Debt Wars Episode II: Attack of the Loans

While I typically try to give direct advice to the reader about financial decisions in my blog posts on the subject, I sometimes find it helpful to pause and document my own personal finance journey. This, I hope, can give you some context for where my perspective comes from and make the problem feel a little more concrete.

In this case, I’m continuing my so-called “Debt Wars” series because of a recent development: my fiancee’s student loans officially went into repayment because she completed her Master’s Degree over six months ago. We were already paying $600/month toward my student loans, and this adds a further $300/month for hers. Her loan balance is lower than mine ($53,130 versus $63,908 as of this writing), but the payments are so much lower because we picked a slower repayment plan for the time being while we try to make it out of 2019 alive financially.

You see, life was going to get more expensive this year for us anyway. Our rent is about to go up with our roommate, my sister, moving out, from $1000/month to $1500; we are going to be paying for a nontrivial portion of our wedding costs; and we are hoping to transition into homeownership later this year. We have a decent amount of money saved up to help us accomplish these goals (about $16,000 as of this writing), and we are fortunate enough to have a respectable combined household income of about $96,000/year.

But this is the crux of the frustration for me with student loan debt. The cost of living in Northern Colorado, while not as obscene as, say, San Francisco, is pretty high to begin with. Between our student loan payments and our car payment of $400/month, we pay $1300—almost an entire paycheck for me—into loans before we use any money on anything.

This makes it meaningfully harder to get married, to buy a house, to start a family. Meanwhile, idiots write articles about how millennials are “killing” the market for diamonds, beer, and Applebee’s, none of which had any value to begin with.

Hmm. Why would people paying $900/month for the audacity of getting an education be skipping out on your worthless (or even cruel or dangerous) product?

“Well, the market can bear it, so the prices should rise, durk-a-dur.” Just because a thing like education or healthcare can continue rising in price because it dramatically impacts an individual’s quality of life doesn’t mean that it should. You can price gouge people until they can’t afford to survive on their poverty wages, but that doesn’t make it right. Anyway, the whole “the market is bearing it so it’s fine” argument is contradictory to the notion of encouraging a competitive market. The fact is, it’s not fine, and we shouldn’t accept it as “fine” if we’re true ‘merican capitalists anyway.

One bright spot in this whole fiasco is that my car balance has dropped significantly since I wrote Episode I, from $17,000 to $10,768. Give it another year or two, and we can check that one box off! It seems like it’ll never end, but for now we’ll keep on keeping on.

As you can probably surmise, this is one frustrating situation. Is anyone else dealing with a similar struggle with their student loans or other debts? Let me know how you’re handling it in the comments!

Post number 57.

Should you go to college right after high school?

Are you finishing up high school and thinking about going to college? If you are in your late teens, you have probably gotten a lot of advice from the people around you about whether or not you should dive into higher education immediately after becoming a legal adult.

I am not a financial expert or a self-made millionaire, but I am twenty-six years old, so I had to make this decision myself a few years ago and have been living with the consequences since then. Historically, the type of advice I hope to give you in this article was given to people by their parents, which was all well and good… until recently. Now, technology is evolving faster than ever, and that is changing our culture (and the economy) so quickly that the advice your parents can give you about this decision is likely irrelevant to the modern world.

So here is my personal advice on what you should do with your time after you finish up high school and become a legal adult. There are four crucial considerations to make, as far as I can tell, so let’s talk about those.

Pro tip: don’t go to college because half of them look like a damn castle. You can always visit the castle they filmed Harry Potter at later.

#1: The Money Problem

First and foremost, as you’ve likely heard, college is expensive. But I don’t just mean “you’ll need to bust your ass the summer before it starts and you’ll be okay” kind of expensive, which is how it may have been for your parents. I mean it’s really expensive.

But what do I mean by “really expensive”? Let me give you some real-life numbers—the ones I was, and am, working with:

I went to college at Colorado State University from 2010 to 2015. I took the year off because I went into college undeclared, unsure of what I wanted to do with my life. I came back to earn a Bachelor of Arts in Communication Studies, a minor in English, and a minor in Business Administration. I had no scholarships, but some financial aid in the form of Colorado’s College Opportunity Fund. My first year, when I took out loans to cover the cost of living on campus, cost over $16,000. Each subsequent year, in which I worked my way through college to pay rent, cost $10,000-$13,000 each.

By the time I got my diploma, I had accrued over $50,000 of student loans including interest. My freshman year loan was done through Wells Fargo; the rest were done through the FedLoan servicing, one of the government’s loan services for public loans.

