A relief, in a way

This week, RG, the founding partner at my firm made an announcement via email before he headed off to Italy for vacation: we were all to return to full time starting Monday, November 15th. A wave of mixed emotions flowed through the office; on one hand, returning to full time work meant a return to a full time paycheck, but three day weekends every week have been really enjoyable. This all started the Thursday before the July 4th weekend in 2009, and for the most part, I'm glad it's over.

For one, it means there is stability in my work. In the last 16 months, moral in the office has been up and down. The lowest point was when the re-hired a very senior staff person for a project that ended up stagnating, and they've kept him around. There have been many times where I have had nothing to do, and worried how long that could continue. Recently this has changed, as I'm becoming busy having three projects to work on; it was getting to the point where I was going to have to say something because I knew to do my job, I was going to have to work a full week anyway. Glad I didn't have to deal with that conversation with my bosses.

I've looked back at my blog post from July 6th, 2009, talking about how I was going to save money. I did stop shopping at Whole Foods for a while, but since my digestive issues have returned, I went back. I found that sticking to the 365 WF generic brand was about as much as shopping at the local market in my neighborhood anyway. The forbearance on my loans ended four months ago. Over the last 16 months, my parents have been helping me pay them anyway, they did not want me to take a break from paying them since the interest would continue to accumulate (I now owe them for what they've paid). Surprisingly, since I was on a limited budget, I was able to plan ways to save money. I will need to continue how I've thought about savings when I do have the extra money, I've estimated it will be an increase of about $1000 post taxes. Most of that will need to go towards my 401K, which I have not contributed to for the last 16 months. Luckily, my firm never cut out their contribution to our accounts, so something has been going in.