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thoughts for today

July 11th, 2009 at 03:04 am

The past few months have been pretty stressful. The state has slowly taken away 15% of my salary with another 5-10% expected.

I am frustrated that I have worked long and hard to get where I am and we have a state leader who insists on trying to balance the budget on the backs of state workers or using state workers as pawn in his game. His political career is toast so he wants to take out as many as he can. The thing he doesn’t get: cutting salaries means cutting the taxes he gets from state employees.

Cutting the number of days we work means cutting the amount of time employees have to collect taxes from businesses and tax returns.

He wants to cut employee levels to about 30 % of what it is currently. The largest state in the union should have 30% less employees. California ranks 49th in the amount of employees to population with 235k employees to 33 million residents and estimated 5 million illegal aliens.

All my dreams of having my own house by the time I am 35 are toast. I can’t put any money away toward retirement because the money he is cutting is what I put away each month. Buying a house would just put a greater strain on my budget and make it way to scary without having enough income if anything happened.

I worked hard, educated myself and took a job that would be serving the people of California and ensure they are protected during major event and that the state is prepared to respond or support local governments. I choose public service because I believe in it and believe it is a way to return the blessing I have received. Doing the same job in the private sector is almost impossible.

Trying to think positive in this climate
I have come up with the following things

I think about on a daily basis:

I am lucky I have a job.

I am lucky I still have a job that pays well.

I am preparing for passing the written exam again (having done so in the past) and the oral exam (having come close and missing it by literally .05 points) in my dream job. I have scheduled the written exam for October and hope to have the orals (and pass them) in February or March 2010. If I do well enough there will be a job offer by this time next summer.

I have a family that is healthy and for the most part happy. Tough times are ahead for my sister but as a family we can get through anything.

I have good friends who are fun and loving.

I still love my job and find it fun and exciting and most days I want to be there.

I enjoy (most) of my co workers.

I have interesting hobbies and skills.

I am trying to remember the positive things that I have currently in my life.

I will enjoy my Furlough Fridays and work toward fnding a part time job to supplement my lost income.

2 Responses to “thoughts for today”

  1. LuxLiving Says:
    1253797055

    How are you doing over there? Missing you around saving advice dot com.

  2. debtfreeme Says:
    1253806939

    Hi Lux!

    It has been a difficult few months and I am working a lot of hours at house and pet sitting to make up for the loss in income. I jus thave not had much to blog about but still read the blogs several times a week. I thought I was going to have good news this week to share but the offer I made on a house i really liked was beaten out by another offer. Ugh...

    But I am still in good spririts and looking toward a good future. Thanks for checking in on me!

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