And remember, this was from 2010 to 2015, when college cost a little less than it does now.

That cap and gown (which the college also made me pay for) were totally not worth it! Disclosure: that guy in the picture is not me. I was not nearly that happy.

So college is going to cost you a lot of money. A $50,000 loan, for me, originally translated to monthly payments of $1000/month before I refinanced them. Now, I pay $600/month).

“That’s no big deal!” you say. “I’ll make $20,000/year at my local Target or Wal-Mart and have that paid off in three years!”

You haven’t lived on your own, fictional speaker, have you?

Ok, ok, I’m sure you, dear reader, are smarter than the fictional speaker. First, because a $20,000/year wage is before taxes; second, because you will have lots of expenses besides your student loans to pay anyway when you moved out of your parents’ place ($1000/month in rent is pretty reasonable here in northern Colorado, and it’s pretty easy to spend well over $500/month on food if you aren’t careful); and third, because interest.

Still, I felt it was worth pointing out that those things are all the case, and that you will be miserable trying to pay $600/month in student loans while working at Target. I didn’t feel I could comfortably pay my loans until I was reporting $50,000/year in income on my taxes, and even then it was gut-wrenching.

Long story short: life in the United States is expensive without your parents, and if you’re taking out student loans like me, you absolutely do not want to be paying student loans on top of it all.

Make sure you know the math. Don’t let a college manipulate you!

“But what if I want to go to college and I have a financial solution?”

That’s terrific! Knock yourself out, fictional speaker. If you definitely want the college experience, definitely know what you want to do in college, and your parents can pay for your education (or you have a hefty load of scholarships helping you out), the money problem is not a problem for you.

Otherwise, think long and hard about how expensive it will be to go college. Don’t let your parents, your peers, or even me sway you if you don’t feel you’re financially ready.

#2: The Confidence Problem

The second big problem with people going to college is that they often do it, not because they want to, but because they don’t know what else to do with their lives. But make no mistake: blowing $50,000 while you figure things out is a bad way to start your adult life.

In short, you should absolutely not go to college with an undeclared major, period (don’t do what I did). That shows that you have no clear purpose for what you’re doing, and are digging yourself a massive financial hole while you decide.

Not pictured: the existential dread of having to pay student loan balances they’ve been willfully ignoring for four years or more.

“But what if I know exactly what field I want to go into, and it requires a degree?”

Just like before: go for it! If you know, in your heart and soul, that you want to be a doctor, or a lawyer, or a teacher, and you have a reasonable financial solution to pay for the degree (the first two might even pay for themselves, really), by all means go get the degree.

The thing to bear in mind is that there is plenty to do in the adult world that you have likely not experienced, will likely want to do, and don’t need to take out a loan to try while you make up your mind about what “dream job” you even want. For example, it could be a great idea to get a starting job, maybe somehow connected to a field you’re vaguely interested in, move in with some roommates, and see what it’s like to pay bills and live without your parents.

That may sound simple, but it will likely challenge you in some way—the chores are split between you and your roommates rather than you, your parents, and your siblings; you have complete freedom to eat a gallon of ice cream, and to suffer the consequences of doing so; and there will be no one at all to remind you that you need to leave that money in your bank account because rent is due before your next paycheck. You even have to go out of your way to meet new people your age, where school was secretly giving this element of life to you for free.

You can buy this with your money, and no one else’s approval.

These are essential things to understand so you can adult more effectively for the rest of your life. But interestingly, we prioritize going to college over learning these things firsthand, early, when we’re young and the stakes are low. No one is going to teach them all to you because they quickly become second nature after doing them for a year or two, but it’s better not to get slammed with them in addition to the challenge of proving to businesses that your degree is worth something (which, make no mistake, they will question, because most college degrees are not that helpful in the workforce).

Plus, if you do get a job in a field you’re interested in, excel at it, and enjoy it, it’s still quite possible to work your way up the ladder to the job you actually want—and that path doesn’t cost $50,000.

Learning is immensely valuable, but books aren’t only found in schools.

#3: The Value Problem: “What if I want to be a writer, a welder, or a software developer?”

Another major problem I see with how people decide on going to college is that they often assume they need a college degree for a field that absolutely does not require one.

Yes, you can get a degree before pursuing any of the jobs I listed above, but none require it. I don’t need my degree to write this blog, even though the writing practice and tutoring helped; my coworker’s spouse is a welder and didn’t need a degree for it; and in the entire software consultancy I work for, Radial, there are several employees with college degrees, but none with Computer Science degrees.

