Financial choices in a weird job market

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I keep hearing how the job market is at full employment, yet I’ve written before how insecure most younger workers seem to feel in their jobs. But yet again a few days ago someone commented to me, “Oh yeah, in (XXX industry) they’re just begging for people”. Well, “they” may be begging but I can tell them why they can’t fill the positions:

  1. The location is horrible: oil rig, frozen tundra, windowless cubicle, crazy hours, or crime infested neighborhood with a perilous journey to get there. So, basically, they’re not paying enough to make the risk worthwhile (as with any other investment).
  2. There’s a completely unrealistic set of requirements. Either the employer is requesting more education and/or experience than the job could conceivably require, or their requirements are so specific and demanding that two people in the world have those qualifications, and they’re not paying enough to attract them, or to encourage anyone else to invest in such specific training.
  3. Employers are thinking of the old days, when you could work your way through college. Millennials have heavy debt burdens—they’ve financed their careers long term. Requiring a masters’ degree in an urban area and offering $50,000 a year is so unrealistic as to be almost breathtaking. Couple that with the gig economy of “staffing companies” who offer no retirement benefits, no health insurance, and minimal vacation and sick days (and no paid holidays or overtime for working those or weekends—it’s all coming out of your “personal days) and, well, they’re not paying enough. Interestingly, staffing companies and recruiters often think they’re offering a higher hourly rate and I’m sorry to say that some people are dumb enough to fall for that. But if you calculate the value of benefits, cost of health insurance, value of paid time off, etc. you are almost certainly being screwed—because when did an employer ever have your best interests at heart?

 

Under capitalism, the market should be responding to these shortages by raising wages, right? Right. Instead, they’re offloading all responsibility for workers and directing ever more in the CEO’s pocket. We need someone creating an equally strong pressure (such as unions, government regulation, and new legislation controlling egregious corporate behavior). Will this plunge the value of companies and non-profits to operate? No, I don’t think so—just cost the 1% their ability to take everything. And great, offload responsibilities for workers–but then let’s put corporate taxes in place that fund government provision of those services.

 

It’s particularly troubling in areas that are critical to health, well-being, and education. These fields are supposedly “desperate” for trained people, yet many trained people can’t readily find jobs. I know of one situation where someone was being interviewed for a position at a fragile-medical rehab center. Although the candidate had absolutely no experience in the field, they offered a job after a 20-minute interview, if said candidate would accept an outrageously low salary, no extra compensation for weekends or holidays, high cost employee paid health insurance, no training, no mentorship, yadda-yadda.   They were obviously desperate for a warm body to fill the slot. But if you landed in the place after being in ICU, would you want to be treated by that new hire? And why was that job going begging? Because they’re not paying enough.

 

I’ve been amused lately by the practice of employers not disclosing the salary range for a position, and I’ve actually seen millennials comment that it would be “impolite” to ask that when being interviewed (either by phone or being asked to take time to interview in person).  Seriously? Why would you not ask—because you might offend an employer by being interested in working for money? As Samuel Johnson said, Nobody but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.

 

And why would an employer be offended by an applicant asking about the salary range, especially so as not to waste anyone’s time? Because they know they’re not paying enough. And for them, your time is free.

So go ahead, tell me why I’m wrong (politely, please). I’m open to changing my perspective.

Baby in graduation cap

Financial planning for college: should you bother saving?

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Nobody wants to pay for something, then watch someone less deserving who gets it for free. A dear friend recently raised this situation: are you a sucker for saving, while somebody else spends freely and their kid gets more money from a college?

I’ll give a very qualified yes to this—there are a few situations where it doesn’t pay (very much, at least) to save for college. Let’s say you make under $75,000 a year and have no investments beyond retirement accounts. Your family probably will qualify for some serious financial aid, and would get less if you saved into a 529 plan. But I really question how much a family would be able to save on that income, and if they can, they should be pouring it into their 401k and a Roth IRA. Can a family making $75,000 a year really manage to save more than $25,000 (the maximum into these accounts)? I seriously doubt it.

