’s interesting work, and it’s a great work environment, with a boss and co-workers who are easy to get along with.