For all of these endeavors, I absolutely suggest getting training to pursue the career path. It is likely worth it to pay a mentor to teach you a craft like writing or photography that could (eventually) pay better than Walmart or McDonald’s, and will certainly be more fulfilling and flexible. It is also worth considering the idea of pursuing a semi-formal education online (by going to a coding bootcamp, for example, if you want to learn to code). Some career fields, like welding, plumbing, or construction work, will even pay you on the job to learn the craft.

Some of these options cost money, but none cost $50,000 in inescapable student loan debt—which is to say, if you decide to take out student loans despite my warnings, you can’t escape them by declaring bankruptcy. It’s totally fine, maybe even encouraged, to spend money to educate yourself, because it will give you that “well, I did spend money on this” feeling on the days when you’d otherwise give up. But a $10,000 six-month coding bootcamp is an absolute steal compared to a $50,000 four-year college degree, and many come with money-back guarantees.

Relax a little!

#4: The Urgency Problem

Clearly there are several scenarios where it’s still worth it, in my mind, to go to college. As long as you have a financial plan, know exactly what degree you want to pursue, and that degree is necessary for the job you want, it’s totally fine to go to college. You’ll probably like it more than high school. But even with that possibility in mind, there’s one final caveat to consider: there’s no rush.

None at all. Not even a little bit. You’ve likely felt like there is one, because you have a busy schedule and lots of well-meaning adults telling you to hurry up and “figure out what you want to do with your life.”

But rushing it is maybe the worst thing you could do. What career path to pursue and whether or not you should go to college are big, momentous life choices, now more than ever because college is so ridiculously overpriced in the U.S. Making a snap judgment about them is a great way to wake up when you’re fifty with a job you despise.

Besides, you have over forty years in the workforce in which to make something of yourself. Now is a great time to experiment, to screw up, to figure out what you enjoy. You could literally spend the next ten years trying different jobs and ideas out, messing up every single thing you do in the process, wake up at twenty-eight, and still be the youngest person in the room at most companies you’ll work for (at twenty-six, I’m the youngest full-time developer at Radial).

The thing is, you can only truly know if you’ll like a job if you’ve done it, which is why you’re likely struggling to pick a career path—I sure was. I return to my earlier advice: start at the bottom of the career field you think you’ll really love, work for the experience, and supplement it with a shit job at a retail outlet or restaurant if you must, because they usually don’t pay the guy who gets the coffee very well.

Then, when you find out you actually hate working at a music studio and your real passion is photography, you haven’t spent $50,000 on a music degree.

You know what’s better than high school? Being an adult.

Closing Thoughts: High School Will Not Be the Best Time of Your Life

I’m not sure about you, but while I was in high school, I kept hearing this mantra that I should “cherish” it, because it’s the best time of your life. Guess what?

That was a load of horse shit. Complete, utter, horse shit. Every year since I was nineteen, my life has gotten meaningfully better and more fulfilling.

Honestly, every time people told me high school is the best part of life, it’d make me feel miserable about the future. I didn’t like high school much, so it sounded like there was nothing to look forward to.

Don’t get me wrong, there are some perks to being in high school that you’ll miss. You probably have some free time, you don’t have to worry about bills or paychecks, and school made it much easier to meet people your own age (honestly I’m not sure where twenty-six-year-olds hang out).

But for my part, I would never, ever trade my life now for my life in high school. In high school, I might be wealthy. Next week, I could be broke. I might be able to buy that video game I want right now. I might not. I might be able to get the food I’m craving. I might have to wait. None of that was my choice; it was all my parents’ decision, and I felt I had to deal with the consequences whether the decision was good or not.

Pictured: things you are more likely to feel after high school than during it

Now, whether I make the right decision or the wrong one, the choice is mine. I can just drive somewhere, or go on a walk when I’m stressed, or eat ice cream when I had a rough day. There’s no curfew. Oftentimes there isn’t even a penalty.

Of course, as the adults will say, these freedoms come with more responsibility. If you make too many bad decisions, you run out of money, you don’t pay rent on time, and now you’re homeless. If you don’t take the time to take care of yourself (pro tip: always give yourself at least one day a week off), you’ll find yourself stressed and exhausted on a regular basis, caffeine or no.

But let me tell you, when you get used to the difficulty spike, being an adult is way, way better, as long as you can do basic math and are moderately responsible. So get really good at it, then decide if college is really what you need. The answer is probably no, because life’s too short to pay $600/month in student loans for fifteen years.

Post number 56.

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Where Dave Ramsey Falls Short

My wife and I have over $100,000 of debt between the both of us. That balance consists almost entirely of student loans because we had the audacity to get college degrees in the United States without having rich parents.

