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Are there any other Coasties here?
I went to Strayer
How much do you put into TSP?
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ROI of my time. I'll give it bad example, let's say I want to use my additional time to make a little money on the side as a real estate agent. I put in an extra 20 hours a week for 50 weeks a year and maybe pocket another 30k for that year. It might be great in the beginning. After 5 years, I'll have hopefully pocketed and extra 150k.
But what if I invested that 1000 hrs/yr into learning a new skill set or working towards a promotion (e.g. proposal work, leadership ops)? In my very limited opinion, I think there's more to be made off of either finding ways to surpass your peers (who tend to be younger because they started earlier) or finding ways to build your brand and move to better places (e.g. maang).
There's a reason why there people under 30s who are directors or senior position in some startup. They put in more than the typical 8 hrs into either building themself or working towards faster promotion.
For me it's the fact that I absolutely hate paperwork/maintenance. Other folks at my firm deal with things like registering and insuring the business, the accounting, the payroll, the benefits, the contracts, the marketing... All that stuff is stuff I hate. And going solo means either I do it, or pay someone else to do it, and those dollars/hours take a larger chunk out of those billable hours than I care to deal with. Everyone I've talked to that has gone solo has been surprised/disappointed with all the collateral work involved, so that's what's kept me w-2
I’m not allowed to do deliver PS outside the Deloitte umbrella as it could violate firm policy
I was in the same boat at Deloitte, it was a major driver to me leaving the firm
Sounds like you have something really good going on. I personally don't know too many vets that have other opportunities similar to what you outlined.
Many could be where I’m at by pursuing free tech certifications. We all have access to free Salesforce certifications and there are several free Workday programs too. I’m putting together free virtual training certifications too for others like software testing as well for those Vets really new to tech
I’ve considered it for years, going so far as to register a domain name and business, but haven’t pulled the trigger as I have it really good here
I like it conceptually and think about it time to time.
Did it before but don't enjoy finding consistent work and negotiating my rate/contract. People always look for a discount when you're a small business and I can't tell you how many times people tried to haggle me so I just told them it'd be an incremental cost since its not in scope or if they pushed back I had to fire them as clients... which is not the best for your business.
Even large firms out there tried to negotiate a lower hourly then get mad when I cap them for more lucrative work or (inversely) when I won't do the additional thing that popped up in the project because they capped the hours.