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motherly advice from boss and update

August 9th, 2007 at 02:20 pm

My boss called me in yesterday to tell me that she was worried that I was overly stressed. She said that I reminded her of herself and she wanted me to lighten up on the school load. She kept saying that she was talking to me as if she were my mother… motherly advice vs. boss telling subordinate to shape up. I didn’t even realize that I was stressed out or anything. I felt fine these past few months and thought my work was going fine as well. Then she called from the road later on in the day just to check up on me and make sure I was okay. Yea, whatever. Today, she comes into my office and gives me a hug and tells me that I’m doing a wonderful job and to keep smiling… and to remind me that she feels like she’s looking after me like a mom would. That kind of urked me. I mean it’s not like she’s talking like that to all the men around here. Sure, I’m her daughter’s age but I don’t need a mother at work. It’s just her style, I guess… either that or she thinks I’m the most fragile employee she has. Whatever…

It’s been so hot here this week. We don’t have AC in the house so DH has been miserable. I’m okay with the heat but he can’t stand it. We’ve only been in the house a year and we had decided to try to make it through a couple of years before getting AC. All the duct work is in place since we have gas heat, so it’s just a matter of getting a unit installed and voila. The only thing is that we’ve already spent a fortune getting our retaining wall installed that cash is a bit tight…(see below). But, the house has been at around 85 degrees all week and I even have to admit that it’s been really hot. DH was that close to getting a window unit last night for $130 but I talked him out of it. I just can’t see the benefit of putting in a window unit in the bedroom just so that he can sleep… shouldn’t you be awake to enjoy the AC? Just a difference of opinion… the heat should only last about a month out of the entire year for the area we live in so would it be worth getting AC for the entire house? That’s the question that I’ve been asking… of course hubby thinks we’d have it on for more like 4 months out of the year since he would definitely use it if it were available.

On the more fun financial side of things…

I placed two trades with Zecco… I didn’t want (nor could I afford) to do much stock trading so I started off with just $100. I bought one share of company X and another share of company Y. I bought these while the stock market was down last week so we’ll see how much activity comes about once the market goes back and stays up. It was nice not to have to pay any fees to purchase these stocks. So far so good with Zecco.

I had done a BT transfer at 0% to get money for building our retaining wall. Back in June, we took the BT and paid ourselves the $20,000 into our savings account. After paying for the wall and the paving of our driveway, we’re down to $5,000 left. We’ll use that for my tuition and other items. By the time the BT period is over in Jan… we’ll pay it off in Dec to be safe… we’ll have the $20,000 balance on the card down to $12,000. Then we’ll cash in some liquid accounts to the tune of $10,000. That leaves just $2,000 that we’ll need to save between now and Dec to pay off the entire BT amount. It should all work out beautifully… I hope.


DH is really trying to stay within our budget for Aug. He knows that we are a bit “tight” from now until Dec in making sure we have enough money for paying off the BT. I commend him for making an effort… believe me, it’s really tough for him to not whip out the credit card without even thinking. I tried to put him on an all cash diet before and that really didn’t work … caused too much stress for our marriage. So, all that he really carries in his wallet is the one credit card that I pay off each month. We did go over our budget for back-to-school shopping for the kids, but they did need everything that we bought. Using coupons and things helped quite a bit but we ended up going over by about $100. Oh well… will adjust something else to compensate.

It’s official… my raise for this year is 4% and DH got 4.62%. Our “bonus” this year will go up $200 for each of us as well. I will purposely try to budget our raises into savings this time… never really took an effort at doing that before but we seem to be living well within our means right now so it’s a good time to pull that raise amount from the top each month for investing. So for being in our early-mid 30’s, we are now going to bring in a gross salary this year of $97,820 (year being from July-June)…not too shabby. I’m also still in the works to receiving a $5,000 raise that my boss had promised me when I was first hired last year. I had brought that up a few months ago and she was still going to do it but wanted to wait until this fall… I’ll remind her again in the next couple of months. If that comes to fruition, then that will make us go into making six figures. Wow. With such a high income (or at least to me, it is)… you would think that we’d have much more savings. If DH would curb his spending, then we would be able to save a lot more than we do – but marriage takes compromise. He’s just not one to look at the big picture when it comes down to saving/investing for the future… so I have to juggle between saving what I WANT to save and what I really CAN save in order to have the cash to pay off the credit card each month. I would say that the difference is about $1500 each month but oh well. One has to maintain sanity in a successful marriage, right?

8 Responses to “motherly advice from boss and update”

  1. Ima saver Says:
    1186668178

    Wow, that is a high income. My dh and I have never come close to making that much.

  2. fern Says:
    1186677487

    It sounds like she means well and is being sincere; anytime your boss takes a personal liking to you consider yourself LUCKY. Don't be grumpy!

  3. katwoman Says:
    1186679108

    You might wanna lighten up on the AC issue. I mean, what could a window unit hurt? If it's not wanting to spend the money you could always buy used off of Freecycle or Craigslist.

    I grew up without AC and although I can "take it" there are periods when the heat and humidity are unbearable. Especially the hot nights! It almost seems cruel to me to allow someone to suffer like that even if it is for a short time.

  4. mbkonef Says:
    1186682994

    I must say, I don't consider myself spoiled or high maintenance, but having air conditioning is on my list of non-negotiable must haves. Even though it is only for a month or two each year that we really need it in our area, I refuse to be miserable for a month or two.

  5. all4money Says:
    1186683219

    Ima- I do feel very fortunate that DH and I have good jobs. Smile
    fern- Oh, I'm not grumpy. It was definitely constructive criticism and I took it that way... I just am a perfectionist and if I even think that my boss doesn't like what I'm doing, it worries me. But, I know she means well. Thanks for the reassurance.

    katwoman/mbkonef- Well, I went out and bought a $16 window fan today at lunch. Let's see if that helps at all. That, along with the ceiling fan and the other 2 small desktop fans, might help. If not, we'll see about getting a window unit this weekend... maybe I have been a bit too stubborn on this?

  6. baselle Says:
    1186716796

    A little saying that helped me out:
    It's not what you make, it's what you keep.

  7. terri77 Says:
    1186729268

    I'm not all touchy feely and it would bother me to have my boss hugging on me or if I feel that she was overly involved in my personal life BUT...you are blessed to have a boss that seems to care about you as a person and not a commodity. So she doesn't talk to the men like that? I wouldn't care as long as she was giving me the same amount of respect and consideration.

  8. annab Says:
    1186757456

    The boss thing would really bother me. Especially if she's not doing it to the other employees. YMMV, but I don't want their to be a confusion between a professional and parental role.

    And I would definitely agree that it's worth paying the $$ for a good night's sleep. If you can't sleep well at night, it reduces your productivity and overall isn't good for your health, even in the short term. Not to mention the fact that it makes one very irritable. It's a necessity at my house.

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