A bit scary to live with, right? After moving my wife’s payments from the “extended” plan to the “standard” plan, our monthly student loan expense, at a minimum, is $1200. It is a massive burden on our finances and gives us much less flexibility to switch careers or invest in ourselves. At my current, reasonably-respectable salary of about $45/hour, I have to work almost 27 hours a week just to cover our loans.

For a while, my wife and I were following the advice of Dave Ramsey, the smiling man in the picture below. He’s a financial advice guru with several books, a podcast, live events, the whole nine yards. When I got frustrated with my student loan payments, he was one of the first people I was told I should listen to because of the “debt snowball” strategy he touts.

Ramsey hates debt, passionately. His business is built on a one-size-fits-all, seven-step financial solution to building wealth, with the aforementioned debt snowball encapsulated in step 2:

1. Save $1000 as a mini emergency fund

2. Pay off all of your non-house debt

3. Save a bigger emergency fund (6 months of expenses)

4. Begin investing 15% of your household income for retirement

5. Save for your kid’s college fund

6. Pay off your home early

7. Build wealth and give

For the most part, this is good advice. You could certainly do a lot worse, and spend a lot more money on sleazy financial advisors than it’ll cost you to explore Dave’s website or read his book (he doesn’t pay me, by the way).

But doing some simple math, you will notice that this approach of paying off all of your debts before saving or investing anything is leaving a lot of money on the table for someone like me. That is several years of debt payments with absolutely no savings. I could probably get a down payment together for a rental property, invest in the S&P 500, get into some REIT’s, buy some shares of healthy dividend-paying blue chip stocks, or start building myself a nice passive income instead.

Of course, this is the problem with one-size-fits-all solutions in general: it sort of fits everyone, but perfectly fits almost no one.

Remember when people used actual calculators?

In fairness, Dave himself has added a few grains of salt to his advice through his platform. First of all, when people call into him and say they make $10/hour at Walmart, the first thing he (correctly) tells them is that their primary problem is their income, not debt. You have no leverage if your income is next to nothing, and make no mistake, $10/hour is next to nothing in 2020.

Fortunately, my household is sitting at about $100,000/year in income right now (feeling squeamish hearing about other people’s finances yet? Don’t worry, it’s just the America in you). That’s not “rolling in it”, exactly, but with a reasonable lifestyle, we have about $2000/month that we can throw at debt, savings, and financial goals.

I observed this flexibility in action when we got married in 2019. Having some money set aside was essential. And the thing is, it makes more mathematical sense for us to build some passive income streams now, when we are young and in our mid-twenties, than to keep eating ramen for several years until the debt goes away (speaking of, this blog could be a great income stream for us if you like this article and want to support the platform).

Hey, I have to eat too. Takes a lot of Washingtons.

Another grain of salt is that if you read that book I linked above, The Total Money Makeover, it feels as though Dave has made several assumptions about you before you started reading. He tends to assume that you are middle-aged, are already married, have a house in suburban America, probably have a few kids, and, again, have a respectable income to begin with.

Many of these are not true for our household. We are younger than Dave’s average reader seems to be, meaning we can leverage time better than many others, who are trying to fix a financial crisis in their 50’s rather than a big, but not-insurmountable problem, in their 20’s. We also just got married, just got a house, and don’t have kids. We only recently built a respectable income.

Your money grows when you invest it. Look at the metaphor! Look at it!

I would also argue that Dave’s solution is designed to be stupid-proof because he’s speaking to everyone. If you have ever worked in a restaurant or a retail environment, you know there are a lot of dumb people around, and Dave has to cover their needs, too.

So, there are a few things he says that I do not strictly agree with, but I understand why he says it to people who constantly make bad financial decisions. For example, in his book, Dave says you should never use a credit card so you only spend money you already have. I say you can use a credit card (especially cash-back cards, where the rewards are more likely to be put to use than flier miles) if you are conscious of your budget and do not blow money constantly. Be smart to begin with and you won’t have a problem! For reference, I tend to use credit cards with consistent cash back rates and no annual fees, then pay them off with every paycheck. For me, that means a free meal with my wife or a free tank of gas pretty much every month.

Dave also suggests saving $1000 for a rainy day, but not saving any more until you pay off all of your debts. I would argue that $1000 is not enough to cover most rainy days. Car repairs reliably cost more than $1000, as do almost anything to do with your house. Besides, if you save, you can build up a stream of passive income faster and worry less about how much your job pays. Dave admits that there are times to halt the debt snowball, but I am not sure we would agree on how often that should be.

