My Quarter Life Crisis

Moving and finding a new job cannot be without some unexpected surprises, such as new expenses you’ve never really thought of.

For me, I had a lot of these.  When I finished college, I thought I had been pretty smart and saved up enough money for everything I needed; well, I was dead wrong.

First and foremost, I had to transfer my car over to my new state.  Which meant new license plate, tags, insurance, and drivers license.  Let me tell you, it was expensive and that was just so I could live and drive in the state!

The next big shocker was purchasing life insurance and renters insurance.  Yeah, guess what, even though you may be employed and working for a company, it doesn’t mean you are on their health insurance yet.  I could’ve risked it and gone without life insurance for a month, but I didn’t.  I have always found that with things like this, if I don’t get them I usually end up needing them.

Then there is renters insurance, which is something a lot of nicer apartment buildings require you to have before you’re allowed to move in.  Although this is actually pretty cheap, it still lowers the ol’ account balance.

By far the biggest surprise was my cell phone.  I decided to go with AT&T because they didn’t charge roaming when I visited my college friends and they had extended nights and weekends, which means I got to use my night and weekend minutes sooner.  Anyway, because I never have built up credit before they forced me to pay a $500 deposit, that would be returned to me after a year of on-time bill paying.  Only time will tell if I get my money back……

The last big surprise to me was having to purchase work clothing.  I’m sure from college you have a few pieces, but that won’t cut it when you have to go to work 5 days a week.  I spent about $500 on pants, shoes, and shirts; unfortunately, that was on the cheap clothing.  I’m going to tell you now, the cheap clothing may look similar to the expensive stuff, but the cheap stuff will only last you about 6 months before it tears, ripes, or fades beyond ware.

On top of all of this, I still had to pay for the stuff I planned for: food, rent, apartment deposit, utilities and gas.  I know I’ve noted this before, but usually you won’t get paid at your new job until about 4 weeks in.  This can leave you very strapped for cash for your first few paychecks.

 My Advice to You

1.  Get a credit card while you are in college.  I can’t tell you how many things I’ve been denied or limited to because I never had a credit card before.  Watch out though, Banks do give much higher limits to college students because you don’t have any money.  Only charge small things on it and build good credit, it will really help you in the long run.

2.  Most states will allow you some breathing room when it comes to changing your vehicles license plates and drivers license.  Mine was about two months, but each state has its own policy.

3.  Before you go out and buy lots of work clothes go to work for a few days and see what other people are wearing.  Most companies go by a “business casual” rule, but that has a very broad meaning.  So, check out what other people are wearing and buy your clothes based on your co-workers example.

4.  Always take the safe route when it comes to insurance.  Yes, its expensive, but its nothing compared to the bill you will get if anything happens to you.   You can’t afford not to have it.

Peace out,

Neil

I wasn’t quite sure how to address this subject, so I decided to take the lengthy route. I figure, I’m trying to share my failures and experiences with you so that you do not have to repeat them; I might as well give you the full story.

At the end of my college experience I had acquired a lot of crap furniture. I had two couches, a coffee table, a dresser, a desk, a T.V. stand, a futon, and a generic crappy table. I will admit, that several of these items were found on street corners or at Good Will type places. Lets just say they were all very well “used.”

Anyway, when it came time to move I had the wonderful idea; to give all of my furniture all away, either to friends, Good Will type stores, or to the junk heap. I did this for two reasons: 1. I mathematically figured out that it would cost more in gas to move the furniture then the furniture was actually worth. 2. I had a real job and I figured I was entitled to real furniture.

I believed this to be a brilliant plan and no one could really find any fault with my logic. Boy was I an idiot. I ended up spending the next two months sitting on the floor. Why you ask? Well, for starters there were a lot of startup expenses that I didn’t realize(I’ll go over this in another entry), which took most of my cash reservers away. Other then that there was the fact that you don’t get paid right away when you start a new job, it usually takes 3-4 weeks before your first paycheck comes, which means even less money in the bank. Lastly, since I didn’t have any friends where I lived, so transporting furniture was pretty much out of the question (my car is a sporty sedan, hardly enough to haul a couch in).

Being a computer geek, my first real purchase was a computer desk I could sit at. At first, I went to all the big furniture stores in my area: HOM, Ashley, Thomasville, etc. until I found the desk of my dreams:It is what they call an “Executive” desk, which basically means that it is a big desk with a flat top. Being a computer geek I have multiple monitors, multiple computers, external hard drives, computer parts, etc etc on the top of my desk, so the traditional desk wouldn’t work for me.

Well, all was glory and sunshine until I took a look at the price tag, $2,000. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not poor. In fact, I’m already in the upper-middle class and this is my very first job out of college. Even with all that working for me I couldn’t justify blowing two grand on a desk.

