Own Your Career E-Book

Michela Allocca

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 301

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Imbue your career with purpose and meaning

In Own Your Career: Break the Corporate Blueprint and Build Your Own Ladder, popular financial analyst and entrepreneur Michela Allocca delivers an exciting new discussion of how to break the corporate blueprint and forge your own path to a fulfilling and rewarding career. You'll learn to find happiness and purpose at work, whether you're interested in climbing the corporate ladder or embarking on a different path.

The book offers a collection of tactical strategies you can apply immediately within your career to start getting more out of your day job and redefine what success means to you. You'll find:

• Effective tactics for positioning yourself in your resume, articulating your skills in interviews, and negotiating your compensation to ensure you are not only landing the job, but that it's as lucrative as possible.
• Practical strategies to navigate career changes and make intentional career decisions with confidence.
• Systems to maximize your earning potential and build a successful side hustle you can take to the next level

A can't-miss guide for young professionals, the newly graduated, and aspiring entrepreneurs, Own Your Career offers realistic advice to excel at work and take your professional power back, both inside and outside of the office.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Cover

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Who Do I Think I Am, Anyway?

Building a Purpose-Driven Career

Chapter 1: Are You Lost?

The Nine-to-Five Fallacy

Freak-Out to Freelance: My Career Transformation

Key Takeaways

Chapter 2: Don't Just Increase Your Earnings

Consider Your Earning Potential

Human Capital: The Value of Experience

Earning: How Much Is Enough?

The Great Debate: To Learn or to Earn?

Key Takeaways

Chapter 3: Resumé Secrets: Strategies for Standing Out in a Competitive Job Market

Analyzing Resumés

Crafting a Compelling Narrative

The Optimal Resumé Structure

Key Takeaways

Chapter 4: Interviewing for Success

Interviewing Is a Two-Way Street

Setting the Record Straight

Preparing for Each Phase of the Interview

Key Takeaways

Chapter 5: The Art of Negotiation

Compensation Crash Course

Win Your Negotiation

Key Takeaways

Chapter 6: Succeeding in the Workplace

Task Tracking: Why Most People Won't Do It

Building Your Task-Management System

The Benefits of Using a Task-Management System

Executive Career Profiles

Key Takeaways

Chapter 7: Increasing Your Income

Side Hustles 101

Starting a Skill-Based Side Hustle: The One-Person Business

Key Takeaways

Chapter 8: Taking Your Side Hustle to the Next Level

The Evolution of Break Your Budget

Self-Employment versus Corporate Work: Let's Talk About It

Financially Preparing to Leave Your Job

Business Finances: Everything You Need to Know

Key Takeaways

Chapter 9: You Are More Than Your Career

Crucial Career Takeaways

Embrace the Seasons of Your Career

Prioritize Life-Work Balance

Final Thoughts

Appendix: Young Professional Career Profiles

References

About the Author

Index

End User License Agreement

Guide

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Table of Contents

Begin Reading

Appendix: Young Professional Career Profiles

References

About the Author

Index

End User License Agreement

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MICHELA ALLOCCA

OWN YOUR CAREER

BREAK THE CORPORATE BLUEPRINT & BUILD YOUR OWN LADDER

Copyright © 2024 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.Published simultaneously in Canada.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, [phone], fax [phone], or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, [phone], fax [phone], or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permission.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Allocca, Michela, author.

Title: Own your career : break the corporate blueprint and build your own ladder / Michela Allocca.

Description: Hoboken, New Jersey : Wiley, [2024] | Includes index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2024006656 (print) | LCCN 2024006657 (ebook) | ISBN 9781394195275 (cloth) | ISBN 9781394195299 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781394195282 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Career development. | Vocational guidance. | Success in business.

