4 Reasons You Might Be Underpaid

Is it a struggle to pay the bills every month? Does it feel like you are throwing every dollar you have into surviving, only to feel like you have nothing left over to show for it? Or do you maybe just wish that you could afford a higher standard of living—a fully-functional car, perhaps, or a house to call your own?

If so, here are 4 key reasons you may have a relatively-low paycheck at the end of the month, and what you can do about each situation. For the purposes of this article, "relatively low" means you are making less than $50,000/year for full-time work in the United States in 2020.

1. You are doing unskilled work.

Unskilled work is the easiest to find, and it can sometimes be hard to get away from. I know from personal experience: I've worked 18 jobs in just 12 years in the workforce, and at least 11 of those jobs required little more on my resume than "has a pulse, will show up for shifts on time."

Other telltale signs of unskilled work are most easily seen if you put yourself in your manager's shoes. How hard would it be to replace you? If they put a "Help Wanted" sign on the front door, what qualifications would a new candidate need to qualify for your exact position?

Worse still, could the company replace you with a computer tomorrow? This was the situation for me when I was a cashier at Target. When I started seeing self-checkouts getting installed, I knew it was time to move on.

There is nothing wrong with doing unskilled work. In fact, it can be a great way to bring in some side income or get a job fast in a pinch. However, working in fields like food and retail, or working solely off of the gig economy, are not pathways to wealth for most people. There are few opportunities for high-paying positions in these arenas, and they usually require many long years of low-paying work to get there.

2. You work in an underpaid sector.

Unfortunately, the job market is not structured so the jobs that help people the most necessarily pay the most. Some fields simply pay better for a whole host of reasons. The most lucrative careers typically pay for the person, not the work the person does (think actors, CEOs, and quarterbacks); some fields have more jobs than there are people who can do them; some jobs are so unappealing that they have to pay well; and, when you look at the numbers, some fields pay better because they are seen as men’s work.

Worth millions?

At the end of the day, it is important to recognize the reality that nurses, pharmacy technicians, social workers, and teachers are simply not paid as well as they should be, even if it is not a reality we want to accept. I absolutely hope that people who love these professions for the good they do for others continue to do them, but if you are in one of them and it is not paying the bills, you will have an uphill battle to climb unless you can find a more lucrative sector of the market to pursue.

3. You are trying to make it in a crowded market.

Lots of people want to be writers, musicians, or actors for a full-time living. And let's not limit artistic work to traditional fields; YouTube vloggers, video game speed-runners, and social media personalities fit this bill, too. The appeal is obvious: self-expression is extremely fulfilling for humans, as is storytelling.

It would be even better to get paid for one of these things though, right? Then you could devote yourself to your artistic endeavor full-time.

That's all true. However, there is very heavy competition to stand out in these fields. As with several of the aforementioned service jobs, many people want to do this work and get paid for it. Plus, measuring quality of an artistic endeavor is highly subjective, so it is hard to “make it” in an artistic field even if you are enormously talented.

That's not to say that you should give up on your dream. Don’t! But if the bills are due and the dream does not yet pay them, make sure to manage your finances some other way, at least for now.

4. You don’t job-hop often enough.

With the advent of internet job boards and online learning platforms, employees can switch jobs more easily than ever, and that is exactly what they are doing. The average time an employee stays at a job before finding another one is only about 4.2 years. It has been that way since 2016.

To be sure, where you are in your career and what type of career you have affect how frequently it makes sense for you to switch jobs. Younger members of the workforce will probably benefit from switching between (and out of) entry-level positions more quickly, whereas older members of the workforce may be in high enough positions that companies will go out of their way, financially, to keep them.

But the average company’s annual raise (3%, ish) is substantially lower than the average pay increase an employee gets when they leave (10% or more). As such, it is wise to be on the lookout for a new job every three years or so for most people.

I had an unusual experience here, but one that still points to the advantage of switching jobs: I received a ~20% raise for staying another year at my last job, but received a ~30% raise (not counting benefits) for switching jobs the year after.

Next Steps

Does one of these reasons (or more than one) sound like your situation? If they do and you are considering a career change, check out our posts about careers that lead to six-figure salaries and high-paying jobs that don't require a Bachelor's Degree for some possibilities to pursue.

If one of those career paths interests you, or another one is on your mind, be sure to sign up for the Novum Opus mailing list to stay in-the-know about our upcoming content. We will be covering how to start a new career in upcoming posts, so stay tuned!

