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Are friends/family shocked at your salary?

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Pulitzer Wannabe, Apr 16, 2009.

  1. spnited

    spnited Active Member

    50K per year eqauls less than 1K per week. For 80 hours per week that equals about $12 an hours.

    $12 for a 40 hour a week newspaper job equals $480 a week, equals about 25K a year.

    So your point is ... ?
     
  2. stix

    stix Well-Known Member

    I appreciate all the financial advice, I really do. You guys make good points.

    But, trust me, I know what my finances are, my fiancee and I have everything measured out, I've never missed a bill, we've never been late on rent, I've never overdrawn my checking account, I have some money put away in savings (well, a lot of that is going towards the wedding right now), I'm doing OK.

    Sure, there are moments where I have about 75 bucks in my checking account, but the real key to me is to keep a vigilant schedule on when your bills are due and make sure you have the money to pay them. If I have 75 bucks in my checking account but don't have a bill due for two weeks, that's OK. I know I'll be getting the income necessary to pay those bills.

    As for spending 20 bucks at a bar, don't read into it like I'm trying to "keep up with my friends." Believe me, back when I first started in this profession, was single and living with my parents, I thought I was fucking rich. I'd think nothing of going to the city (I live between two large ones) for a Saturday night and dropping $150. Was that stupid? Yeah. But at the time, I didn't know any better. Now, I'm just saying I think it's OK to spend 20 bucks at a bar to have a few beers with buddies now and then. If they wanna spend 50 bucks, I don't care. But a lot of my friends are in similar financial positions (except a few who have very well-paying jobs), so most of the time when I go out now we're all on a tight budget.

    I guess it's where you place your disposable income. I mean, I don't even have an iPod, so I don't spend 20 bucks a week downloading music, for example. I don't buy unnecessary clothes, I only go to movies with my fiancee maybe once or twice a month, so I don't see where dropping 20 bucks at a bar every once in a while is that bad.
     
  3. stix

    stix Well-Known Member

    Well, you got me there. I can't argue that. Maybe Home Depot clerk wasn't the profession I should have thrown out there. It was a generic pick. I guess saying mechanic or plumber or city worker would've been a better example.

    On the dollar-per-hour issue, BTW, the same goes for freelancing. I mean, it might seem like I'm making a decent check driving a couple hours to cover an NFL game and write a couple stories, but when I figure out how many hours I worked (and I always include the driving) and what I paid in gas, my per-hour rate is...well, let's just say I don't like to think about it.
     
  4. Ace

    Ace Well-Known Member

    How do you cheap bastards manage to drop just $20 bucks at a bar? I spend that on valet parking.
     
  5. stix

    stix Well-Known Member

    Does your car come back with an awful B.O. stench?
     
  6. Ace

    Ace Well-Known Member

    Hell, no. That costs $30.
     
  7. Mark2010

    Mark2010 Active Member

    I've been looking at plenty of other jobs and, frankly, can't find a whole lot that i am qualified to do that pay any more than working in newspapers.

    Retail? Fast food? Customer service rep? Pay cut.

    Sure, there are doctors and lawyers and stock brokers and such, but those require a great deal of specialized training that I can't afford at present. And, whose to say that is I spent three years and $100,000 in law school, that there would be anything waiting for me anyway? My brother did that and has a shit-load of debt AND hates his job.

    Stix,

    You know your situation better than anyone and it's not my place to advise anyone on how to live. But I know, as someone who was laid off and is living week to week on UI and whatever little freelance work I can drum up, that I wouldn't even dream of getting married in my current situation. Not until I was on more solid financial footing.

    Nonetheless, I wish you well, both personally and professionally.
     
  8. Fredrick

    Fredrick Well-Known Member

    There are a lot of out of work sports writers who now wish they'd have charged their asshole bosses every penny in OT instead of eating those hours. This may be the only business in the world with the wink wink 40 hour workweek.
     
  9. Again, that doesn't bother me. I excel in not giving a shit about social parameters of life. It probably also helps me that I spend next to nothing on things I don't need.
     
  10. Wife and kids? You're a lot more optimistic about my social life than I am.
     
  11. stix

    stix Well-Known Member

    Mark,

    Thanks for the wishes. As per my wedding situation, I got engaged last March and laid off in October. Obviously, I had no way of knowing I'd be getting laid off when I got engaged, and by the time I got laid off I had been living with my fiancee since May and many wedding plans were set.

    I don't think it's a good reason to call off a wedding just because you lost a job. Between our families and the money we've saved, we've got enough put away for the wedding. And I'm very fortunate that my fiancee has a stable, pretty well-paying job, so we're not destitute or anything. Hey, I have no problems not being the main "bread-winner" of the house. If I got laid off before we were enagaged, yeah, maybe then I would've waited awhile.

    At any rate, I know how it goes, living off UI checks and getting freelancing gigs whenever possible (and there have been a couple months where I've made close to a grand freelancing, others where I made about a hundred bucks). Also, though, I work in a warehouse once or twice a week and I do some part-time work writing for the Web site of a nearby university, mostly PR-type stuff. Not great, but it pays.

    Thing is, we get married in August, and by not long after that I'd like to have a full-time job or pursuing a different career by going back to school. Time to make some decisions pretty soon, here. UI runs out for me in October, so I figure I have till around then to figure exactly what it is I'm going to do if it's outside this industry.
     
  12. No one can afford the "specialized training." If you could, why go in the first place?

    I know the debt can be scary, but that's why you kick ass on the LSAT (or GMAT or MCAT or whatever it may be) and either get into a killer school or take a scholarship at a lower-ranked but solid school. Can graduate school be a disillusioning scam? Sure. But that's why you do your research and put your time in ahead of time.

    Places like medical school and law school aren't exclusive clubs only open to the privileged few. I grew up what I would consider lower-middle class. I've worked more than a decade as a sports writer. I have a wife, a mortgage, a baby on the way and two dogs. With every excuse not to, in a short while, I'll be starting law school at one of the top schools in the country.

    You can take charge of your life as soon as you stop making excuses why you can't.
     
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