Classification: LCC HF5381 .A64 2024 (print) | LCC HF5381 (ebook) | DDC 650.1—dc23/eng/20240322

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024006656

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024006657

Cover Design: WileyCover Image : © Elena Emchuk /Shutterstock, © Munerf.std/ShutterstockAuthor Photo: Courtesy of the Author

Acknowledgments

Writing a book will always be a humbling experience, and I am truly grateful to have been given the opportunity to write not just one, but two books in my 20s. I'd first like to thank my entire family for their unconditional support on my entrepreneurial journey. I would also like to share my appreciation for the wonderful publishing team at Wiley, who has provided extensive support and guidance to bring this book to life. And finally, I want to thank the entire Break Your Budget community for believing in me, following me, and allowing me to pursue my dreams in ways I could have never imagined. We are just getting started!

Introduction

Most college graduates enter corporate America because they've been told that this is the path to long-term happiness and success. It's never questioned or challenged, and usually after a few months or maybe a year, they realize this:

Everything you've been told about working? It's a lie.

Your dream job? It's an illusion.

Climbing the corporate ladder to become a CEO? It's unlikely.

At least for the majority of people. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS 2023b), in 2022 there were an estimated 199,240 “chief executives” in the labor market. For context, the 2022 labor market was estimated to include approximately 164 million people (BLS 2023a). That means that—generously—0.1% of workers will reach the C-suite.

Sure, that could be you—but it probably won't be. And that's okay!

It's normal to enter the workforce feeling motivated, excited, and ready to conquer the world. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that feeling is fleeting, and if you want to find true happiness at work, you'll need to define it on your own terms. I know it sounds scary and depressing, but that's what I'm here for.

It's become far too commonplace to find yourself 15 years deep into a career that is wholly unsatisfying, and to feel absolutely lost on how to find purpose at work. The reality of spending the majority of your life working is overwhelming.

It doesn't have to be that way.

Who Do I Think I Am, Anyway?

Whether you picked up this book after following me on social media for a while, or if you are brand-new to my story—you might be wondering who do I think I am to tell you that you're probably not going to hit that C-suite?

Let me fill you in, because there was a time when I thought that the college-to-corporate CEO path was the only one that would result in success.

I graduated college bright-eyed and bushy-tailed with a corporate job lined up. You'll hear all the details in subsequent chapters, but here's the TL;DR: working was not all it's cracked up to be.

I always thought that when I graduated college and landed that “dream job,” I'd be all set. Over time I would get promoted, I'd easily start making more money, and I'd become this boss powerhouse who ran meetings and was important. Maybe I was unusually naive, but I think I was just inexperienced. You don't know what you don't know!

What I learned the hard way is that not only is this reality not common, but I didn't want it. I didn't know what I wanted, because honestly, I never really thought about what I would do beyond that first job. I figured it would all just fall into place over time. I spent my whole life up to that point preparing to get the job, and once I was in it without a clear path laid out in front of me anymore, I freaked out.

This experience isn't unique, but how I decided to navigate it is. About two years after I started my first job, I was on the phone with my best friend Emily, who had recently left her teaching job to pursue her own health-coaching business full-time. She was asking me questions about personal finance and made the suggestion that I consider starting my own social media page sharing all the tips and advice I was giving to her. This was the beginning of a new chapter of my life that I didn't even realize would change everything for me. After that conversation, I created a new Instagram handle called Break Your Budget, and the rest is history.

You'll hear more about this journey in Chapter 7, but starting this endeavor served as an outlet for me. I wasn't happy at work, I had free time outside of my nine-to-five, and I was looking for more. Since work wasn't giving me more, I created it myself.

I shared lessons I learned on the job, leveraged skills I already had to create digital products, began working with clients to help them budget better, and consistently posted on social media. It was the perfect combination of fueling my creativity outside of the office and helping people with a skill I was already passionate about.

Most importantly, it helped me find clarity on what I wanted out of my career and how I could find my own definition of success. I had spent so much time pursuing society's definition of success and completely ignoring what could actually make me happy.

I hated client service at work, but I loved working with clients via Break Your Budget. I hated working in Excel at the office, but I loved leveraging it to create budgeting templates. I never had the opportunity at work to be creative or to use social media, but I loved posting on Instagram and sharing lessons with my followers.

It was through Break Your Budget that I discovered that there may be more to finding happiness through work than I initially thought. I learned that there are ways to marry making money with pursuing something you actually enjoy. And most importantly, I discovered that what I deem a successful career path for myself may look different than what you deem a successful career path for yourself.

