Spending roundup – Nov 22

I worked on Saturday afternoon, so my weekend consisted of Thursday off and Sunday. We had lunch at Mercury Plaza and drove over to Mission Bay, where we were going to hire out a tandem bike and go for a ride, but decided not to because the weather was pretty crappy. On Sunday, we hit DressSmart and bought T a new wallet and me some new underwear, then he cooked up a huge roast and we had a group for friends over for dinner.

$110 groceries, plus an anticipated $20 for lunches
$47.60 eating out
$83 for a full tank of gas (HAS to last us two weeks!)
$28 for T’s wallet
$6.50 for clothing

The iconic fountain

T doing a backflip on the beach

Rangitoto looks so close, yet so far…

Bike hire

How to get the most out of mystery shopping

Mystery shopping isn’t going to make you rich by any means. For me, it’s a nice little side extra that gets me freebies such as gas, meals and prescriptions – what’s better than getting things for free that you’d otherwise pay for? I also do bus surveys regularly as I bus to and from work everyday, and have an unlimited travel pass. I make the most of that by mixing up the routes I catch as much as possible, getting off the bus halfway through and catching a different one the rest of the way, or fitting in a few extra on my lunch break.

Generally, the more work a survey entails, the more you get paid. You’ll soon work out which ones are worth your while and which aren’t. Some require you to make a purchase, and will reimburse some or all of the cost. If it’s something I need, or something I’d like to buy for myself but might not otherwise, I’ll jump at the offer. But if it’s something you have no use for, what’s the point? It’s like buying food in bulk to get a good deal, and never using it all up.

To really get the most out of it, you do need to be organised. Check your email frequently – for notices, and for new assignments. Most companies either email you when new jobs are up and direct you to the site, or email you the available assignments directly. And you need to get in fast! The plum jobs get snapped up right away – I’m talking within the hour for popular shops like restaurants and the like. The more regular and reliable you are, the more you’ll get and they will turn to you when they’re desperate to fill an assignment.

If there are assignments at the end of the month that still haven’t been filled, the company will also call and email shoppers to try and get it assigned. At this stage, they’ll usually offer a sweetener such as an extra bonus or mileage. Even if it’s for a store that’s out of your way that you’d never accept otherwise, a fat payment can make it worth your while.

Most companies will have a training guide of some sort, and/or guidelines on how they like surveys written up. For example, one of the companies I work with frowns upon using comments on race or skin colour when describing staff. Seriously, read this, and familiarise yourself with their style. Some companies rate their shoppers, and if they have to spend a lot of time editing your reports to get them up to scratch, this will affect your grading.

Some require you to write detailed comments about your experience. This is a bore, by and large, but be as specific as you can. Explain WHY you gave a salesperson a “satisfactory” rather than “excellent” score (because they didn’t greet you right away, or didn’t mention a special promotion).

Obviously, you do need to be observant. Read the brief thoroughly. Then condense the key questions and use these as the basis for your note taking. I usually try to jot a few points down in my phone while I’m in there, and then get the rest down as soon as I leave and head out of sight of the store.

Make sure you follow your chosen shopping dates and times. Most of the time, you need to get your survey written up and uploaded that same day. If you’re going to have trouble completing a shop or submitting it on time – let them know! Treat it like you would your regular job.

And lastly, always, always, always get a receipt! You won’t get paid without a receipt, if the survey requires one of you. You don’t want to have to re-do or forfeit a shop because you forgot to get proof of purchase.

Perfect day, 5 years from now

Frugal Dreamer had a GREAT idea for a post last week, which I am totally borrowing.

T and I both did it, and it was interesting to compare the two.

To be honest, I found it incredibly hard… I don’t know if it’s a lack of imagination, or the fact that I’m feeling a bit ambiguous about my career path and life in general… I’m not really sure what I want and so struggled to articulate where I might want to be.

We decided to pick a Thursday, approximately five years from now. We’ll both be 26, and although he’d like to have kids by then, I’m not so sure. Doing this visualisation without babies in the picture made our future life look pretty empty, actually – something I never thought I’d say!