Mostly, I notice that Dave’s advice tends to assume you need a financial advisor to build passive income which is patently false. I would rather devote my money to investments that pay me than save a few hundred bucks by paying a student loan down faster. It may take time, but I would rather double my monthly income than be completely debt-free.

All in all, Dave’s advice is not a bad starting point. It’s actually pretty good. But bear in mind that it makes more sense for people with small debt balances ($5000-$10,000, for example, is small in my book) and folks who are older. For me, there are more pressing things to do with my money.

Post number 55.

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Six-Figure Incomes

So you’re tired of living paycheck to paycheck…

Let’s hush the noise and talk for a moment.

You’ve been told, I’m sure, that “money isn’t everything.” In fact, it may just be “the root of all evil.” Who told you this? The media, of course, and people who listen to it. Perhaps some of the folks who repeat these mantras ad nauseam are well-intentioned, and are trying to encourage you not to be greedy.

Except that there’s a problem with this blanket perception of wealth in a society that operates on fiat currency: it makes people think that being wealthy is a bad thing. I know, you say you would love to win the lottery, right? If some unfathomable, unattainable pipe dream were to occur, you’d be happy that it happened.

But you wouldn’t strive for wealth, would you? Would you charge someone $100/hour for your time? Do you ask your boss for a raise every six months? Do you get a new job every 2-3 years, since you’re more valuable to the market than to your current employer?

Most folks, if they’re honest, would say no to most or all of those last few questions. This has resulted in a society where we don’t talk about money because we’re all bad at managing it and don’t know why. I swear, some people would rather talk about their sex lives than their finances! I mean sure, you can penny-pinch and spend less at Starbucks and pay down your debts and whatever the latest craze is, but at the end of the day (and I want to be clear about this),

You will not become wealthy working at a grocery store

Period. The math does not add up. So the job matters. The quality of life matters—if your commute or coworkers or boss or workplace exhausts you, it’s much harder to stay on top of the job and everything else going on at home.

Is the job full-time or part-time? That matters tremendously, too. The graph above’s source discusses how hourly pay, in inflation-adjusted dollars for nonsupervisory roles, has nearly caught up to its peak in 1972. But hourly pay doesn’t account for how many hours per week an employee works. In 1972, that number was right around 40—full-time employment was the rule, not the exception. Nowadays, the source suggests, we’re sitting around 33.7 hours per week, likely because companies aren’t legally required to provide healthcare for part-time workers. This makes the graph look quite a bit different:

And if the quality of life and number of hours matter, you can bet the actual hourly pay matters. You can claim money doesn’t matter to you until you’re blue in the face, but it won’t help you when your rent, your student loan bill, and your car payment come due.

So here are a few career path suggestions I’ve tracked down that can pay you a good, solid salary. If you’re already in a high-paying job, that’s fantastic! Let me know in the comments (especially if I didn’t mention your field). But I frequently get questions from peers about what job they should look for, and I wanted to compile a few answers that won’t make them miserable every time they get a bill.

To be clear, as much as I espouse getting a high-income job, I agree that there are more factors than the paycheck to what kind of job you should get. You may not live in an area where some of these options are even available, and you certainly shouldn’t get into an industry you’re sure you’ll hate. But I wound encourage you to pick a job that pays well and you like over a job you love that doesn’t pay anything. Do that thing you love in your free time until it starts paying the bills.

Six-Figure Jobs, Organized by What You Want to Do

Help People or Animals With Physical Problems

Doctors generally don’t decide to be doctors solely for the well-renowned pay (though that pay makes this industry one of the few that is still worth the price of higher-education tuition). Doctors often choose their career path to help people, or animals, with health-related problems. In my research, I found that jobs related to fixing and checking up on physical conditions tend to pay better than those related to mental and emotional conditions. Here are a few examples:

1. Surgeon.

2. Physician (even Physician Assistants, who don’t need nearly as much schooling to get started, can pull six-figure salaries)

3. Veterinarian

4. Nurse

5. Optometrist

6. Dentist

7. Pharmacist

8. Anesthesiologist

9. Obstetrician

Help People Through Mental and Emotional Problems

While the very highest-paid doctors (typically surgeons) make the most bank, if you would rather help people through stressful situations, relationship issues, and challenging mental disorders like depression or bipolar disorder, there are a couple jobs that can net a six-figure salary while you’re at it.

1. Psychiatrist

2. Psychologist

Help People With Financial Concerns, Economic Research

Unsurprisingly, many jobs helping people with their finances, or researching larger economic trends, can net six-figure salaries. If you prefer to work with just a few large accounts rather than many consumer accounts, many of these jobs are also options for business-to-business (B2B) companies.

