Q
QuaziKitty
Guest
I'm 24 and graduated from college about 10 months ago. Before graduation, I had two job offers. I took the one that offered less money and was located in a very expensive area (washington dc). Financially I would be a whole lot better off if I stayed at home in Phoenix but I wanted to explore a little.
I work for a defense contractor doing software development. My company has 130,000 employees and I think the bureaucracy we have to live with can be compared to the federal government. This stuff really annoys me. I want to write code dammit, not fill out stupid forms and go to dumb meetings and take boring classes.
A few years ago I had hopes to jump directly into the corporate world as a consultant, where I would have to deal with corporate bs but wouldn't have to really be a part of it. The market wasn't right for that when I graduated but I have major plans to save a nice emergency fund and in say, 4 years quit the company and move back to Phoenix to do consulting. I say 4 years because I'm involved with my company's "engineering leadership development program" which is a just-out-of-college program (more corporate BS) where I attend leadership conferences (boring classes), take on a new assignment every year (variety is good) and get my graduate degree within 3 years (I have to pay back the money if I quit before a year after I graduate). I decided all this extra work is worth it because I will get much better pay raises for each of the 3 years (7-12%).
I want to retire when I'm 35. Or maybe 40. I'm pinching every penny right now, putting 16% into my 401K, $250 a month into a Roth IRA, and $300 into a Money Market. My rent is really high and that takes up 30% of my salary (I prefer to live alone). I don't have any of my budget allocated towards clothing, entertainment, electronics and computer equipment so I rely on the sporadic $ I make writing articles for computer magazines. Being able to spend that money (minus the tax % I have to set aside) really motivates me to come up with new articles.
Before I continue writing a book, I just want to say that I'm really excited about the RE web site and the other intro posts here are very interesting.
I work for a defense contractor doing software development. My company has 130,000 employees and I think the bureaucracy we have to live with can be compared to the federal government. This stuff really annoys me. I want to write code dammit, not fill out stupid forms and go to dumb meetings and take boring classes.
A few years ago I had hopes to jump directly into the corporate world as a consultant, where I would have to deal with corporate bs but wouldn't have to really be a part of it. The market wasn't right for that when I graduated but I have major plans to save a nice emergency fund and in say, 4 years quit the company and move back to Phoenix to do consulting. I say 4 years because I'm involved with my company's "engineering leadership development program" which is a just-out-of-college program (more corporate BS) where I attend leadership conferences (boring classes), take on a new assignment every year (variety is good) and get my graduate degree within 3 years (I have to pay back the money if I quit before a year after I graduate). I decided all this extra work is worth it because I will get much better pay raises for each of the 3 years (7-12%).
I want to retire when I'm 35. Or maybe 40. I'm pinching every penny right now, putting 16% into my 401K, $250 a month into a Roth IRA, and $300 into a Money Market. My rent is really high and that takes up 30% of my salary (I prefer to live alone). I don't have any of my budget allocated towards clothing, entertainment, electronics and computer equipment so I rely on the sporadic $ I make writing articles for computer magazines. Being able to spend that money (minus the tax % I have to set aside) really motivates me to come up with new articles.
Before I continue writing a book, I just want to say that I'm really excited about the RE web site and the other intro posts here are very interesting.