At any rate, I decided to go back to my old college friend, flat furniture. For those of you not associated with this term, it basically means that your furniture comes in a flat box and you will have to assemble it. I ended up finding a nice desk at Office Depot. Which brings me to my next adventure: delivery.

After purchasing the desk and looking at the box it was in I realized that there was no possible way that it would fit in my car. So I paid the extra $25-$30 to have it delivered to my house; they said it would be delivered in the next 7 days and that they would give me a call a couple of hours before they delivered it. I thanked them and went on my way.

So, about five days later (on a Tuesday) I received a call telling me that they were going to try to deliver my desk from 1-4 p.m.. I inform them that I work a normal 8-5 p.m. job and that I won’t be there during that time, so the nice lady on the phone tries to reschedule the time with me. I suggested 6 p.m. and then she hits me with a bomb: “I’m sorry sir, we only deliver between the hours of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday thru Friday.”

WHAT THE FUCK? So in order to get my desk, I would have to take time off of work so I could be home for the delivery. Plus, they give you a 2-3 hour window in which they MIGHT be there. Worst case scenario: I take a half day off from work and they never make it to my house. I’m sorry, but in the service industry you service your customers at their convenience, not at yours. I too work in the service industry so there have been times when my client wants their website to go live at midnight, so I have to be at work at midnight; I don’t enjoy it, but its what the client pays for. I’ll admit though, you need to put some rules in, like no deliveries after 9 p.m., but to only deliver when most people are at work is just insane.

After talking on the phone for 20 mins I finally get the lady to have the delivery people deliver my desk at the very last possible moment, 5 p.m. I ended up getting my desk that day, but not without a sour taste in my mouth about the whole furniture experience.

To be honest, I’m still not even close to done with my apartment and its almost been a year since I started living here. I am constantly battling with the theme/decor of this place. Currently, I have enough furniture to get by(couch, tv stand, desk), but nothing that makes my apartment feel like a home.

My Advice to You:
1. Make sure when you move into your new place you have enough furniture to get by, such as a desk, chair, maybe a couch. It doesn’t matter if you buy it before you move or if you are just transporting it to your new place from your old place. Trust me on this, nothing sucks more then typing on the floor for two months.

2. Buy furniture that can be delivered to your home when you are home. Chances are you don’t get many days off of work to start with, so using them to wait for furniture sucks real bad.

3. Always take someone with you to purchase furniture. Do this so that you have a second critic with you, it is very EASY to be convinced that something is a good idea when in all actuality what you’ve just picked out is an ugly piece of crap the salesman has convinced you is awesome. This will also prevent you from an impulse buy or a purchase of something just to get it done.

4. Have an idea or theme for your house before you start. Not only will this make your search a lot easier, but it will also make your apartment/townhouse/house not look like a blind person decorated the place.

5. Measure to make sure it fits! There have been too many times where I have gone out, found something I liked, but couldn’t purchase it because I had no idea if it would fit in my apartment. Returning furniture is not a fun or easy task, believe me.

Anyway, I hope I have helped you learn something about the furniture process. Also, if you have any ideas or tips for me on how to decorate my apartment, feel free to comment or email me.

Thanks,

-Neil

I found this post on one of my favorite quotations sites a couple years ago. I think it sums up things pretty well:

It is when you stop going along with the crowd and start realizing that there are a lot of things about yourself that you didn’t know and may or may not like. You start feeling insecure and wonder where you will be in a year or two, but then get scared because you barely know where you are now.

You start realizing that people are selfish and that, maybe, those friends that you thought you were so close to aren’t exactly the greatest people you have ever met and the people you have lost touch with are some of the most important ones. What you do not realize is that they are realizing that too and are not really cold or catty or mean or insincere, but that they are as confused as you.

You look at your job. It is not even close to what you thought you would be doing or maybe you are looking for one and realizing that you are going to have to start at the bottom and are scared.

You miss the comforts of college, of groups, of socializing with the same people on a constant basis. But then you realize that maybe they weren’t so great after all.

You are beginning to understand yourself and what you want and do not want. Your opinions have gotten stronger. You see what others are doing and find yourself judging a bit more than usual because suddenly you realize that you have certain boundaries in your life and add things to your list of what is acceptable and what is not. You are insecure and then secure. You laugh and cry with the greatest force of your life. You feel alone and scared and confused. Suddenly change is the enemy and you try and cling on to the past with dear life but soon realize that the past is drifting further and further away and there is nothing to do but stay where you are or move forward.

You get your heart broken and wonder how someone you loved could do such damage to you or you lay in bed and wonder why you can’t meet anyone decent enough to get to know better. You love someone but maybe love someone else too and cannot figure out why you are doing this because you are not a bad person.

One night stands and random hook ups start to look cheap and getting wasted and acting like an idiot starts to look pathetic. You go through the same emotions and questions over and over and talk with your friends about the same topics because you cannot seem to make a decision.