Post number 67.

5 Good Habits You Can Use to Replace Bad Ones

Let's face it: we all have bad habits. They sneak into our lives in a variety of insidious ways. Sometimes we learn them from others, sometimes we pick them up to ignore how stressed out we are, and sometimes they start filling time for no good reason.

I am no exception to this rule. While I feel very fortunate to have completely avoided the bad habit of drinking alcohol (mild poison), I have struggled to beat countless other bad habits, such as:

1. staying up late, especially when I have work the next morning;

2. pounding energy drinks, sodas, Starbucks drinks, and candy;

3. eating out almost every day;

4. shopping out of boredom, not because I need anything; and

5. not exercising even once for months on end.

On the one hand, we should not be too hard on ourselves for falling into a rut now and then. Life can be a stressful, challenging thing to manage when it keeps throwing us curveballs.

But on the other hand, once I build up a bad habit, it can be monumentally difficult to reverse the process. I only have so much willpower, and if I try to just not do it, I often wind up doing it more because I am giving the habit so much attention.

So how can we quit our bad habits? Rather than white-knuckling my effort to quit a habit, I (and others) have found that replacing a bad habit with a good one is much easier. Here are 5 good habits I have used to overwrite bad ones that may help you lead a more productive, fulfilling lifestyle.

1. Get in Bed Before Your Evening Routine Instead of After

My wife and I had a running joke about how often we would tell each other, "We should go to bed earlier." For the first few years of our relationship, we would chronically stay up well past midnight playing video games, bingeing on Netflix shows, mindlessly surfing YouTube... y'know, the usual suspects. This was compounded by several other bad habits that I will discuss in more detail below, but you get the idea.

The thing is, we could not convince ourselves to change our ways. Setting an alarm didn't stop us. Neither did starting shows earlier. This is because, as I said, we were trying to will ourselves to do better, at the end of the work day, when we had the least energy to make a lifestyle change.

While we are still not perfect about it, the solution that has stuck the best is not one you are likely to hear from folks telling you how to sleep better: get ready for bed, then watch the shows and play the games.

With the advent of the iPad and the Nintendo Switch, we find that we can usually bring most of our entertainment with us. Once we have both changed, brushed our teeth, and curled up with a book or show or game in bed, we tend to be quite sleepy and turn the devices off a lot earlier. To be sure, a perfectly-disciplined person would probably not look at screens so late at night anyway, but this strategy has gotten us into lights-out mode hours earlier than when we were spending more time in the living room.

2. Get Calories From Protein Shakes Instead of Sugary Beverages

A few weeks ago, I started using an app called Centr to build up a good exercise, diet, and mental health routine. The fact that the app offers all three of those things was one of the killer features for me: the holistic approach seemed better than playing whack-a-mole with disparate programs and ideas. And if I look like Thor (er, I mean, Chris Hemsworth) in a few months, even better!

I do not follow Centr's regimen perfectly, but I do eat the breakfast and post-workout meals pretty consistently. These meals have helped me improve my overall diet because they are so high in carbs and protein, which make me feel full even after burning a ton of calories. The meals are typically either:

•   protein shakes (fruit of all kinds, oats, macadamia nuts, protein powder, and milk),

•   toast (usually with toppings like eggs, avocado, spinach, and lemon juice), or

•   granola (oats, almonds, walnuts, pumpkin seeds, and cocoa).

#bodybythor

The unintended-yet-excellent side effect of making this dietary change, coupled with my new job's coffee machine and fridge full of low-calorie drinks, is that I am drinking far fewer sugary beverages like Starbucks lattes and Nos energy drinks. I find myself dedicating a little extra time to making real meals in the morning, which gives me less time and justification to run to a coffee shop or a gas station. The worst part of those drinks, for me, was that their high calorie count led to my extra-bad habit of replacing real entire meals with them. No wonder I felt so exhausted all the time! As one might expect, I feel a lot better after my dietary modifications.

The situation I just described is hard to emulate completely, but you can certainly follow some of these steps yourself. When you are trying to cut back on sugary drinks, also add some fruit and eggs to your diet that will substitute the calories your body is expecting. Your body will thank you, and I would bet that your wallet won't notice much difference anyway, given the cost of Starbucks these days.

3. Use Meal Delivery Services Instead of Eating Out

Another challenging habit to break for me was eating out. I ate out practically every day growing up, so I had almost no cooking experience when I moved out! Fortunately, my wife knew how to cook a few meals, but even they got old for the both of us over time.

