2016 – A Disruptive Year

I can’t bring myself to write about 2017, until I finish this post which I started writing on December 31^st, 2016:

Many people around the Internet claim 2016 was a bad year.  For me, 2016 wasn’t great but it wasn’t horrible either.  The year my company's HR manager attacked my management skills causing my confidence to plummet for months was worse, so was the year my mom was diagnosed with cancer, the year my father-in-law had a stroke and the year my husband lost his job. And let’s not forget the years of the Great Recession which brought pay-cuts and job losses to many of my friends and co-workers.  For me, even 2015 when one of my key employees resigned was worse than 2016. 

In saying all that 2016 was a disruptive year full of change:

It began with an old oak tree falling in our back yard during a winter storm smashing one of outdoor structures.  This resulted in a month of insurance hassles and clean-up. 

Around the same time, I purchased a new vehicle throwing off my financial independence goal for all of 2016.  I had planned to keep my 2004 Acura TSX for 2 more years, but after putting over $2000 into in 2015 and faced with another expense (new tire rims to prevent my tires from constantly deflating). I decided I couldn’t take it anymore. I went with a Honda this time. From now on I’m going to plan for a new vehicle or new to me vehicle every ten years.

In February I lost my beloved dog Buck who finally succumbed to lymphoma. He had been diagnosed in February 2014, so I was fortunate to have had him in my life for another year, but his death left an empty space in our home and hearts for months to come.

In March, my company’s President signed a contract with a new business software company to convert our software despite members of the software selection team recommending he wait a year.

The summer was good. I spent time with friends and vacationed in the Apostle Islands, a place I had never been.

Fall brought the software conversion.
It started out well enough with everyone working long hours cleaning up our old system prior to the conversion, but once the data was converted work slowed to a halt company wide.  Every single person struggled to learn the new system.  The training and support from the new company was/is poor.  Even my boss who is usually an optimist feels we were oversold. We continue to struggle in 2017 to make this system work for us.

In November my husband had bi-lateral knee replacement surgery:

Yes - bilateral means having surgery on both knees at the same time. Despite all of his preparation - building upper body strength which improved his ability to lift himself out of a chair - life after surgery was challenging.  He was in more pain than he imagined, he was more mobile than I imagined, but his insomnia was worse than either of us could have possibly imagined.

Thankfully his healing has progressed well with no major issues in 2017.

Reading:

One of the bright spots of 2016 was my reading. I read 32 books up from my average of 25.  I have now read 33 nonfiction books as part of my 200-500 nonfiction reinvention challenge.  I did join a book club at my local library, so I read more fiction than I normally do.  Unlike book clubs I’ve participated in previously, the attendees of this one actually read the books, the monthly selections are good and it is well facilitated.* Plus, I don’t have to drive far, spend money on books or dining costs or have to host/entertain in my home.

2016 reading highlights:

The book I talked about, thought about and recommended the most in 2016:

 Matthew Desmond's book Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City

Runners up are Andre Agassi’s book:
Open: An Autobiography and What I Talk About When I Talk About Runningby Haruki Murakami  

Best business book:
Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink, since reading this book I’ve decided to spend a good portion of my 200+ book challenge reading business books.

Book that didn’t live up to the hype: Roxanne Gay's book Bad Feminist

Author I’m not going out of my way to read again: Gloria Steinham. My Life on the Road is the third book I've read by Steinham, for being such an influential part of the women’s movement I find her writing to be uninspiring. 

The book I read everyone should read: Atul Gawande's book  Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End. (This one was recommended by my financial planner and should be read by everyone who is caring for the sick).

Most well-timed read: Dancing with the Devil in the City of God: Rio de Janeiro on the Brink during the Olympics. Author Juliana Barbassa returns to Rio de Janeiro, her birth city, to report on their preparation for the Olympics.                  

Runner up:
James Feldman's book A Storied Wilderness: Rewilding the Apostle Islands (this one is a bit academic can be repetitive). I read this one after visiting the Islands last summer.

Most relevant fiction book:
 Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman.  Many employers in my area down-sized older employees with outdated technical skills in 2016. Some of them certainly are also a tad curmudgeonly. 

·        *I was a guest at book club last year, where the discussion of Paula Hawkin's book The Girl on the Train became a competition between two members over who had the worst divorce.

Did anyone else have a disruptive 2016?

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Is a Culinary Degree Worth It?