If your child doesn’t finish school or joins the military instead, you might have done better saving into your own accounts.

That’s it. That other family of merry spenders who got so much more than you? Did you see the award letter? Because lots of people lie. Especially people like to “reinvent” things in the best light possible—that “aid” might have actually been in the form of a subsidized loan, or the “free ride” might have been a waiver of tuition or some small amount of “scholarship” aid. If it was a state public school, and they are remotely middle class, it’s all going to be loans. If it’s a private school, it’s probably still some loans, or they have financial issues you don’t know about, or the school competes with publics by bringing the cost of attendance down to approximately what a state uni would have cost. Cost of attendance is the important number: what it actually costs to spend a year at the school, including tuition, dorm, food, books (can be a whopper), fees, etc. Add in transportation, moving the kid’s belongings back and forth or in storage, and the inevitable dorm refrigerator (not included in the school’s website estimates).

For nine years now, I’ve challenged anyone to tell me about somebody they know first-hand, who had family income over $100k, who’s child got all costs of attendance covered with no loans, for 4 years (athletic scholarships not included). I’ve yet to have someone come up with that family, but I’m still interested. It’s always 3rd hand, or a one-year fellowship (usually after the kid is already at the school), or tuition only.

It’s easier for a college to waive tuition than it is to cover the full cost. Why? Because tuition just requires paying professors and administrators, and those costs can be averaged onto other people. You can always stick a few more people into a given class. But coming up with an actual dorm bed, feeding the kid, and providing books actually costs money. Those “free rides” you hear about that go to low income families are usually free tuition, and then a loan package for living costs—and living costs are often the whopper.

But let’s say you have family earnings of $76K-150K, and maybe even another kid who will be in college at the same time. You might qualify for some aid. What if you were really careful and managed to amass $100,000 in a 529 college savings account? At worst, about $5,000 of that would be considered “available” each year for all your kids in college. (Same for parents’ non-retirement investments). Sadly, a reduction in aid of $5,000 is real money, but compared to the total cost of attendance, it’s a drop in the bucket. But having $25,000 available each year is going to make some serious difference to your child’s options and future indebtedness.

Remember, many colleges do not cover all demonstrated financial need. They’ll give you something, but sorry Charlie if you can’t scare up the rest—I’m not sure how they can assume you’ve been honest about your finances, then expect you to come up with more. Or maybe they just don’t care because there’s somebody right behind you on the waiting list.
Some schools have grandly announced that they’ll cover all need for families making under $XX a year. Note that that does not necessarily mean free—it only means they’ll cover the gap (as they calculate it) with aid rather than loans. For example, the University of Chicago says that if you make under $125K, they’ll cover tuition. But you have to make under $60K for them to cover the entire cost of attendance ($83,760 according to the school, compared to Northwestern’s $78,654).

But here’s the hitch—the kid has to get in, and any school that announces that will suddenly see an enormous jump in their applications, so your kid has even less chance of getting in than previously. I’d genuinely like to know how many kids attend who actually receive the full ride. Does anyone seriously believe that they will fill their class by allegedly need-blind selection, and then just randomly discover that they have to cough up more money from their endowments from all the kids they just admitted? I think I hear the sound of one hand clapping.

The exceptions to this are two: your kid is a world class athlete and gets an athletic scholarship that includes living expense, or your kid is a nationally desirable scholar (think published a novel, won the Davidson or Intel, has ground breaking published research or inventions) and is willing to go somewhere lesser than the ivy league. If your kid will outrank (grades + test scores + other achievements) 90% of that school’s current population, they might be willing to ante up something to entice them to come—but you should check that the guarantee is for more than one year.
Saving for the kid’s college means they won’t be burdened with very heavy debt incurred for living expenses, books, getting home for holidays, and every other surprising thing it actually costs to go to college.