Enter HelloFresh, which significantly improved the situation! The meal planning service has new recipes to choose from every week, which gives us more variety while taking some of the stress out of deciding on dinner. We get 3 meals for 2 people every week, which comes to about $62, or a little more than $10/plate. That equates to a price cut or an even break with eating out for us depending on where we go, so it has likely saved us some money overall.

Beyond that, HelloFresh meals are relatively healthy, and they feel like the right amount of prep time for us. Other meal services my wife and I attempted were either more cumbersome to prepare or tasted like glorified frozen dinners, so this one hit the sweet spot for us.

Of course, this leaves four other nights open. Sometimes we eat in or are invited somewhere; sometimes we eat out and try not to overspend on it. But by and large, she cooks a little more, I wash a couple more dishes, we spend more time at home together, and we eat a bit cheaper and healthier throughout the week.

4. Go on a Walk Instead of Going Shopping

Somehow, I built up a bad habit of "window shopping" at Target and Walmart on a fairly regular basis awhile back. It only got worse when I got a job at a T-Mobile store right next to a Target. I would often go into these stores without planning to buy anything, only to come out with an energy drink or candy. The allure of sweets or discounted clothes or shiny electronics is dangerous as it is; there is no need to window shop and tempt yourself even more!

Fortunately, walking is a great replacement habit for this problem. I find that just about any craving I have is gone after a walk of about a mile; my mind tends to wander its way through dozens, if not hundreds, of topics in just 20 or 30 minutes, and at least one of those will thoroughly distract me from the temptation to go buy something. If your mind does not follow this pattern, consider listening to a podcast on your way to get your mind off of that urge to shop and spend.

Besides, if you are reading this during the COVID-19 outbreak, there is much less health risk to going on a walk through your neighborhood!

5. Exercise Before Work

I wake up around 6 AM every weekday to eat breakfast, go to the gym, get ready for work, and drink my post-workout smoothie from Centr before making my commute. This is probably one of the toughest habits to start because it requires quite a bit of inner drive to wake up earlier than absolutely necessary some mornings.

But I found that what finally got me to get out of bed and hit the gym six days a week (I skip it on the day I do yard work) is this: I hate the feeling of getting back into shape. As you may know, the first few days of exercising again are miserable when you have couch-potato’d your way through the last few months. You get tired and sore, and you wind up wondering why you are putting yourself through all this misery.

Now, almost five weeks into using Centr, I'm feeling much better all the time, and I feel good after most of the workouts. I never want to work through that back-at-the-gym exhaustion again, and I also never want that I’m-a-lazy-slob inner loathing feeling again. So here I am, working toward that beach bod!

Final Thoughts

I don't encourage anyone to try all of these things at once; one or two big habit changes at a time are hard enough! My suspicion about why everyone felt stressed and frustrated about everything, not just the virus, when COVID-19 broke out is that their routines were completely uprooted. A whole bunch of habits were thrown out the window or declared unacceptable, and that is hard to get accustomed to.

But if any of the bad habits I mentioned are bothering you, try swapping them for better ones instead of trying to beat them with willpower alone. It's what finally got me some results.

What bad habits do you want to break, and what do you want to replace them with? Leave your thoughts in the comments, and be sure to join our new mailing list to keep up with the latest from Novum Opus.

Post number 66.

Broken, Beautiful

It's been a hard couple of weeks.

I was completely unprepared to work from home 100% of the time. Working "remote" is one thing, when I can be surrounded by the indistinct buzz of a coffee shop or an office, but Zoom calls are exhausting for me, and home is maybe even more so.

I love my home. My wife and I bought a house a few months ago and it's everything we hoped it would be and more. But living where I work is a painful mental shift for me. We love to hate work commutes as a culture, but I miss my 10-15 minute drive to work. There's something about that short time window that shifts my brain into work mode. In reverse, it shifts back to home mode on the way back.

But there's no barrier here. I sleep across the hallway. I eat most of my meals downstairs. I don't like these things being so close together.

I think I also associate being home all day with laziness. After being called lazy many times growing up, I now actively avoid it, for fear of appearing worthless. I think I was more careless when I was on medication—I was certainly more tired—and that led to my lackadaisical approach to chores and work. I was embarrassed about my own existence for about ten years growing up, and it's been a hard climb to pull myself up.

