Additional menu

Fiery Millennials

Financial Independence from a millennial's point of view.

A New Perspective

By 27 Comments

I’ve always con­sid­ered myself pret­ty short. It seems every­one I know tow­ers over me. The aver­age Amer­i­can woman is 5′4″ so I was lit­er­al­ly of aver­age height.

I say “was” because it appears I have grown an inch some­where along the line and I now check in at 5′ 5″ tall. I have longed to be taller ever since I hit my first major growth spurt as a kid. An extra inch isn’t much, but it’s enough to view the world from a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent angle in more ways than one.

img 20181121 1102066542447131333946016 e1542819926249
It appears my last growth spurt was 2003–2004

I’m not sure if I’m feel­ing more intro­spec­tive because of where I’m at phys­i­cal­ly (back in my par­en­t’s home­town in their base­ment), where I’m at emo­tion­al­ly (kin­da down with the breakup) or job wise (on the hunt for a new job).

Being back in my par­en­t’s house and in my home­town as an adult is weird. I don’t have the fond­est of mem­o­ries from my time here in the past. Every­thing is so famil­iar, but dif­fer­ent as well. Every­thing is dif­fer­ent, but the same. The roads I once knew by heart are still there, but inter­sec­tions have changed with new stop signs, new stop­lights, or even new round­abouts. My old favorite restau­rants are most­ly still here, but now I can drink. I even still have some friends here, but their lives have changed as well with new babies or new responsibilities.

I haven’t been writ­ing much because I find it incred­i­bly dif­fi­cult to moti­vate myself to be cre­ative. I real­ly appre­ci­ate all the won­der­ful emails I’ve received the last few weeks. The encour­age­ment of peo­ple I don’t even know has helped me feel so much less alone and I will be for­ev­er grateful.

I’ve also appre­ci­at­ed the offers of refer­rals to the com­pa­nies y’all work at. You work at some seri­ous­ly COOL places and I def­i­nite­ly took some of you up on your offers. I’ve been job hunt­ing semi-seri­ous­ly since July when it became clear the free­lanc­ing thing was­n’t going to work out but since I’m back in my par­en­t’s base­ment, I’ve ratch­eted up the search by about 200%.

I have a few seri­ous leads I’m pur­su­ing. From where it stands right now, I have 3 options ahead of me:

Option 1:

-Cool tech sup­port job at a gov­ern­ment agency in DC
‑cen­tral­ly located
-$80–90k annu­al pay with decent benefits
‑Secret secu­ri­ty clearance
‑ver­bal offer

Option 2:

-Man­ag­er lev­el tech sup­port role with a gov­ern­ment contractor
‑Fur­ther out from DC
-$90–100k annu­al pay with decent benefits
‑TS/SCI secu­ri­ty clearance
‑a few emails, but no inter­view or offer

Option 3:

-long-term con­tract tech sup­port role in the Bay Area
-$80–85k pay with decent benefits
‑no clearance
‑inter­view but no seri­ous offer

img 20181116 1553307689564748504584238
A new nor­mal for me in DC

I would real­ly love to take Option 2, but the red tape of the hir­ing process and Thanks­giv­ing are slow­ing down the process immense­ly. I’ve exchanged a few emails with the HR rep, but have yet to sched­ule an inter­view with them. It’s pret­ty much ide­al — I’d get a slight pay raise from my last cor­po­rate posi­tion, I’d take a step up the lad­der to a man­ag­er posi­tion, and I’d get a Top Secret secu­ri­ty clear­ance. A few years at that job and I could pret­ty much write my tick­et to any job I wanted.

How­ev­er, they have yet to call and sched­ule an inter­view, so I’m forced to con­tin­ue on the path to Option 1. I like the job, the loca­tion, and the clear­ance. It fits well with my back­ground and I could see me being very hap­py with the job. I had an in-per­son inter­view in DC last week and felt real­ly com­fort­able in the area. They liked me as well and extend­ed a ver­bal offer to me the next busi­ness day which felt great!

The only thing that is stop­ping me from get­ting an offer let­ter is my lack of a cer­ti­fi­ca­tion. This job requires I have a Comp­TIA Secu­ri­ty+ cer­tifi­cate before I can be hired. I have a Comp­TIA A+ cer­tifi­cate from my time in the Air Force, but it’s a lev­el low­er and can’t be substituted.

So, for the next week, I’m in seri­ous study mode to get this cer­tifi­cate and get hired. I’m tak­ing the test Fri­day the 30th. They’ll start the paper­work to get me hired as soon as I let them know I passed the test and could start work­ing in DC as soon as the 10th of December.