Ultimately, I learned that I own my career.

If I am not happy with how work is going, I am the only person who can fix it.

If I want to make a change at work, I am the only person who can do it.

If I want to pursue a different career path, it's up to me to learn the skills necessary to make the switch.

I am not the victim of my career. I am the owner. I make the calls, the choices, and the decisions.

I'm lucky enough to have made this discovery early on in my career. Many others are not so lucky, and they fall victim to working jobs they hate because they need the money or aren't open to auditing their situation and owning the change.

This doesn't have to be you.

Building a Purpose-Driven Career

If you're ready to break the corporate blueprint and build your own ladder, you've come to the right place. You can find happiness and purpose in your career, whether it's working a corporate job or forging your own path. Navigating your career is challenging in all phases of life, but with the right tools you can empower yourself to make the necessary changes to finally find that satisfaction you seek, whatever it means to you.

Throughout this book, I walk you through my own corporate journey and how I ultimately took a leap of faith by leaving my corporate career and diving head-first into my own business. From feeling completely lost and unhappy on a career path that I spent years of my life preparing for, to ultimately utilizing the skills I learned to build a seven-figure business, I share every lesson I learned along the way that helped me build my own ladder.

Own Your Career is your blueprint for taking your professional power back and developing your own unique career path. Whether you plan to climb the corporate ladder or hope to “break free” and pursue a business of your own, by the end of this book, you'll be equipped with the tools you need to succeed and find happiness in the workplace. Let's dive in!

Chapter 1Are You Lost?

Your dream job doesn't exist. If there was a single piece of advice I wish I had known the day I started my first job out of college, it's this. Young adults are not prepared for “real life.” No amount of internships or college classes can equip you for the realities that are corporate America and the working world. It's a tough lesson to learn, but once you realize it, you're ready to take your career to the next level.

The Nine-to-Five Fallacy

It's likely you grew up with an idea of what your dream job would be. For me, I always thought I'd be a lawyer or a doctor or something very professional and highly regarded. This is because I was told in school that I was smart and capable, and the results spoke for themselves: I got straight As, I rarely struggled, and I didn't have a hard time getting into the college of my choice. Because of my academic experience, I figured it only made sense for me to pursue an elite career path. I had no idea what it actually took to enter these fields.

College humbled me. Straight As weren't easy anymore.

The thought of taking a college-level science class? Hell no.

The idea of struggling through a political history class with 48 hours' worth of reading a week? Not a chance.

I ended up choosing business—finance, specifically. Money has always been my thing. Not only were my classes interesting, but the information came easily to me. I loved the numbers, I loved working in Excel, and I loved sitting in the finance lab watching the trading board flash stock prices while I did my homework.

In the fall semester of my senior year, I landed my first post-grad job. I had done a few different internships over the course of my college career, so I thought I knew everything. I'd interned in various sectors of the finance industry, I interviewed for a handful of different jobs, and I was psyched to score—what I thought was—my dream job.

It was at a huge financial firm based in downtown Boston. I had to dress professionally every day. I was important. I was going to be living the dream.

TL;DR: It was not dreamy. I did not have a good time.

In this chapter, I share some of the most important lessons I learned from this job experience, along with the tumultuous career journey I experienced that transformed the way I approach work.

Lesson 1: No One Knows What They're Doing

This was the most surprising realization for me. At first, I figured it was unique to the company. Maybe the culture there was lackadaisical, and I just ended up in a fluke department. But this wasn't the case. Throughout my next two jobs, I noticed similar patterns. The “adults” who I always looked to for guidance and advice? They were just making things up as they went.

I always thought that everyone around me was smarter, more capable, and knew so much more than me. I spent a lot of time thinking that I was hired by mistake; maybe I am just good at interviewing and making other people think I'm smart, when really, I'm just an idiot.

But the truth is that no one has any idea what's going on, or what they're doing. It doesn't matter if it's your first year working or if you've been on the grind for more than 10 years: if you don't know the answer or the solution … just make it up.

