Paging Sumbride

[ladypirate]

You mentioned in the diamonds for kids thread that you were reading a column about the end of the escalator era--do you know who wrote it? I''d be interested in reading it if you have the info.

Thanks!

 

[sumbride]

I had the term wrong, it was "earnings escalator". She''s a lifestyle columnist in the Baltimore Sun and was using it to talk about why her college-grad daughter is moving back home.

Here it is.Sun Article

 

[ladypirate]

Thanks! I appreciate the link.

 

[sumbride]

Happy to share! I''m interested in what you think of it. I definitely see similarities in my situation, but rather than moving back in with my parents, they helped me pay rent those first few years. I''m one of the lucky ones, and I know that, but venturing into the nonprofit world pretty much guaranteed that I didn''t start out in the high salary range they were hoping for after they paid for my private liberal arts college.

 

[ladypirate]

No joke--I stayed with my parents for about 3 months after I graduated to save up some money then moved to Los Angeles. I was surviving, but barely. With rent at $1000 a month and only making ~28K a year, I was certainly living paycheck to paycheck. I ended up getting a higher paying job about 10 months later, but it was a horrible work environment--I was working something like 60 hour + weeks plus travel to conferences on weekends for 45K a year and developing back problems from being under so much stress all the time. The funny thing is that my parents at the time were like "your employers can't make you do this", "that's not right", etc. It was impossible to get them to understand that if I didn't do that, I'd lose my job. I ended up leaving after about 6 months, anyhow--I couldn't live like that.

My parents are so surprised that BF and I don't have 6 figure salaries--I guess they figure that with him having a masters degree and me having a shiny liberal arts BA, we deserve to. Unfortunately the cost of education is hardly commensurate with salaries out of school. I've thought about going back to grad school, but I don't think I'd make enough more with a grad degree to make the cost worth it.

It's really awful how the cost of living is so far off from what people make nowadays (not to mention how hard it is to find a decent job in this economy in the first place). Something will have to change eventually.

 

[sumbride]

I totally agree that something has to change, but at the same time I look around me and realize that our household income is so much higher than the majority of people in our neighborhood and I think "but WE are struggling... how do they do it?" and it blows my mind.

My mom also expected me to make 6 figures within 5 years of graduation. Nope. Still hasn''t happened. And my BA doesn''t seem to mean much anymore, but like you said, I don''t see that grad school would make that much of a difference considering the costs, both financial and personal. The girl that sits in the cube behind me has an MBA but is basically doing an Admin job. I''m lucky that I''m in IT and degrees aren''t such a big deal as long as you know your stuff, but it''s hard to keep up with the industry changes and I don''t like it all that much anyway.

I really enjoyed my liberal arts education but sometimes I''m jealous of my husband... he wanted to be an accountant. He went to school to be an accountant. He graduated and got a job as an accountant. And he''s been steadily promoted but is doing what he wanted to do. Me? I''m still trying to figure out what I want to do.

 

[zoebartlett]

That was an interesting article. It''s sad that my FI and I, with a bachelors and a masters degree, respectively, aren''t making what we thought we would after college. Well actually, when I graduated college, I had NO IDEA what I wanted to do. I had just gotten a BA in history and English and I knew I didn''t want to teach (haha). I ended up moving back home for 2 years while I worked in retail and "found myself." I ended up working for a publishing house for a while before moving to the city. Loved the idea of what I did but didn''t like my job at all and I ended up going back to school for a masters. I ended up teaching. Now, I''m on a "step schedule," which basically just determines what I make based on the years and level of experience I have. Teaching is definitely not going to put me where I thought I''d be someday when I graduated college. We''re not in a position to ask for raises and the "bonuses" we get are pretty low (and are given school or district-wide, not based on our individual performance).

My FI on the other hand, works in the city and he''s making more than he did in his former job. He''s making more than I''ll ever hope to make, but it still doesn''t seem like enough. There are plenty of times when we feel like we''re living paycheck to paycheck. Same as you, Sum, I know we''re doing pretty well, especially compared to our neighbors (I''m assuming a lot, I know), but it doesn''t feel like we''re much better off. If only money grew on trees...