Today’s post was inspired by Chelsea Fagan’s article 3 thoughts I've been having about money. She writes about her uncomfortableness with the personal finance community and middle-class privilege, but the line "why the f*** is a woman in as prosperous a country as America six figures in debt for a Bachelor’s degree in the first place?" resonated with me. She goes on to write:

And what can we do, politically and personally, to ensure that more people do not end up in the same situation, rather than simply explaining the best and most efficient ways to crawl out of it?

I immediately decided to write about Alyssa, a line chef working at Huertas in NYC, who I learned about in my latest read Generation Chef: Risking It All for a New American Dreamwritten by Karen Stabiner.* Alyssa owed close to $80,000 in student loan debt incurred while she attended CIA in Hyde Park, New York. She paid for her entire bachelor’s degree with student loans; at the time she thought the degree was essential because she hadn’t gone to college. She was well-paid for a line cook at $13 an hour – most New York City line cooks earned an hourly rate of between $8 and $12. Making ends meet after her loan repayment’s temporary reduction expired became impossible.

She ended up moving back to her childhood home in Southern California to live with her mom. Her first food job had been at a restaurant on the Disneyland property in Anaheim. She hoped to return to one of the Disneyland restaurants. They paid well and offered sizable benefits. She figured with no rent and no food costs she would be able to make a sizable dent in her debt in two to three years.

Other annual salaries mentioned in Generation Chef:

Sous Chef $36,000-$38,000

Jonah (restaurant owner) $50,000.


Is a culinary degree worth it?

The chefs featured in the article Chefs Weigh In; Is Culinary School Worth It? say it is not. Jonah, Huertas’ owner, describes culinary school as a “parochial” experience and is wary of graduates, although he feels hiring Alyssa was an exception.

Then there are articles like this one: Surprising jobs with $100K salaries -- after only a two-year degree. The #1 career on the list is pastry chef.  I was touting the earning potential of pastry chefs, to a friend when she brought me back to reality. Her niece made $11 an hour as a pastry chef only because she worked for another family member. After that restaurant closed, the niece moved to Denver where she now works at a popular restaurant earning $9 an hour frosting cakes and cupcakes.

Then there is the 14-year old daughter of an acquaintance who dreams of going to culinary school and becoming a pastry chef. Her father’s advice: become a software engineer, work in Silicon Valley earning $200,000 a year for 20 years, then retire and open a bakery as your second career.

*In Generation Chef: Risking It All for a New American Dream, Stabiner follows Jonah for a little more than a year as he fulfills his childhood dream of opening a restaurant. His journey isn’t for the faint of heart; despite all his planning and positive reviews, he faced staffing shortages, $700,000 of debt, failed liquor license approvals and not enough customers. If you have dreams of someday owning your own restaurant I recommend reading Generation Chef for a reality check.


What do you think: is a Culinary Degree worth It? 

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Evicted by Matthew Desmond

Why I read Matthew Desmond’s book Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City:

I was a renter in the City of Milwaukee for five years before moving to the suburbs. During that time I spent a few months living in a not-so-nice neighborhood on the north side to save money. I ended up breaking my lease early, moving and losing my security deposit after my landlord refused to make necessary repairs. Fortunately, I had options,  the money to pay another security deposit and a new landlord that didn’t bother to call my previous landlord for a reference. When I heard Matthew Desmond had written a book about Milwaukee’s rent scene I had to read it.

What is Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American Cityabout?

Wanting to understand the role housing played in poverty Matthew Desmond, a sociologist, moved to Milwaukee. He lived in a trailer park on the south side and in a rooming house located in the black north side. Both allowed him to befriend two landlords and interview numerous renters. His book is an investigative account of the lives of these landlords and eight renters who he followed for over a year.

What I learned:

The details of this book are heartbreaking and hard to read. It took me two months to get through the entire book. I had no idea how Milwaukee (and cities like Milwaukee) are set up to fail our poor residents and families. The renters are far from perfect, but once their lives take a turn for the worst it is easy to fall into a cycle of poverty that is difficult to escape.

For the most part poor renters are trapped:

Financial guides recommend spending no more than 30 percent of your income on housing while many of the renters Desmond met spent up to 80 percent of their income on rent in substandard housing often with plumbing problems, no refrigerator or stove, and broken windows. (Apparently it is okay to rent out a unit in need of repairs as long as you disclose the defects up front). High rents don’t leave much to pay utilities, child expenses or to be able to purchase a reliable automobile to drive to work. Once tenants fall behind in their rent it is only a matter of time until they face eviction.