You worry about loans and money and the future and making a life for yourself and while wining the race would be great, right now you’d just like to be a contender!

What you may not realize is that everyone reading this relates to it. We are in our best of times and our worst of times, trying as hard as we can to figure this whole thing out.

The Quarter-Life Crisis
by unknown

Shortly before graduation I was hired at a company to do programming work. Not exactly the most exciting or fulfilling work, but hey, it more then pays the bills. Anyway, I was to graduate in May and start my job in June, thus around March/April I started looking for an apartment. What I was looking for was an apartment that would provide me with the convinces that I never had in college such as an apartment that would stay above 60 degrees in winter, a dishwasher, a hot water heater that would pump out hot water for more then one shower and a place where I could actually park my car.

I was greatly surprised when I first started my search; the difference between college lifestyle and “real life” lifestyle was vastly different. First of all, I started my search way too early; most places won’t know if they have any apartments available until a month or two before your move in date. I don’t know how it played out in other college towns, but I needed to commit to an apartment 6-8 months ahead of time if I wanted a good place to live. Next, I made a big mistake about the location where I wanted to live, but I’ll get to that in a second.

You should know that most people that work in apartment complexes, while nice, won’t do you any favors. Most places that are any good fill up right away, so to them it really doesn’t matter if they call you back or not. Also the places I went, most of the “employees” were people who just worked there part time in exchange for free rent in the apartment plus a little salary.

Anyway, back to my bad choice in location. I had a lot of choices since I was moving into one of the biggest cities in America, so I naturally took the lazy route and tried to find an apartment that was a short distance from work. So I chose a place for my roommate and I that is about 15 minutes away from work and close to a grocery store, mall, and food eatery places. This, of course, was a big mistake on my part.

For you see, my job was located in the suburbs. I’ve never lived in a “big” city before, but apparently the suburbs are filled with families, more specifiably apartments in suburbs are filled with starter families. While this may not be a bad thing, it makes planning your after work activities/weekend nights difficult. You see, a town full of families is mostly going to gear its stores, events, and areas of interest for families, so in order for a person such as myself to go to clubs, bars, concerts, and other various events of my interest I would need to travel somewhere between 30-45 minutes.

Which just outright sucks. So in the next few months I will be moving to a new location, closer to the activities that I like and further away from work.

My Advice to You:
1. Find out where people of your age range in your town live, most likely it will be near a college area. Don’t worry, if you don’t feel like hanging out with a bunch of college freshman usually there is an area of town thats basically the same as the college area (usually a bit more classy), but contains people that are usually 5-10 years older (mid-twenties - mid-thirties).

2. Live with a roommate. Rent is a LOT cheaper when you live with at least one other person.

3. Make sure you would be willing to take a date back to your place. If you think your date would be fearful to come visit you, it probably isn’t a good place to live.

4. Make sure to ask the following questions before you are willing to move into a place:

• Is there off street parking?
• How is the heat in the apartment controlled? -Some apartments include heat in the bill, but won’t let you control the heat. I’ve heard horror stories from friends where the apartment is 60 degrees all winter(winter here gets to be well below zero at many points of the year).
• How do most people move their stuff into their apartment? -Some apartments are very tall, but don’t have any way for you to move large objects like couches easily. Which means you would have to take the stares.
• How is the internet setup in the building? -Sometimes the apartment building will share one internet connection with the whole building and if you use too much bandwidth from gaming, itunes, your job, etc they will kick you off. Just be aware of any limits before you enter.
• Are there any apartments available on the top or bottom floors? -It sucks being the guy below a noisy neighbor that is why its always best to be on the bottom or top floors. Yes, I know you have a person above you if you are at the bottom, but if you are noisy like I am, its nice knowing you won’t be disturbing anyone.

Peace out,

Neil

Well, this is the start of my journey into the real world.

A line from Bah Luhrmaan song Sunscreen best sums up what my goal of this blog is:

Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.

You see, I am a fresh college graduate and who is currently working at my first real job as a computer programmer.

Ever since this journey has started I have noticed that all of my worries in college about the future (money, girlfriend, difficulty of job) didn’t really come to pass; instead my problems have always been those that have blindsided me on those idle Tuesdays.

My goal for this blog(other then improve my writing skills, which I will talk about later) is to share some of the many issues I have encountered in life after college, so that you, the reader, can learn from my failures, be thankful you didn’t have to go through it, or at least feel like other people are struggling too.

I always encourage people to leave comments for just about anything, whether it be advice, feedback, or even if you want me to look at something cool, hell I’ll do it.

Legal Shit: I am not a trained professional in giving advice/helping you with your life. I am a Computer Programmer. What I post here is just my experience and if you choose to follow my example or to follow my advice, you do so of your own free will knowing full well that the only training I have is my actual life experiences.

GOOD LUCK!