My best advice? Stop pretending you know what you're doing. You and I both know that you're making things up as you go and hoping no one notices. Thinking that anyone else knows what's going on is an illusion, and it's causing you to doubt your own capabilities.

Lesson 2: Your Job Is Only One Part of Your Life

It is not your whole life! A nine-to-five job requires more time than simply the hours between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. More often than not, there is at least one hour of the day for the commute, plus the time spent before and after both preparing for, and unwinding from, the workday.

Do the math: if you're awake from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. on any given day, it's likely your schedule looks something along the lines of this:

7:00–8:30 a.m.: Wake up, coffee, get dressed, pack your bag, eat breakfast. You're doing all the necessary things to get ready for the day.

8:30–9:00 a.m.: Commute to work (assuming you have a short commute).

9:00 a.m.–5 p.m.: Work.

5:00–5:30 p.m.: Commute home.

5:30–7:00 p.m.: Exercise/some type of self-care activity.

7:00–8:00 p.m.: Shower, eat dinner.

8:00–10:00 p.m.: Relax.

Essentially, you only have about two hours a day for your own personal time. With the aftermath of the pandemic, luckily work from home has become a much more normalized practice, eliminating the commute and gifting some time back into the day for personal endeavors.

However, utilizing that personal time outside of a nine-to-five can be challenging for a few reasons. One being that many nine-to-five jobs are not actually nine-to-five; oftentimes they can look more like an eight-to-six or even a seven-to-seven, depending on your line of work.

Beyond that, working is exhausting. It's normal to feel mentally and physically wiped after a long day, whether you were in the office or not. This means that using that small amount of free time that you do have to nurture relationships, focus on a side hustle, or dedicate to personal hobbies is even harder.

I struggled finding purpose outside of my job for many years. A disproportionate amount of my life revolved around work: I lived in the city where my office was, my gym was around the corner, and many of my friends were coworkers. I found that in the few hours of personal time that I did have, I spent watching TV because I was so tired.

I fell into a trance: every day felt the same, and I wasn't working toward anything tangible. All of my life I had always been working toward the next big thing: in middle school, it was preparing for high school. In high school, it was preparing for college. In college, it was preparing to land a job.

Now I was in that job, and the next step was up to me. I was lost. I had no purpose, and I felt unstable in my life. It wasn't until I decentralized work and focused on building the life that I wanted that I started to feel more in control.

Work is only one pillar of your life. If you want to have a life outside of your job, you need to treat your job as what it is: a job, not your everything.

Lesson 3: Nothing about Work Is Glamorous

Maybe it was just me, but I always fantasized about “working in the city” and having a big glitzy office where I got my own cubicle and had all these important “work things” to do. Growing up, I always saw adults working, but I had no idea what they were actually doing. It sounds silly, but I was excited to finally find out!

I was hit with a big, fat reality check. There is absolutely nothing glamorous about working in a big office or in a cubicle. For the first few weeks of my job, I felt so cool commuting into Boston with my work bag and my business professional clothes. I had my own cubicle, they gave me a laptop and even business cards. I felt important!

Once I actually figured out what “work” was—an endless loop of circling back, following up, touch-bases, and Kanban boards—I realized that the reality of what I thought I'd be doing and what I was actually doing were quite different.

Whether you work in a high-rise office building with floor-to-ceiling windows in a major city or in an office park in the suburbs, work is work. Sure, the environment can make things exciting at first. But after a while, the environment becomes your normal; it loses its luster and becomes mundane.

I struggled with this a lot. For my whole life, I thought that working was going to be exciting and every day was a new opportunity for me. But after a while, the days blended together, and all of a sudden, years had gone by, and I was still feeling lost and unfulfilled.

The glamorization of work is entirely based on perception, both from what you want to be perceived as, as well as what you want others to think about you. Does it really matter if your job is perceived as being cool or important by other people if you hate what you're doing?

Lesson 4: If You Don't Own Your Career, No One Will

You are your own best advocate in the workplace. No one cares about your job and your career more than you do. Waiting for the next best opportunity to fall into your lap or for your manager to stick their neck out for you at performance review season is a surefire way to end up disappointed. Don't wait for others to advocate for you; advocate for yourself.