Most landlords won’t rent to those who have incarcerations or evictions on their record, so the system is designed to keep them out of good neighborhoods, good schools and decent housing.

Desecration of neighborhoods:

When a long-term resident of a neighborhood is evicted the block they lived on suffers.

The key link in a perpetual slum is that too many people move out of it too fast – and in the meantime dream of getting out. With Doreen’s eviction, 32nd Street lost a steadying presence – someone who loved and invested in the neighborhood, who contributed to making the block safer, but Wright Street didn’t gain one. (Pg. 70)

Shocking accounts:

When a landlord learns she isn’t liable for a house fire in which a tenant’s baby died (she did not have enough operating smoke detectors) she asks if she is obligated to return their rent money. The fire occurred just after the 1st of the month. She was not.

The nuisance property ordinance:

This ordinance allows police departments to penalize landlords for the behavior of their tenants. Most properties were designated “nuisances” because an excessive number of 911 calls were made within a certain timeframe. In Milwaukee the threshold was three or more calls within a thirty-day period. (Pg. 190)

Each time this happens the landlord receives a nuisance citation. In almost all cases, the only course of action accepted by the Milwaukee PD is eviction.

Why is this a problem?

A battered woman either has to keep quiet and face abuse or call the police and face eviction. This ordinance also prevents neighbors who should call 911 when they hear sounds of abuse to stay quiet and mind their own business.

How much money these landlord’s make?

Granted most people are not up to the task of renting to those living in the inner city, but those who do are making money. This is achieved despite tenants not always making rent payments on time or not full.  Landlords make money by not making necessary repairs, purchasing cheap properties and charging high rents. 

Final Thoughts:
Matthew Desmond only included the stories in Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City he was able to verify as accurate and backed up all of his findings with extensive research. I enjoyed that despite having been present for many of the events included in the book Desmond kept himself out of the story until the final chapter. Evicted is written in a conversational tone and would be a great choice for a social justice book club. I guarantee you will have a lot to talk about.

I highly recommend this book.

To learn more about Matthew Desmond and his project go to this website.

"I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review."

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How Not to Feel Trapped? Advice from Andre Agassi

One of my coworkers, I will call him Frank, is trapped in his job.  He is approaching 70 and forced to continue working to pay for his wife’s medical expenses. His wife has been bedridden for several years due to M.S. Frank is loud, abrasive and intimidating.  His constant complaining brings his entire department down.  Frank is also at the top of the list of employees my company hopes to force into retirement with our software conversion.

I read Andre Agassi’s book Open: An Autobiography earlier this year for my savvy reading challenge.  While thinking about my new series staying relevant over 50 I couldn’t help, but think of Andre Agassi.

The surprising thing you learn early in Agassi’s book is he hated playing tennis.  From an early age when his dad bought a fire breathing dragon contraption that shot tennis balls out of its mouth he hated tennis.  Tennis was his dad’s dream not his own.

Andre thinks a lot about what he can control in tennis and in life:

I tell Perry that I having no choice, having no say about what I do or who I am, makes me crazy.  That is why I put more thought, obsessive thought, into the few choices I do have – what I wear, what I eat, who I call my friends. (Pg. 66)

I obsess about the few things I can control and racket tension is one of them.  (Pg. 13)

The time has come.  I need to take control of my money.  I need to take control of my F***ing Life. (Pg. 114)

I find peace in his claim that perfectionism is voluntary.  Perfectionism is something I choose, and its ruining me, I can choose something else. (Pg. 189)

And lastly, his life and his tennis (he was losing a lot) didn’t improve until he chose tennis:

I play and keep playing because I choose to play. Even if it’s not your ideal life, you can always choose it. No matter what your life is choosing it is everything. (pg. 359)

Agassi also began using the money he made from tennis to make a difference. In 2001, Agassi opened the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy in Las Vegas, a tuition-free charter school for at-risk children in the area. According to Wikipedia, he personally donated $35 million to the school.

Do you feel trapped in your job?  According to Forbes, 52.3% of Americans are unhappy with their work.

From time-to-time I too feel trapped in my job.  My husband retired last year and ever since we’ve been bombarded with unexpected bills; ranging from helping a family member, to dental and medical expenses to a new vehicle for me. Plans of early retirement continue to get pushed further into the future.  