There's terrific news, however: my wife and my coworkers have been enormously supportive. I broke down the other day at work out of stress and exhaustion, as worried as always that I was worthless and unhelpful, and they encouraged me to take care of myself. The reason was that they knew. They have all worked thankless jobs, been abused and hurt, been cheated and manipulated, beaten down by this crazy operation we call life. That's why my support system is the best group of people in the whole fucking world, and I couldn't be more grateful that they're in my life.

The beautiful thing about broken people is that they don't want their hurts to recur in others. I don't want people to be hurt, but those hurts have a way of making us the best we can be. The most patient people were pressured; the most generous people were stolen from; the kindest people suffered the greatest cruelties. I don't think I could find a more perfectly broken group if I tried.

Post number 65.

Why it will get better

When I was in high school, I did not know what I wanted to do in life. Other people said I was a good writer, but I struggled to imagine myself doing it professionally. I worried that they were being polite, or grading me on a curve relative to my age.

In college, I stressed out about this even more. I wound up getting a Communication Studies degree because I had little interest in reading a bunch of old classics that an English degree would surely entail. I worked a bunch of crappy jobs and lived with a queasy feeling in my stomach that I was going to get out of college and amount to nothing. I would get paid a bit more because I could work more hours, but not enough to justify the student loans. Not enough to start a family. Not enough to have a life of my choosing. Not enough to be free.

During college, I encountered a YouTube video by a guy in his late twenties. He said that sometime after I was out of school, I would figure life out and that everything was going to be okay. I could not fathom where his confidence stemmed from. How could that possibly be a certainty? I had had so little control over my life up to that point. What would change that would make it okay?

Then I finished college, and a string of seismic shifts occurred in my world.

First, without college in the way, adulting became easier. I could devote my full attention to my career, and I could change it if it sucked. No teacher could tell me no, no boss could stop me, no parents were there to guide me down a path, right or wrong. I got a promotion. Then I left that company for a job that paid better than the promotion paid. Admittedly, when it comes to my career I am something of a self-starter, but I think this is likely a thing that happens for a lot of people. The jobs I worked had little to do with my degree (I suppose phone stores specialize in “communications” in a sense), but they started to pay better through a sheer lack of tolerance for bullshit on my part.

Second, I got in a serious relationship. I had just been in a bad one, and so had she. We had learned how bad a relationship can be when it’s with the wrong person, and so we appreciated each other’s support. This pushed me to want to support what would become my family, where I may otherwise have accepted lower standards to provide for myself.

Third, I got tired. I got tired of working lousy, entry-level food and retail jobs. I knew I could do better, but I also knew I had to prove it for any company to believe it. I started learning to code at an online bootcamp and got a job as a software developer.

The pieces started falling into place. The bad relationships had taught me how to be a part of and maintain a good one; the bad jobs made me appreciate the career I built once I had it; and in spite of the pivot into software, the skills I had accrued as a writer have continued to be valuable in my personal and professional life.

What the guy in that YouTube video was saying to me, and what I’m saying to you if you cannot figure out how to fit the puzzle pieces together in your life, is that things are going to work out because you will make it so. You will refuse to let your life suck. You won’t allow yourself to dwell in your misery. The very fact you’re reading this post tells me that you already have that grit in you.

Sure, you could continue to complain about how much you hate your job, how annoying your significant other is, how much you hate your parents, or how much you hate where you live.

But you won’t.

You will get fed up and start putting the pieces together. You will start solving the problems instead of shaking your fist at the sky: you will learn skills that will get you better-paying jobs, ditch the toxic relationships, save some money to move out of your living situation. Some skills you already have will come into play. Some people you have already met will point you to the business contact you need. You will find that one person who really listens to you when you are upset and can talk you through your problems.

I do not believe in fate. I am not a religious person. But I do believe in people. I believe that you have agency over your life and can mold it to be whatever it is you want it to be. I believe that you can seize your dreams rather than letting them fade into fantasies. I believe that you can choose to be good, and that when you take care of yourself, you can more easily take care of others. I believe that being good to others is always the best move; humans are social beings, and leaving bridges unburned can present opportunities you would never expect.

Don’t give into cynicism. Don’t stop caring. Don’t give up, and life will absolutely, unequivocally get better.

Post number 64.

Christmas Letter 2019

Happy Holidays to everyone! This year was, well…

Big.

Very big.

But let’s start from the beginning, because Aarica and I had an amazing, challenging, sometimes-stressful, and all-around life-changing year, and we have a lot to cover!