I always thought that when I felt ready for a promotion, I'd just get one. What I learned (the hard way) is that you don't get what you work for; you get what you ask for. There are a ton of strategies for this—from task-tracking to negotiation—and I will unpack all of them in detail in future chapters of this book. What you need to understand now is that you—and only you—are in the driver's seat of your career.

If you hate your job, you have control over leaving it. If you aren't getting paid what you deserve, you have control over finding another opportunity that will pay fairly. If you're being mistreated at work, you have the choice to leave. It may not always be easy, and it may not always happen right away, but it's in your hands. Own this. Know this. And let it set you free!

Freak-Out to Freelance: My Career Transformation

At this point, you've deduced that my career journey was tumultuous. My expectations were high, and the realities of working life brought me back down to earth pretty quickly. But it wasn't all bad. I learned about myself, what I wanted my life to look like, and how to navigate tough decisions by weighing the pros and cons and the impact of every choice I made.

I'm going to walk you through a timeline of my career journey to provide some context that will be helpful throughout this book. Throughout my early career, I went through four major phases that resulted in a complete transformation of my mindset, my life, and my future.

My First Job: The Freak-Out

I graduated college in 2017 and started working a month later. This was the job I described earlier—where I was excited for the glam and ended up disappointed.

Aside from the entirely shocking reality of work that I was faced with in this job, I also realized that I was in the completely wrong role for the career path that I wanted (or thought I wanted, but I'll get there). The job I had accepted was quite different from the job I had thought I applied for, and the responsibilities weren't providing me with the experience I was looking for.

Looking back on this from my point of view now, I feel it is important to highlight how normal it is to be disappointed with your first job. For me, not only were my expectations too high, but I also viewed it as a make-or-break experience for my future, which it wasn't.

If you love your first job, you're in the minority. It's okay if it's not perfect, because you have plenty of time to figure out your next move. Take it for what it is and chalk it up to a learning experience.

In the early years of your career, you need to be a sponge and learn as much as possible, even if it sucks. Learn what you like, what you don't like, your communication style, how you work with others, and everything in between.

In this job, I wasn't able to learn much. The work was slow and boring, and the leadership was lacking. This resulted in a personal freak-out, because I am a doer. So to be around other people who weren't doers, and who also were in control of the experience that I had access to, sent me spiraling.

To put it lightly, I panicked. I thought that I was wasting my time and I'd never be able to find another job because everyone else was going to be two steps ahead of me while I was twiddling my thumbs waiting for my manager to assign me to a new project. I spent months in limbo trying to figure out how to address the issue: Do I speak up, do I find a new job, or do I use the time to focus on something else that will help me get my foot out the door?

This was my first experience with this, so I didn't know what the right answer was and I was afraid to make a mistake.

One of my strengths is that I always tend to channel panic into productivity and staying busy. I'm a problem solver, and once I set my mind to something, I'm going to find a way to make it happen. In typical Michela fashion, I ended up signing up for one of the hardest financial exams that exists: The CFA exam. In my mind, this was my ticket out of my current role and into a role that was more suited to the path I wanted to be on.

I started studying for it around the clock, hoping it would help me feel more in control of my career and ultimately my life. This was the doer in me; if I could fill my time doing things that felt productive, then I was moving in the right direction, right? Right.

Any uncertainty I felt was redirected into studying: the recommended study time for this exam was 300 hours, and I probably studied for closer to 500 out of sheer panic and anxiety.

Ultimately, I passed the exam (Level 1 out of 3, to be specific). This aligned closely with my next career move, where I was finally able to break into the investment industry and land the next version of “my dream job.” Which, at this point you know isn't real. I just hadn't figured it out yet.

If you're in the “freak-out” phase of your career, don't worry, it's normal. Everyone goes through a period in their first or second job where they question if they've made terrible life decisions and feel totally out of control of their circumstance. It's basically a rite of passage for your early 20s.

The key is to identify that you're in this phase and start thinking about ways to address it. Assess your options: Can you make changes in your current role? Would it be more productive to find a new role? Is there an experience or knowledge gap between where you are now and where you want to be? Are you able to fill the gap with a course, a certification, or something else?