What can I do?
I can change my attitude and choose my job. I can remember why I decided to become an accountant – I thought it would be a reliable and lucrative career.  And be grateful that for the most part my career has been both.  I can try to stay present at work instead of writing blog posts in my head all day and I can help others.

From time to time I ask Frank how he is managing and he breaks down and tells me not good. That he never lets his wife see his anger or his fear.  I listen and suggest he look into signing his wife up for Medicare (she is 68) and a supplemental plan – and don’t judge why he hasn’t done this already or why our HR manager hasn’t suggested this.

I also find it helpful to leave work at a reasonable time, go to the gym and use my vacation days.

Frank has to choose his job too.  He has made the decision to continue working until his finances are under control and in the process has become difficult to work with.  Management will only put up with a difficult employee so long. If he truly wants to meet his goal he will have to change his attitude.   

Do you feel trapped in your job? How do you cope?

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A "Savvy" New Year

If I could summarize 2015 in one word it would have to be “overwhelming.” It began with having a stressful year-end close after the company I work for had its busiest December ever – I am the accounting manager. Then the day after our year-end audit was completed one of my employees resigned. Her replacement didn’t work out, but of course we didn’t discover she was inept until after she had incorrectly posted a month and a half of payables. I spent most of the summer correcting her work, training a new hire, a summer intern and lastly a part-time employee. On my summer intern’s last day she told me she would never want a job like mine because it seemed - overwhelming.

The good news is after numerous meetings and discussions with my boss and company owners they authorized me to hire a part-time employee. She is awesome and for the first time in the 16-years I’ve been at this company I have someone to help me with “MY” work. So far, I am experiencing the easiest January I’ve ever had. There are rumors that we switching our business software in 2016, so this lull in my workload is most likely temporary. 

I started 2015 with the goal to live healthy on a budget. Living healthy quickly went awry as I began working eleven hour days. I stopped going to the gym and became a frequent visitor to the work candy bowl. Once work settled down, I cancelled my gym membership and joined Jazzercise which is a better fit for me. Their location and class schedule is more convenient and I find the classes more enjoyable and injury free.

But I didn’t get back to working out on a regular basis, until Jazzercise announced their holiday challenge. If I worked out 20 times between November 15 and December 24th, I would win a cosmetic bag:

 

 

I didn’t need or want the bag, but I enjoyed to process of signing in each night and working towards an achievable goal.  With one day to spare, I am happy to announce I took home the little bag.

There is a new challenge for February – attend 30 classes in 35 days and win a tank top.  I know this isn’t a doable challenge for me.  With my work schedule and other priorities I can't realistically attend more than 25 classes.  The Jazzercise owner seemed dejected when I told her so.  She wants everyone to succeed.

Which brings me to my birthday challenge - to become savvy at 53. Back in July I set a goal to read 200 nonfiction books in five years.  The premise is 200-500 books is the equivalent of one good mentor. To date I have read ten books:

1. The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson

2. The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are by Brene Brown

3. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

4. Stalin's Daughter: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva by Rosemary Sullivan

5. Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Nicholas D. Kristof

6. I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Talibanby Malala Yousafzai

7. The Only Woman in the Room: Why Science Is Still a Boys' Clubby Eileen Pollack

8. Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster by Jon Krakauer

9. Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

10. Bad Feministby Roxane Gay

At this rate I’m not going to make my goal, but I don’t want to quit.  So instead I’m giving myself an attainable goal for 2016 - I plan to read 30 nonfiction books.   

Another piece to becoming savvy at 53 is to write down 10 ideas a day. I am happy to report I have kept up with this and have several post ideas I hope to share in the future. My ultimate goal is to bring back Ask Savvy which are my favorite blogging posts.

What are your goals for 2016?  Are they realistic and attainable?

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My Year in Nonfiction - 2015

Woo-Hoo – it’s nonfiction November!

I’ve been reading nonfiction almost exclusively for several years now, so I am excited Kim, Becca, Lu, and Katie are hosting Nonfiction November - a month dedicated to reading and celebrating nonfiction - again this year.

This week Kim of Sophisticated Dorkiness asks about our year in reading. I’ve read 17 nonfiction books to-date in 2015. Here they are in chronological order along with my opinions:

French Women Don't Get Facelifts: The Secret of Aging with Style & Attitudeby Mireille Guiliano
Intrigued by the title, I picked this one up from the library on a whim. I had read Guiliano's previous book French Women Don't Get Fatseveral years earlier and was looking for a book dedicated to appearance. Unfortunately, this book was mostly a recap of her previous work and was disappointing.