We knew since I proposed at the end of 2016 that we would be getting married in 2019, when Aarica’s family would be returning from Japan. This gave us time to save some money and get Aarica’s braces off, which she was very excited about! They were officially removed in January.

As soon as we knew they were coming off, we set up a time with Kristi from Hillside Studios to take our engagement photos in February. I think she would be justified in calling herself the Rice family’s official photographer at this point. She did a fantastic job!

Aarica finished her first year of teaching in May with the fourth graders at Shawsheen Elementary in Greeley. As such, our schedule still bows to the whims of the school year, but we were able to use Spring Break to go on a road trip to the Grand Canyon.

We stopped by the Four Corners as well, which was exceptionally well-labeled.

And stopped by Albuquerque to revel in all of the Breaking Bad locales!

We went to the candy store that made the “blue meth” for the show (I’m cool and you know it)

Then we went home and gave Emmett more attention than he probably wanted.

This is when we started house-hunting, because we got the insane idea in our heads to get married and not just buy, but build a house in the same year. But we didn’t worry about the repercussions of our actions, we were busy meeting Catana and John, creators of Catana Comics! They were at a convention in Denver in April.

In May we saw Rise Against on their acoustic Ghost Note Symphonies Tour, which proved that they can actually do anything and are, objectively, the best band ever (again). We also saw a Beatles tribute band and Misterwives in concert this year.

In June we had a quiet celebration of our four-year dating anniversary. But quiet is who we are and how we like it, so it was kind of perfect for us.

Emmett didn’t want us to leave. He was alarmed at the thought, in fact.

And then the wedding was almost upon us. For the bachelorette party, Aarica went to a paint-and-sip at Pinot’s Palette in Fort Collins with her bridesmaids, our moms, and her grandma.

For the bachelor party, my friends Nathan, Ian, and Ryan went white-water rafting, go-karting at Fort Fun, and played some fairly-aggressive rounds of Mario Kart with me.

And then, after all that waiting, the day was here! Aarica and I got married on August 3 with our friends and family in attendance. It was everything we ever wanted!

How did I get so lucky, again?

After the wedding, it was back to the old grind for us. It feels like we have been working on a never-ending todo list ever since! Aarica got her name changed (no small feat) and landed a job as a fifth grade teacher at High Plains K-8 school in Loveland, a much shorter drive from home. I took on new Developer Lead responsibilities at Radial, and am now the Lead on Plan to Eat, the smartest meal planning app around; WorkGrades, a job reference tool for candidates, employers, and recruiters; and Homer Energy, a solution for optimizing renewable energy systems like solar panels. Also I paid off my car, got a raise, and Radial doubled its revenue and staff size year-over-year, so that was cool.

Throughout all of this, we were also checking in with our realtor and the builders working to make our first house a reality. At the very end of October, we moved out of our Loveland apartment and into 3635 Candlewood Drive in Johnstown!

Emmett did not want to move at first…

Maybe they’ll unpack and put it all back if they can’t find me!

but his new climber and litter box made him warm up to the place pretty quick.

In November, we went to a Monet exhibit at the Denver Art Museum for Aarica’s birthday. I’m not very cultured when it comes to fine art, but Aarica very kindly showed me what’s what when it comes to Impressionist painting.

We also tried to stay engaged with our family and friends despite how crazy the year was for us, and how crazy it was for many of them! My dad, my sister Caitlin, and Aarica’s siblings, Karrisa and TJ, all got new jobs; Aarica’s family, Caitlin, and my mom all moved; Aarica’s family and Caitlin pursued new educational pursuits; we attended three weddings (the Sanders’, the Smiths’, and the Clouds’); my youngest sister, Meghan, moved out of our spare room and went on her religious mission; Aarica’s cousin, Felicia, had a baby with her husband, Jake; and Kat, my best man Nathan’s wife, is pregnant.

Taken on the trip to Estes Park with Aarica’s family

Busy enough for everyone? Wow. All the same, we squeezed in time to make breakfast for my mom and grandma for Mother’s Day, visit Estes Park with Aarica’s family, have Thanksgiving with my dad, grandpa, and uncle, and have a slightly-early Christmas party with Aarica’s aunt and uncle in Greeley. No wonder we’ve been ready for a break for months now!

Pictured: millennials smiling through their existential dread

All around it’s been an outstanding, but very busy, year. We are excited to see what our first full year of married life holds for us. Thanks again to everyone for their love and support!

Post number 63.