Con­sid­er­ing this is the lat­ter part of Novem­ber, they’re oper­at­ing on a very short time­line. I’m not sure what I’ll do for hous­ing, but I’ve joined sev­er­al groups on Face­book that put peo­ple who are look­ing to rent a place and peo­ple who are look­ing to rent out a place in touch with each other.

I’m slight­ly con­cerned about mov­ing to DC from a cost stand­point. DC is one of the most expen­sive cities to live in and I would­n’t be get­ting much of a raise from my last salary in the Mid­west. How­ev­er, the cost of liv­ing would sky­rock­et. I’ve been find­ing one-room apart­ments in the area for around $1600–2000 or rooms in a shared hous­ing arrange­ment for any­where from $700‑1200 a month. That’s a far cry from the new 2 bed/2 bath with fire­place and vault­ed ceil­ing for $1100 a month apart­ment I had in Des Moines.

I will also prob­a­bly need to look into get­ting a new car. Vir­ginia has very strict rules and reg­u­la­tions when it comes to cars and I’m pret­ty sure my 13-year-old Pon­ti­ac Vibe isn’t going to pass. I might be able to get away with­out a car with Option 1 since it’s so con­ve­nient­ly locat­ed but it depends on how often I’d have to trav­el to the oth­er sites they support.

2018 11 19 018418861594183206244.
No mat­ter where I go, this guy will be with me <3

Giv­en all that, I still think it’s worth it to move out to DC. I love the city, there’s so much to do, and they have a big air­port which makes it easy to fly to oth­er places. Not to men­tion it’s on the East Coast and there­fore eas­i­er to trav­el to places like Boston and NYC. There’s a thriv­ing FIRE com­mu­ni­ty there and Fin­Con will be there in 2019. Iron­i­cal­ly enough, I’ve found it’s eas­i­er to opti­mize your costs in an HCOL area like DC or Min­neapo­lis than it is to opti­mize costs in an LCOL area like where I lived and worked pre­vi­ous­ly. There are so many free events to go to in a big city and many ways to get around. I got used to walk­ing and bik­ing every­where in Min­neapo­lis and it’s been lit­er­al­ly dri­ving me crazy to take the car when­ev­er I need to leave the house.

So.… I promise I’m not giv­ing up on this whole blog­ging thing just yet! I just require a lot more effort to write a post nowa­days. Thank you for hang­ing in there with me and stay tuned for the next excit­ing episode!

I hope every­one has a hap­py, mer­ry, and ful­fill­ing Thanks­giv­ing! I’m going to go to vis­it rel­a­tives and stuff my face full of Tryp­to­phan. Do you have excit­ing plans for the hol­i­day week­end? Sound off in the com­ments below! (I might actu­al­ly man­age to answer them too!)

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. So if you do move out to DC can we crash at your place for Fin­Con next year? 🙂 

    I know how it feels in terms of get­ting posts out, some­times life gets in the way and it just takes longer and longer to write a post. Hang in there.

    Reply

    • Chances are high I’m going to get a room in an apart­ment some­where. I plan on get­ting a room at the hotel because trav­el­ing back to my place mul­ti­ple times a day from DC prop­er sounds awful.

      Reply

  3. As some­one who had to move back in with my par­ents from age 26–28, I total­ly under­stand how you’re feel­ing, except it was 2009 (boo!) and not 2018 where you have some job oppor­tu­ni­ties!! I think either job in DC sounds awe­some, and I would be geeked out to join the DC Mon­ey Nerds!
    Good luck with every­thing; you’ve got so many peo­ple pulling for you!!
    Josh recent­ly post­ed…Twit­ter made me do it – New York CityMy Profile

    Reply

    • Thanks for the sup­port Josh! I am so grate­ful to have so many options so soon after I start­ed looking.

      Reply

    • I’m start­ing to think the only rea­son you want me to move there is for access to my cat. I feel used. And kin­da loved.

      Reply

  5. Gwen in D.C.? Drain the swamp! Or, help us avoid a need­less and clost­ly mil­i­tary parade! 

    You’ll do great. And that pay looks pret­ty sweet to me! You’re always wel­comed back in Min­neapo­lis. That is, assum­ing you’ll ever (like­ly nev­er) miss these bleak 7 month stretch­es of hell­win­ter every year.

    Reply

    • I got out just in time to avoid the hell­win­ter. Woo! Like I said before I left, it’s going to take more than one per­son to make a dif­fer­ence (a pos­i­tive one, any­ways) in DC. But I’ll give it a shot!