T

1. What time do you wake up, and how are you feeling as you greet the day? 6am, as usual. Feeling pretty all right.
2. Where are you? If you’re at home, what does it look like? At home, in a 2bedroom open plan house, with a nice kitchen, bathtub and garage.
3. Who is with you? E (that’s me!)
4. What kind of work are you doing? (if you have no idea what kind of work you’ll be doing or want to be doing, list the qualities you want to find in the work you do and the kind of work environment you want.) Environment: a clean, quiet workshop with a steady workflow, where I have my own workstation
5. As you head out to face the day, how do you look? What are you wearing? What I’m wearing now (singlet and shorts). And shoes
6. How do you get to work? On a mountain bike
7. When you’re done with work, how will you spend you spare time and with whom? What activities do you enjoy? With E, watching old horror or zombie movies on my large screen TV. Fabricating in my garage, working on my toy (project) car.
8. What is your evening like? In front of the fire with a glass of whiskey or cup of tea
9. When you go to bed that night, how are you feeling after spending the day doing exactly what you love? Fulfilled
10. What are you most grateful for and what are you looking forward to as you go to sleep? Spending the next day with E.

E

1. What time do you wake up, and how are you feeling as you greet the day? I’m up at 7, feeling energised
2. Where are you? If you’re at home, what does it look like? In my own house (maybe a Lockwood) with big kitchen, walkin pantry, garage, ensuite bathroom and decent sized closet
3. Who is with you? T. Maybe a pet (preferably a cat, but more likely a puppy if T has his way)
4. What kind of work are you doing? (if you have no idea what kind of work you’ll be doing or want to be doing, list the qualities you want to find in the work you do and the kind of work environment you want.) I’m in the prime of my career, as a subeditor or a web editor, in an airy, sunny open plan office. I work in a friendly, supportive team and regularly have lunch with coworkers
5. As you head out to face the day, how do you look? What are you wearing? I look polished and effortless (ha!) I am wearing nice jeans with a shirt and flats, because the office environment is fairly casual.
6. How do you get to work? Walk
7. When you’re done with work, how will you spend you spare time and with whom? What activities do you enjoy? With T. I’ll bake, catch up on blogs, watch some TV or a movie. I enjoy photography, playing guitar, travel.
8. What is your evening like? I might catch up with friends at one of our houses for a few hours – lots of laughs, maybe a silly retro boardgame, good food.
9. When you go to bed that night, how are you feeling after spending the day doing exactly what you love? Contented and fulfilled. Glad that it’s nearly the weekend.
10. What are you most grateful for and what are you looking forward to as you go to sleep? T, a warm house, great job and good food.

Success, careers and selling yourself

I caught up with a handful of other journo majors a couple of weekends ago. Out of all of them, I was the only one with a full time job. Don’t get me wrong – a LOT of others (albeit not in attendance) have found work, and in journalism. Even, surprisingly, in print. Something we discussed – in between bits of juicy, scandalous gossip – was that it’s funny how many of the people who got jobs right out of university are the ones who you least expected to. It just goes to show: you don’t need to be wildly successful at school to be successful professionally.

As time goes by, I think I’m starting to realise that where I’d really like to be is in subbing and editing. There’s nothing I get more satisfaction from than honing a piece to be the best it can be; spotting errors, fixing them, tightening up sentences. As much as I’ve learned this year, and as much as my skin has thickened (which admittedly is still not a lot) I still often find interviewing daunting. I’m not the most graceful of swans, socially speaking, at any given time. And when I’m facing people who don’t want to talk to me…

Right after I shook hands on the two projects I’m lined up to assist on (both technical in nature) some writing assignments came up. A few other grads from my class were brought on for those. The big boss apologised for how that panned out to me, and said my direct boss had been lobbying on my behalf and really believed in me. He’s the one who suggested me doing more writing, without even having to ask. And is giving me every opportunity to write as they come up. Can I just say how great it feels to have someone on your side?

And yet, I know I should be pushing for myself, you know, on my own. Except I’m not sure how to do that exactly. And as I said, a typical reporting job is something I’m slightly ambivalent about. But I guess I gotta do my time first, and surely the idea of my fellow grads being hired and surpassing me here will be enough to spur me on.

Top referrers

Thanks to my lovely top three blog referrers over the past month!

