Random Thoughts

-Since I started using Twitter, it's been hard finding motivation to blog.
-I really want to buy a house now, but prices are still pretty high. I hope that C and I buy a place where we can cover the mortgage with only 1 of our incomes.
-Mortgage prices still seem to be very low. I used Zillow to get some mortgage quotes, and I can get around 4.5% (with some partial points, but we plan to keep whatever place we buy for a long time).
-New job is going well. I got my first paycheck last week. There is something to be said for getting paychecks, rather than direct deposit. I think that was the largest check in my name that I've ever received.
-I've held checks for $1+ million in relation to past jobs.
-Somehow I decided that I really like Pottery Barn. Not good for the wallet. Luckily I haven't completely lost my frugality and I'm searching craigslist for cheaper Pottery Barn stuff.
-I also bought a Pottery Barn gift card for about 75% of the value. I used it to purchase an floor model rug.
-I've been preparing a networth statement less and less frequently. The tanking of the markets gave me a good excuse to not prep one for a long long. I finally did one in mid-July and another one yesterday. In about 2 weeks, our retirement accounts went up 5% with no contribution from us. Go market!
-After preparing these recent net worth views, we realized that we are close to a pretty major milestone (cash savings of X amount, with X being a nice round number). If we save really aggressively, we could get to it, but I don't think we have the inclination to save that hard anymore.
-I believe in a 10% tithe, but I have been undertithing for the past 2 years or so. I didn't change my tithe to keep up with my income. Now an I over-tithing (only a little over) to make up for it.

Decided to Get on the Twitter Bandwagon

After I saw that even Madame X is on twitter, I decided to join. Follow me there @calgirlfinance for quick updates. I hope to post things more frequently there.

On another note, my job situation is going to be changing quite soon. I am not sure exactly what is going to happen, but suffice it to say that I believe in about a month I will be working at a new employer.

LayOffs

My company is terrible about providing news about what's going on, but there have been some company layoffs.

One of my colleagues heard someone in an office next to him calling people to let them know they had been let go. Then a couple of people I had worked with in the past sent the good bye email.

In a bad economy, sometimes it's good to be performing well and underpaid. It means I'll be one of the last ones to be let go in my group.

I'm Back From Vacation . . .

and it was awesome. I'll look for some generic photos to post later. Then I'll ask all of you to see if you can figure out where I went for vacation!

I'm happy to be back home, but I'm headed out for a business trip next week.

My company is going through a lot of issues, so I'm thinking about whether or not I want to start job searching . . .I'm a bit afraid to start job searching since I don't know what I want in my next job.

If I want to stay in consulting, I'm fairly certain I could get a job pretty easily since I have a lot of former co-workers that have endeavored to get me to apply with their companies. If I don't want to stay in consulting, that proves to be a bigger problem since I would probably need to figure out what I want to do before haphazardly applying to random jobs.

Anyone know of any good online tests to figure out what kind of job one should get?

Expect to see more posting! I will post some details on the finances of our trip sometime this month or next month too.