      Reply

  6. If you join us on the east coast, be sure to let me know if you’re up in the CT area! We’re mid­way between NYC and Boston, and.…well that’s prob­a­bly the only inter­est­ing part of liv­ing here. Have a hap­py Thanks­giv­ing! And best of luck with the jobs.
    Liz@chiefmomofficer recent­ly post­ed…Hap­py Thanksgiving!My Profile

    Reply

  7. May every­thing come through, Gwen, and leave you hav­ing to choose between mul­ti­ple good offers!

    I always sug­gest new man­agers look at Man­ag­er Tools pod­cast and com­mu­ni­ty as a good resource. http://www.manager-tools.com/ You like­ly would­n’t need it as bad­ly as most, with your mil­i­tary expe­ri­ence. Don’t let the founders being West Point grad­u­ates scare you off! 😉 🙂

    One lead for DC con­nec­tions is Ms. FAF, who blogs over at Fru­gal Asian Finance. https://frugalasianfinance.com/ She’s a research ana­lyst at a non-prof­it in DC, with hus­band work­ing near­by. Not sure what their sched­ule is set­tling into with the sec­ond infant recent­ly arrived.

    Reply

    • Thank you! I’ll take a look at that pod­cast and com­mu­ni­ty and see if I can glean any­thing from it. I’ve already got sev­er­al peo­ple lined up to help intro­duce me to the FI com­mu­ni­ty at large in DC!

      Reply

  8. They sound like great jobs! Best of luck with 1 or 2. 

    Uhhhh…just be aware that Min­neapo­lis is not in the same league as DC expense-wise. Much of the coun­try would con­sid­er Min­neapo­lis mod­er­ate or even low COL, so just be pre­pared for a dif­fer­ent lev­el of expense. 

    That hav­ing been said, I think you’ll have fun in a big­ger city!

    Reply

  9. I com­plete­ly under­stand you not want­i­ng to write. I am the same way when my life hits the skids…that just saps my cre­ative ener­gy! I even notice that I don’t feel moti­vat­ed to take pic­tures at times like those, where­as I take oodles of pic­tures when my men­tal state is better.

    Hang in there, and I hope the best job oppor­tu­ni­ty pans out for you.
    Kris­ten | The Fru­gal Girl recent­ly post­ed…Wednes­day Bak­ing | Yeast Roll RoundupMy Profile

    Reply

  10. Cross­ing every­thing for you! Those are all some great sound­ing roles.

    I was back at my par­ents and thought I was head­ed for divorce this time 3 years ago. This too shall pass <3

    Reply

  13. Good luck! My hus­band is from the DC area (and I’m from Bal­ti­more), so we can rec­om­mend some tru­ly incred­i­ble hole-in-the-wall restau­rants and oth­er good stuff in the area. (Every time we went to vis­it his par­ents, he would take me to El Pol­lo Rico for chick­en, even if his mom was expect­ing us for din­ner. It was that good).

    Root­ing for you!!

    Reply

  14. Thanks for shar­ing your expe­ri­ences.. I kind of do a mix, a super flex­i­ble low pay­ing job with ben­e­fits, cou­pled with lots of hus­tling to bring my income up to where I need/want it to be. I always like to “think” of myself as a free­lancer, but hon­est­ly I have a mix of the best of both worlds, and I think often about how I’d swing it if the “real-real” job went away.. I appre­ci­ate you shar­ing the down­sides, bc too often we only talk about the pos­i­tives and what went great.

    Reply

  16. Hey Gwen,
    If you ran­dom­ly decide to move to the Bay Area I think you would love it (minus the traf­fic). Plen­ty to do with free events and easy ways to get around town. There are a ton of oppor­tu­ni­ties here for work and freelancing.
    I live in the South Bay, if you ever make it out here let me know.
    Good luck on what­ev­er you decide works for you. 

    I’m 5′3″ and only feel short sometimes 🙂
    Erica

    Reply

  17. I moved to DC from Ohio and it is not as bad for FIRE as some peo­ple think. I live in the myth­i­cal $1400/mo 1 bed­room apart­ment 5 blocks east from the capi­tol. There’s plen­ty of free events for enter­tain­ment. I didn’t bring my car but I’ve nev­er felt con­strict­ed by the tran­sit sys­tem. Food can be more pricey but there’s still an Aldi that’s bike­able and right off the free street­car. And I make 30% more than I did before which more than makes up for any increases. 

    Good luck!

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

CommentLuv badge