Sense to Dollars

Jessie’s Money

Carrie on the Cheap

Spending roundup – Nov 18

$146 groceries (yep, a super pricey week. T bought a lot of lunch foods; I’m trying to get him to eat better, and eat more. He doesn’t eat breakfast and often skips lunch too. Is it any surprise he often has an upset stomach?)$146 groceries (yep, a super pricey week. T bought a lot of lunch foods; I’m trying to get him to eat better, and eat more. He doesn’t eat breakfast and often skips lunch too. Is it any surprise he often has an upset stomach?)
$29 gas
$20 brake fluid
$30 to top his cell phone up (I earned a free topup through YourVoice this quarter, doing surveys)
$18 on eating out
$7 for eye drops
$10 on a three-piece roasting/baking dish set
$16 for two wicker baskets (we’ll be making up hampers for Christmas presents for our families)

Also spent: $37 on pizza and drinks at Carpark, and $39 on a taxi to work on Sunday, both to be reimbursed.

What my degree cost me

It’s going to cost me $75 to graduate *splutter* what with all the graduation regalia I have to hire. I could just NOT do the ceremony…but I’m a ceremonial type. I like events. I like pomp and circumstance (well, within reason). I attended all school awards and prizegivings, went to our 2006 high school leaver’s dinner (paying something like $65 to sit at a table and eat dinner with my friends, ignoring the majority of the rest of our year whom I hated), did my best to be in every class photo and saved all my yearbooks. It’s our chance to be recognised for our work over the past three years and I’m going to be there, dammit!

But I’ve been pretty lucky in terms of education costs. I had a scholarship which covered almost all my tuition over the three years – looking back in my records, I paid (out of pocket) just $1358. That’s $644 this year, $212 in 2008 and $182 for 2007.

I got away with buying very few books – and got most of those secondhand. I’d say I spent under $150 on textbooks.

Stationery I got a lot of from work for free – pens, reporter’s notebooks and the like. Let’s say I bought two folders and two pads of refill a year – that’s $36. I also had to buy a bunch of extra arty gear – special pens, paper etc for my advertising paper last year, which cost about $40. For photography, I used the old SLR I had from high school, but film and paper together probably cost me $250. I also bought a digital voice recorder this year, which to be honest, I’ve hardly used. Most of my interviews were done over the phone, and I never got around to getting a pluggy thing to connect it up…I could totally have got away without buying it. That cost me $120.

Finally, bus fares. I would have had to bus into town for work anyway, but I’ll include it all. At 13 weeks a semester and two semesters a year, $27 a week (rounded) comes to $2106 over three years.

So a rough total puts me at $2029 in directly related costs, plus $2106 in travel. That’s $4135, or roughly the cost of a year’s tuition alone. Can’t really complain.

(My post on the cost of eating out is in this week’s Carnival of Personal Finance, hosted by M is for Money!)

Photo / Quimbero

What to wear with this dress?

Here’s one of my favourite dresses – it’s so versatile and doesn’t crease or anything, making it my go-to all-in-one outfit.

I don’t, however, have any shoes that I think go well with it. Especially for a more dressy occasion.

What kind of shoes would YOU wear with it?

Money talks

They always say that you should never disclose how much you currently get paid to a potential new employer. Whoever names their number first in an interview loses the upper hand. And it also shows your lack of experience at negotiation. (I also thought this was an interesting comment from career consultant Kim Wendleton: “If the job is too low-level, don’t ask about the money, upgrade the job!”)

I’ve been asked how much I make, twice. Both were for relatively low-paying, basic jobs. The first time I was absolutely stunned, and didn’t even consider lying. I was too shocked to be anything but honest, and ended up on a relatively low wage.

The second time, I was also pretty taken aback, but perhaps a part of me was expecting it, as it was a new role and no doubt they had no reference as to what it was worth. I was pleasantly surprised at the offer they came back with, and got about what I thought the position was worth.

Have you ever been in a situation like that?

Going paperless

I can safely say that the majority of the mail I get consists of bank statements. I chuck them on my desk and at the end of the month, file them away. (I’m getting better, I promise: I used to do it even less frequently! But in an effort to simplify and declutter, I’ve reorganised my desk and filing system).

But I’ve been thinking: Should I stop my paper statements? I do all my banking online and don’t actually read the physical copies, because I’ve already seen it all. I keep them more for my records and in case I ever need to check something out – I’ve been told my bank only stores electronic statements for 12 to 18 months.

What do you think? Do you still receive statements in the mail? And what if you need to confirm a transaction from, say, two years ago?