The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Businessby Charles Duhigg
I enjoyed this one while reading, but no longer remember much of it - except for the horrible story of casinos taking advantage of a woman with a gambling addiction.

Make the Bread, Buy the Butter: What You Should and Shouldn't Cook from Scratch--Over 120 Recipes for the Best Homemade Foodsby Jennifer Reese 
I read this one for my live healthy on a budget challenge. Despite being entertaining and informative, I never made a single recipe from the book.

Drop Dead Healthy: One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection by A. J. Jacobs
This is another book that wasn’t what I was looking for. I wanted practical, researched health tips, instead this book read like a gimmick.

Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gainby Portia de Rossi
A must read for anyone wanting to learn what it is like to have an eating disorder. De Rossi provides an honest account of what was going on inside her head while suffering from anorexia and bulimia.

Ride of Your Life: A Coast-to-Coast Guide to Finding Inner Peaceby Ran Zilca
This one offered good advice, but I was left wanting more.

Buying In: What We Buy and Who We Are by Rob Walker
A bit dated, but still informative.

Yes Please by Amy Poehler
I know many of you loved this book, but it didn’t work for me and I now find Amy Poehler annoying. I was looking for more of a feminist manifesto. It seemed to me Amy didn’t really want to write this book and only did so because she couldn’t find a way to get out of it. I preferred Tina Fey’s Bossypants.

The Culture Code: An Ingenious Way to Understand Why People Around the World Live and Buy as They Doby Clotaire Rapaille
I don’t have any comments on this one because I can’t remember anything of substance from this book.

Face It: What Women Really Feel as Their Looks Change and What to Do about Itby Vivian Diller Ph.D.
I read this one after spotting it on a list of recommended reading for a female mid-life crisis. It was a decent book written by a psychologist that deals with understanding the emotions women experience as we age. (To be honest, so far I'm not too concerned about my aging looks).

The Power of No: Because One Little Word Can Bring Health, Abundance, and Happiness by James Altucher
I read this over the summer when I was feeling overwhelmed at work. I wasn’t expecting it to offer anything new and didn’t plan on finishing it, so I was surprised by how helpful it actually was.

Triumph of the Heart: Forgiveness in an Unforgiving World by Megan Feldman Bettencourt
I received this book in exchange for an honest review. This was a great study of forgiveness.

Your Life Calling: Reimagining the Rest of Your Life by Jane Pauley
This book was a light and somewhat informative book on reinvention.

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson
This is the best book I've read all year and have been recommending it to everyone. In addition to teaching me about racial history and the great migration, it provided an eye-opening lesson on living in the moment. This is the book I think about most often.

The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Areby Brene Brown
This book taught me that comparison is the cause for much of our unhappiness and that creativity is the key to meaning. It is a good self-help book.

Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
I read this one to learn more about living in the moment, it was helpful, but I started losing interest towards the end.

Stalin's Daughter: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyevaby Rosemary Sullivan:
I loved this book. It provided insight into Stalin, his family and life in Russia during and immediately after his regime. Life for Svetlana doesn’t necessarily get better when she defects to the US. She was looking for freedom, but wasn't prepared for our freedom of the press. The chapters she writes about Ogilvanna Wright (the wife of Frank Lloyd Wright) and Taliesin are highly entertaining and not favorable.

Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwideby Nicholas D. Kristof:
I have 20 pages left to read in this book, but want to mention it because I am sure it will go down as one of the best nonfiction books I’ve ever read.

This process of listing my year of books has been an enlightening experience. I see a pattern of trying to come to terms with my age, searching for help in dealing with work stress and attempting to figure out what to do next. I also realized I don’t want to write about health and have abandoned my life healthy challenge. I am hoping reading Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide is the beginning of a new direction for me.

Books from this list I’ve recommended the most:
The Warmth of Other Suns and Stalin’s Daughter.

What nonfiction topic do you not read enough of?
I am always reading to learn something new or to fulfill a book challenge I've set for myself or to write a review I’ve committed to. I’d like to spend more time reading nonfiction - that reads like fiction  - with the sole purpose being to read a really good book.

My reading picks for nonfiction November are:

I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai

Limbo: Blue-Collar Roots, White-Collar Dreamsby Alfred Lubrano

What are you reading for Nonfiction November? What was your favorite nonfiction read this year?

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