Channel the panic into problem-solving. Lay out your options, and take action from there.

My Second Job: The Quarter-Life Crisis

I struggled a lot in my first job. But my second job? It got worse. At this point, I was two years into my career, had devoted nearly an entire year to studying for an exam, and finally landed a job in the industry that I wanted.

This role was in investment consulting, which meant I was working with clients directly and helping to manage their investment portfolios. The clients I worked with were institutional, and I had line of sight into how millions of dollars were invested and allocated for optimal long-term performance. I learned immensely about investing—how to make investment decisions, how to research and evaluate different investment opportunities, and everything in between.

It was information that was applicable to my own life, and I slowly began to realize that I could take what I was learning at work and apply it to my personal finances. It lit a small fire inside of me, but I didn't have much time to explore it because I was so busy working.

My work experience in this job was entirely different from my previous one. I had significantly more responsibility, to the point where the adjustment was so brutal that I questioned why I ever wanted to change jobs in the first place. I was working long hours; 10- to 12-hour days became the norm.

I had to balance more responsibilities and work than I ever had in the past. I was the point of contact for 12 different clients who all had different personalities, goals, communication styles, and expectations. It was incredibly difficult for me to manage my time, keep track of the various expectations and timelines, while also maintaining a professional demeanor and managing my relationship with the internal team and my manager. I learned pretty quickly that client-facing roles were not my strong suit or my interest.

Remember earlier in this chapter when I highlighted that your first job doesn't have to be perfect as long as you're learning? Well, in this case it was my second job that highlighted this very valuable information that I wouldn't have learned otherwise: client-facing roles are not for me.

It was during this experience that I entered my quarter-life crisis. What was I doing? Every day I woke up and hated my life. I dreaded all of the work that hung over me. I knew when I walked into the office what was waiting: a passive-aggressive email from either a client or someone on my team, feedback on a presentation that said “pls fix,” and an endless to-do list of follow-ups, circling back, and asking other people to run reports for me that I couldn't do myself.

It was exhausting. And I was reaching a point of defeat. I worked incredibly hard to get to this position, thinking that it was the solution to my career woes and I'd finally be happy, only to realize that what I thought I wanted was exactly what I definitely don't want, and now I need to find my way out, again.

There is a key difference between the freak-out phase and the quarter-life crisis phase. In the freak-out, you have hope. Once you hit your quarter-life crisis phase, the reality of your future of work has sunk in. It probably isn't going to get better, so now it's time to figure out how to cope so that you don't spend the next 40 years of your working life in perpetual misery.

A quarter-life crisis is a period of uncertainty, stress, and soul-searching that many people face somewhere in their mid- to late-twenties. It spans all areas of your life but can be exacerbated by unhappiness in your career. When you think about it, you spend a huge amount of time at work. If you're unhappy in other areas of your life and at your job, the directionless feeling can become overwhelming.

I addressed my quarter-life crisis by channeling my frustration at work into a new passion project: Break Your Budget. (You will learn more about Break Your Budget and my journey starting and scaling what was once a side hustle and is now my full-time job in Chapter 7.) For now, here's what you need to know: at its inception, Break Your Budget was my outlet for sharing what I was learning at work and how I was managing my own finances with the masses. I knew I was learning information that many people either didn't have access to or didn't understand, and that there was—and still is—a huge knowledge gap when it comes to financial literacy and investing.

And so I spent my time every day after work posting on Instagram what I learned and what I spent. At first, nothing really came of it. But as you can probably figure out now, it's become so much more.

My Third Job: The Turning Point

I didn't last a full year in my second job. I made it for 11 months, but I couldn't stick it out any longer. I decided to leverage the transferable skills I had learned in both of my jobs to land another type of job: corporate finance.

This job began in March of 2020, right at the beginning of the global pandemic that shut the world down. As a result, I started this job working from home at my parents' house with the intent of going into the office within the first few months when everything “went back to normal.”

You know how that turned out—two weeks turned into two months, which turned into two years. I ended up moving permanently into my parents' house and spent the next year working from home while also working on Break Your Budget.