This is also the first time I’ve touched on the possibility of researching for a living, in the case of the Economist position below. Did you sort of like doing research assignments in school, to the bafflement of most of your peers? You will likely find that working in an educational environment will be a great fit for you.

1. Financial Analyst or Advisor

2. Economist

3. Actuary (I didn’t know what this was before writing this—actuaries determine the financial risk of a specific outcome. For example, you may determine the statistical probability of a customer at a car insurance company crashing their car. Actuaries tend to have impressively-high job satisfaction.)

4. Loan Officer

Help People With Legal Concerns

To no one’s surprise, working with the law frequently leads to a six-figure salary. Like being a doctor, you know you’re in for a lot of schooling if you pick this career, but there’s a great path to student loan forgiveness if you’re willing to start your career in public service.

Beyond the numbers and the stereotypes though, lawyers often say the same thing as doctors about why they chose their profession: they felt that the knowledge they would acquire in their complex field of choice was a tool they could use to help people through difficult situations. In case you’re curious, Intellectual Property Law and Medical Law tend to pay the most.

1. Lawyer

2. Judicial Law Clerk

3. Judge

4. Magistrate

5. Arbitrator, Mediator, or Conciliator (often negotiate between two entities, such as for divorce settlements)

Solve Complex Logical Problems

While lawyers could likely fit under this category as well, from what I can tell, solving logical problems is not usually what makes people want to pursue a career in the law. That’s often what people who work with computer systems like to do. With software in particular (my job), you may be fixing styling and formatting, which is a bit more visually-focused, but you will often find that developing software requires managing large amounts of data. Computers are how modern people store data of all kinds—everything from their contact list, items they are selling online, their grocery list, and their credit card information are all stored on computers.

If you like the idea of working on these sorts of problems (in a high-paying industry, no less), a job in computer hardware or software may be the thing for you.

1. Software Developer/Engineer (the line between those two titles is pretty vague)

2. Computer/Information Research Scientist

3. Hardware Engineer

4. Database Administrator

Traveling and Helping People With It

Admittedly, none of these options mean “go on vacation all year long,” but jobs in the air and at sea can command high salaries, even into the six-figure range. Better yet, as I learned from a friend of mine, there are certifications to becoming an Air Traffic Controller or Aircraft Pilot, but no expensive, time-consuming college degree is necessary.

1. Air Traffic Controller

2. Aircraft Pilot, Flight Engineer

3. Captain or Pilot of a Water Vessel

4. Transportation Inspector

Build cool things

Again, this field has some overlap with the Hardware and Software Engineers above. But if you like the idea of building things, whether they be electrical systems, buildings, or space ships, many engineering jobs pay handsomely.

1. Electrical Engineer

2. Mining and Geological Engineers

3. Chemical Engineers

4. Nuclear Engineers

5. Sales Engineers (usually, this means explaining a technical product in the context of a sale, like selling a new internal computer system to a business)

6. Aerospace Engineers

7. Architectural and Engineering Managers

8. Petroleum Engineers

Solve Complex Mathematical or Scientific Problems

Like the Economist and Computer Research Scientist positions listed above, these jobs tend to be research-heavy and are probably a good pick if you don’t want to be dealing with consumers too much (introverts unite?). They require college degrees, but are another field that’s in enough demand that the pay will be worth the effort.

1. Mathematician

2. Astronomer

3. Physicist

4. Natural Sciences Manager

Teach People

The going logic is that teachers aren’t paid very well. This is generally true in public school, but college professors and the administrators managing public school teachers can command some respectable salaries. Here are a few fields I found that often pay six figures, but there are likely many more.

1. Engineering or Architecture Professor

2. Health Professor

3. Home Economics Professor

4. Art, Drama, or Music Professor

5. Education Administrator

Entertain People

The arts and entertainment industries vary wildly in terms of pay. For every successful writer or video editor, there are often twenty or thirty starving artists (or more). That being said, self-expression is a highly rewarding thing to be paid for, and it’s often achievable if you’re talented (be honest) and a committed self-starter.

Other jobs on this list are not about being creative, but about facilitating people having fun, and getting paid well to do it. Who doesn’t like making people smile?

1. Gaming Manager (managing a casino)

2. Makeup Artist

3. Art Director

4. Broadcast News Analyst

5. Writer/Author (this can pay six figures, but is challenging to get into—successful writers typically write lots of things on lots of platforms to get exposure, so this means writing books, writing articles, writing blogs, etc).