BTW, if your child does get significant merit scholarship aid, you can withdraw the amount from the 529 penalty free. Or you can just leave it alone, because there’s always grad school…

Ukulele

What I learned at Ukulele Camp that applies to finances

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I’m pretty die-hard about DIYing everything I can. Yes, I know there’s a lot of argument that you should pay someone to do things while you’re out earning more per hour at something else, but I don’t buy it entirely. First of all, most of us spend plenty of time scrolling Facebook, binge-watching Netflix, and staring into the refrigerator. None of that is billable time.

There are a lot of projects that just require brute force and minimum skills—I’ll paint my bedroom over a weekend before I pay someone $800 to do it. However, I draw the line at danger (painting the trim on my second floor from a loooong ladder), back-breaking difficulty or heavy hauling (digging post holes and installing a fence), or things that I’m not confident about learning from YouTube (installing a new kitchen faucet and drain).

I’ve had quite a few music lessons over the past, um, decades, so I have been pretty convinced that I could teach myself to play ukulele and guitar from the huge number of books, YouTubes, and online courses available. And, they’ve worked pretty well. Feeling somewhat confident, I went to a few jam sessions at the Old Town School, where I discovered I had miles to go before I cheep. I definitely needed some real-time instruction.

This weekend we trucked up to Midwest Uke Camp in Olivet, Michigan. I came home, not only reinvigorated about playing, but about the place of music in life in general—playing, performing, singing, dancing. With all the grinding away, I had lost sight of the pure joy of it all. And since November, 2016, I think I’ve lost sight of some of the joy available in life. As so many blues masters knew, no one can take music away from you.

But, like everything else I do, I did see some parallels between the very delightful Uke Camp experience and our financial life:

  • When there are a lot of choices, you can’t swoop up everything.

For some time slots, there were 3 or 4 classes I wanted to take. I tried to find out who was a good teacher (all of them!) or offered something particularly appealing. No matter how much you wish, you can’t take more than one—and you probably can’t afford to hook on to every good investment. Go with what you can, given what time and knowledge you have available.

  • It’s not possible to make the optimum choice every time.

There was one class where, maybe, I could have chosen better. The teacher’s style just wasn’t right for me, although his music, omg… But that doesn’t ruin the whole selection, nor the other seven or eight choices I made. Similarly, for every given number of choices (investments) you make, some will not turn out as well as you expect. And some will perform far better—who knew I loved Django Reinhardt gypsy jazz? You have to look at the total experience (performance), incorporate what you learned, and try to do better next time, where you will make mistakes again. Improvement is not perfectly linear, but it should lurch in the right direction.

  • In person makes a difference.

I adore self-study. I can make all kinds of mistakes and make them LOUD, and no one will hear me, except for my dog. When she sees me grab the uke, she immediately asks to go out.

Nevertheless, there’s a lot to be gained from the personal interaction with a good teacher. They can correct subtle mistakes in real time, come up with a trick that solves your individual problem, and there’s the serendipitous addition of techniques and information they just happen to think of that’s not in their books or videos. A good teacher always knows more than they’re putting in print. That’s the chief benefit—the individualization. Sure, you can learn a lot about playing (and financial planning) from a pre-fab program, but at some point, you need it to apply to you, particularly. I think online lessons, websites, asset allocation programs, and all that jazz are great, but everyone has some unique challenges. In fact, if you come to the professional already having a good background, you can probably get more benefit from the one-on-one.

The interaction with other people can often give you new insights and ease your mind about how you compare. It’s oddly comforting to see other people struggling or making and recovering from mistakes. I’d love to see more opportunity for people to be part of investment clubs.

  • Seize the opportunities when offered

The best teachers may not be back. The event probably will not go on forever. It can be hard to find fiduciary, fee-only advice. The crowd was mainly older than 50 and so many said they wished they’d done it, younger. I hear it all the time about financial planning, too. Don’t put it off—neither playing an instrument nor making a financial plan are as difficult as they seem in your imagination.