One day my lawn will look like this…one day.
Welcome to the Weekly Quick Hits Roundup!
If you’re new here, every week I write a weekly wrap-up of things that were going on here at Young Adult Money, a few personal updates/thoughts, and finally a few posts I read this week that I thought were worth sharing.
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We also have our giveaway roundup every Friday. This Friday there are 110 giveaways listed this week that end today (5/23) through next Thursday (5/29).
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Happy Friday everyone!
I’m excited for the 3-day weekend here in the USA. My wife has tremendous work ethic so will be working her weekend job on Monday morning so I will probably try to grind out some blog work while she’s at work.
Here are some updates, thoughts, and more:
- I’m on a first-name basis with some of the city council members, as well as the city engineer and others at public works. More on that in a post in a couple weeks.
- I talked in the past about how I was considering purchasing a tablet. While I decided against purchasing one, I’m still really interested in where technology will go with tablets. Some of you may have seen that Microsoft announced the Surface Pro 3 and it seems like the most viable alternative to a laptop to date. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if most laptops end up looking and functioning similar to the Surface 3 a few years from now.
With that being said, the price tag is going up: $799 is the lowest it will be priced, and that’s for only 64 GB of storage. If you want more you can pay up to $1,949 for the top model with 512 GB of storage, an Intel Core i7 processor and 8 GB of RAM. Not in my budget, that’s for sure!
- Careers and Jobs – As I’ve been looking into the next step in my career, I’m starting to notice that hiring managers want it all. Practically every job I’m applying to either requires or prefers a masters degree, years of relevant experience, and an intermediate-to-advanced level of technical skills.
I actually started thinking again about getting my masters. They aren’t cheap and I would want to be 100% sure I would be able to utilize it to get a higher-level job, thereby making it pay off from a ROI perspective. For now I won’t be getting one, but it’s clear that employers are going to give you an advantage.
One last note – I’m in a “competition” of sorts with other bloggers for page views over at FeeX. If you don’t mind checking out and clicking over to one or all of my following posts I would greatly appreciate it:
- How to Retire Early
- How to Make More Money at Your Day Job
- 8 Lifestyle Changes That Can Save You Lots of Money Over Time
Thanks!
We were also interviewed on Mint – head on over and check it out.
Below are the posts we published this week:
- On Monday I shared 5 Drawbacks of Freelancing and Consulting.
- On Tuesday Shannon shared 5 Steps to Plan for Major Life Events.
- On Wednesday Cat shared The Benefits of Spring Cleaning Your Finances.
- On Thursday I shared 5 Things Young Professionals Should be Doing (But Probably Aren’t)
Posts of the Week:
As usual, here are five posts from around the blogosphere that I enjoyed:
- Cat from Frugal Rules asked Should You Do Business With Friends?
- Brian from Luke 1428 explained Why I’m Quitting My Job To Be A Stay At Home Dad
- Liz from Budgeting for More shared 5 Tips for the Newbie Couponer
- Alexa from Single Moms Income created a useful list of 50+ Legitimate Work From Home Job Opportunities
- Daisy from Prairie Eco-Thrifter asked Diversify Side Income Or Specialize?
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How was your week? Any plans for the weekend? When was the last time you interviewed for a job?
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Photo by Sir Mildred Pierce
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I used to not understand the tablet. I just didn’t get why someone would pay that much for basically a stripped down computer. Then (after constant badgering by my wife) we got an ipad. It works great for her…she can check her email surf the web…..and most importantly she can do it on the go. It works better for those thing than her iPhone because the screen is bigger (huh…I wonder why Apple doesn’t make the screen on their phones bigger….). Now the laptop she had been using sits pretty much unused.
They claim the Surface is more powerful and will replace the laptop. Really? At that price point? I don’t think so…plus I HATE typing on those touch screens when I need to write a blog post or a lengthy email. What’s that you say, you can attach a keyboard to it? Oh, you mean I can make it into a laptop……no thanks, I’ll stick with my actual laptop. :)
Oh boy, it has been a good three years since I interviewed for anything. It’s funny you mention the Masters as when I would highlight mine it was like it didn’t make any difference. But, that said, I see it helping me now so that’s what counts. :) We’re getting together with friends tonight and brewing beer with my brother over the weekend. Thanks for mentioning Cat’s post, much appreciated. Have a great weekend DC!
FrugalRules You can’t guarantee that an MBA will pay off. What I do know is that hiring managers have explicitly told me they give it weight. Again, this is just at my company so it obviously will vary from place-to-place. Other jobs require masters in public policy, economics, statistics, etc. Many jobs in my company deal with huge data sets and statistical analysis, though, so I’m sure that is a big reason why a masters is desirable.
It’d be awesome if you could get the job and the company would pay for you to get your masters.
brokeandbeau That definitely would be ideal! I have a friend who is doing that right now. I think companies are being a bit more stingy with that, though, because it’s becoming way more common for people to jump around companies these days.