6. Film and Video Editor

7. Multimedia Artist/Animator

Sell Things

Like to sell things to people? You probably know whether this is the case or not already. Usually, when you’re talking to a good salesperson, it doesn’t feel like they’re selling you anything. It’s more about building a relationship and setting up a sale of a thing that helps someone in some way. Here are a few types of salespeople who can take home six-figure salaries.

1. Insurance Sales Agent

2. Pharmaceutical Sales Agent

3. Real Estate Agent

4. Securities, Commodities, or Financial Services Sales Agent

Work With Your Hands

Like working with your hands and want to skip the lengthy college degree? Many trades like plumbing and welding pay surprisingly well because they’re in such high demand, and you can even get paid to learn on the job.

1. Elevator Installers and Repairer

2. Plumber

3. Welder

4. Construction/Architectural Manager

Manage People and Businesses

Managers of all sorts are paid six figures, and many businesses need operational employees of some kind (like HR people and Technical Writers) to keep things running smoothly. If you like managing people, you might be surprised how easy it is to get a management position at some companies—lots of people don’t want to manage others, leaving the job unfilled.

1. Purchasing Manager

2. Advertising and Promotions Manager

3. Training and Development Manager

4. Human Resource Manager

5. Industrial Production Manager

6. General and Operations Manager

7. Public Relations and Fundraising Manager

8. Compensation and Benefits Manager

9. Marketing and Sales Manager

10. Chief Executive

11. Technical Writer

12. Financial Manager

13. Computer and Information Systems Manager

Well, there’s the list! I’m going to do a deeper dive into these positions in future, and also work on a list of jobs that don’t pay six figures, but that pay respectably with no college degree necessary.

Sources for the jobs: 24/7 Wall Street, The Balance Careers, Forbes, more Forbes, my life

Post number 54.

Christmas Letter 2018

Hi everyone, and Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy New Year, and Happy Whatever Else You May Celebrate!

It’s hard to believe we’re already at the end of 2018—almost three and a half years since Aarica and I met, and almost two years since I asked her to marry me. But we’re here, and only eight months away from our wedding date.

We couldn’t be more excited for what next year holds (Aarica especially, since she’s getting her braces off shortly, which will mean it’s time for us to get our engagement photos and invites rolling), but for now I’m going to talk about what we’ve been up to since our last Christmas letter.

2018 started off busy and stayed that way. At the very end of 2017, I landed a part-time position as a Software Developer at Radial Development Group, which I worked in conjunction with my full-time position as a Mobile Expert (a glorified Sales Associate) to more effectively pay rent. I was hired on in a sort-of-like-contract-to-hire role as a Lead Developer on one of the many projects our small team was coordinating. Meanwhile, Aarica worked her semester as a student teacher at High Plains School in Loveland. She worked with fifth graders for the first half of the semester, then transitioned to working with the second graders for the latter half.

Emmett did not work.

Neither did the latest addition to the household, Leo, my sister Meghan’s new cat. Emmett sees him as his annoying little brother. I see a giant butt on our table.

But we certainly felt like sleeping along with him after our long work hours. So what did we do?

Go to DisneyWorld, of course!

Animal Kingdom was, well, a zoo. But the Avatar ride and Lion King show were pretty fun!

Aarica had never been to a Disney park, so we thought it was important to see as much as we possibly could.

Cinderella’s Castle. And people scared of rain.

Random visitor names are displayed on the walls on your way into Rock ‘n Rollercoaster in Hollywood Studios. Aarica’s was picked, which made her very excited—her name’s spelling isn’t about to appear on a Coke bottle, after all.

Hollywood Studios is packed to the gills with Star Wars paraphernalia these days. Can’t imagine why.

Epcot was as fun and fascinating as I remembered.

Yes, DisneyWorld is in Florida. Yes, Aarica was cold anyway.

Sooooo we got her coffee.

Ha, look at Aarica’s face on Rock ‘n Rollercoaster!

…Well, touche. I guess I find Space Mountain stars cool?

In short, we had a blast.

But then it was back to work. The High Plains/Radial/T-Mobile shuffle continued until the summer, but we found time to see one of our favorite bands again, The Fratellis.

And got to see Vance Joy at Red Rocks and Blue October at the Ogden.

Vance Joy made a live album of the Red Rocks show!

The summer brought some big changes. Aarica finished her student teaching and dived right into her final classes for her Master’s Degree in Elementary Education, while also picking up a nannying job and applying to about every teaching job she could find to jump right into her new career in the fall.

Meanwhile, I officially closed the door on my life in food and retail, quitting T-Mobile and taking on a full-time position as a Lead Developer at Radial.

Ihaveshakyhandsdon’tjudgeme

Since we haven’t been to enough weddings prior to our own, we went to yet another in June. This one was for Jen, Aarica’s former boss and friend from ABC Child Development Center in Greeley, and her new husband, Britton.

Aarica was a bridesmaid.

The venue was at the top of a mountain that we took a ski lift to get to. It was quite an experience!

Shortly before the school year started, Aarica officially earned her Master’s Degree and landed her first full-time teaching job as a fourth grade teacher at Shawsheen Elementary in Greeley. Here’s her eating ice cream in celebration.

She probably would’ve gone to get ice cream anyway. She rather likes the stuff.

In September, we squeezed one more concert in. After Vance Joy, I felt it was important that we see some badass punk rock in the form of Rise Against at Red Rocks.

And that I rep Radial while I was at it, clearly. But wow it was an incredible show!

We went to lots of great movies this year, as always: Incredibles 2 for our traditional anniversary date; Christopher Robin because of course we saw Christopher Robin (it was quite heartwarming, actually); the utterly-outstanding movies-directed-by-actors, A Star is Born and A Quiet Place; the most underrated movie of the year, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald; the latest in a movie series that has no right to be getting better, but is doing so anyway (Mission Impossible: Fallout); and, of course, the latest Marvel superhero outings (Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War, Ant-Man and the Wasp, and Deadpool 2).

Also, we saw disappointment in film form (Solo: A Star Wars Story), but I guess we should’ve seen that coming based on Ron Howard’s recent track record. It was a bit like drinking La Croix.

But we also did a couple of things a bit out of our comfort zone. Like go to a Halloween… festival, I guess you’d call it? There was one in Denver called Pumpkin Nights that we had a lot of fun at with our friends Charlie and Megan Stoddard.

You know you’re old when you have couple friends?

Aarica was there for the owls though, really.

Unfortunately, not all of 2018 was fun, or even positive. We had a great year, albeit a busy and occasionally-stressful one, but our families met with difficult challenges and heartbreak. Aarica’s grandma was hospitalized and had to get surgery; her sister, Karrisa, has been seeing a speech therapist all year after a car accident she was in over a year ago; my family’s labradoodle, Ellie, died at fourteen years old; my sister Caitlin’s fiancé, Lonnie, broke up with her (after proposing to her in the first place, no less), which led to us road-tripping her back to Colorado from New Orleans; and my grandma, Deanna Rice, passed away in October. We flew out to Maryland for her funeral, where I had the opportunity to speak along with my dad and grandpa about what a wonderful example she was to the people around her.

Fortunately, our families came together to support each other in a fashion that deeply moved me. It’s always hard to watch people you care about go through great adversity, but some small part of me welcomes tragedy for the way it brings out the best in people. We habitually joke around until we hurt someone, fail to take serious things seriously, “troll” people to get a rise out of them, criticize creators more than we create things ourselves, and get outraged (or feign outrage) over trivialities rather than daring to let our inner selves show.

But when tragedy strikes, people’s true natures show. We stop talking about the odd little quirks that sometimes drive us crazy about the people we love, and we start talking about how much they really cared about us, and we them.

Caitlin, Meghan, Aarica, me, Grandma Jackie, Ken, Kelli (my mom), and Grandpa Jack, left to right.

And in any case, there were also some big successes that came from this year for the people around us. Aarica’s younger sister, Karrisa, has nailed down a career path she wants to pursue that she hopes to dig into when she moves to Alabama when their parents return from Japan. Their younger brother, TJ, joined the junior ROTC while going to school at the US Naval Base in Yokosuka. My sister, Caitlin (the middle child of us three), got a job at Mary Blair Elementary School as a Special Education Paraprofessional, got accepted into at least one Neuroscience Master’s Program (with several more applications pending), and got a new boyfriend named Ty who likes Harry Potter and is therefore cooler than Lonnie. My youngest sister, Meghan, graduated from high school, jumped right into the workforce at the local Culver’s (not to mention the world of paying rent), and snatched an internship at Radial out from under the noses of several college students.

And I’m thrilled that there’s so, so much more in store for us all. For our part, Aarica and I are aggressively paying down student loan debt and hope to have it paid off in the next few years; I’m working on a job-experience-sharing social platform called Novum Opus, which I hope to release version 1.0 of next year; and of course, we’re getting married on August 3, 2019.

She’s thrilled, if her constant Pinterest research is anything to go by. I’m thrilled, because I get to marry the most amazing woman I’ve ever met. And we can’t wait to see you all there.

Thanks so much for reading. Have happy and safe holidays, everyone!

Post number 53.