I have noticed as well in job descriptions that people want it all in an editor too, whereas they used to be a couple different jobs. It makes it tougher to find work! Hope you have a great weekend, and don’t work too hard! :)
Beachbudget Hmmm it may just be a trend in the hiring process. Ask for the world and see how close you can get. Hope you have a great weekend too and I hope you don’t have to work for too much of it!
Hey DC, they do say that higher education pays off, maybe one day I’ll get a masters too. Thanks for the great reads, it’s a nice way to kick off the morning.
I’m working on getting my lawn to Wrigley Field, let’s just say i’m working on it.
I’m super excited for a long weekend too! Have a great one ;-)
Good luck with your career thought process DC! From what I have seen from my clients, a masters degree has rarely paid off. I have some who had to have it for their job, but that didn’t necessarily mean that they got a raise. It is such a large investment that it really takes a big salary bump for it to make sense. And the last time I interviewed was 3 years ago and I had to go through a series of 5 interviews, all with men and none but one wanted to hire me (they didn’t think I could hack it as a financial advisor). Fortunately the one who wanted to hire me was the one who matter, my boss, and I ended up being the number 1 performer in NY so that was a good retaliation to those naysayers.
Joshua Rodriguez I’m definitely considering the masters, though a year or so ago I was pretty certain I would never get one! Hope you have a great weekend.
EvenStevenMoney Haha you might be working on it for quite some time if that’s your goal.
Monicaonmoney Thanks, hope you have a good one!
blonde_finance That’s really interesting. I’m sure it varies by industry and company. At my company it seems like they are really stressing it, and if I got one I would no doubt leverage it to get a 10-20k increase per year, at least that would be my initial goal. I also would do what I can to get my work to pay for part of it (I have a friend who is doing just that). It just might make sense for me.
I dislike how superficial the interview process is. I’m glad your boss wanted you to join the team and that’s awesome that you are the #1 performer in NY! That’s a huge accomplishment.
I have an iPad and I love it. It will be interesting to see what happens as they continue to develop and become even more robust. It’s still definitely an employers market and because of this – many want the perfect employee who can walk on air. There is no one person who is going to have every skill they want, be a great worker, etc. They are sadly walking away from employees with tremendous value who just need a little training while they wait for the elusive white shark. Master degrees are tough one when it comes to ROI. If you want an upper management position at Fortune 500 company, then you pretty much need one these days. The good news is those situations, the companies often have programs available to offset those costs too. If you’re not interest in upper management, it can be more dicey. In tough times, it may help you score the interview, but may not necessarily translate into a significant income bump over someone without a Masters.
It won’t be long and you will run for office, like I did in 1994 for the MN House. It’ good to know the city officials. See if you can get on the parks department or some other commission.
I went with the Google Nexus tablet. It’s great for traveling, or having near the kitchen table for quick look ups.
Parts of my lawn look like that while another parts look like crap! It’s a lot of work to have it looking nice. I’m learning all about it this year. We are having heavy downpours here in Jersey right now. Some water got into my basement! Grrrr…. It has not been a fun start to my weekend. I hope you have a good one.
Raquel@Practical Cents My entire lawn looks pretty terrible : ) Wit the city doing some grading work I don’t anticipate I will do much – if any – work on the grass until they finish it. They’ll be tearing up a good chunk of the yard and damaging the rest of it with heavy machinery.
So sorry to hear about your basement : ( Nothing worse than getting water in your basement, I hope the rain slows down, and quick.
No Nonsense Landlord That’s awesome that you ran for office! I’d love to see a blog post about it, or just to hear about the experience. I have been looking into some of the planning commissions here and I will try to join one.
The city officials aren’t too fond of me at this point, though that wasn’t my goal. I have a whole blog post on it coming up, but the end result I’m happy with. We’ll get grading done by the city which would have cost us thousands to do (or would need to install an outdoor sump pump, and it’s questionable whether it could keep up under flood conditions.
I know others who have gone with the Nexus and it seems like a solid tablet. I’m very interested in the Surface 3 because it really is similar to a laptop but has all the features of tablets – touch screen, lighter than a macbook air, and more. Seems like a good thing for someone who is working “on the go”, which I often am with the blog (and hopefully will be with future side hustles).
I went to St. Thomas for my undergrad so would probably go to the U of M if I got my MBA. If my employer is willing to pay for it that would be awesome.
Good luck with the “competition” :) ha, what’s involved or what will you win as a result?
On the career point, I find it amazing why they want that, to me it seems as though they’re using it as a means of screening people out..
Don’t work too hard DC either ;) haha
Cheers
Thanks for sharing my post DC! Have a great Memorial Day tomorrow.
Brian @ Luke1428 No problem Brian! Hope you have a great Memorial Day tomorrow as well.
mycareercrusade $200 worth of gift cards : ) Whoever gets the most page views on their posts. Pretty basic competition so thanks for any help you can give me!