My job is a newly created position at a hedge fund in the financial district of San Francisco. Some of my duties are undefined as of right now, but here's what I know so far. The position was listed as a finance/trading/operations assistant; which means I will be helping anyone involved in those functions. I'll be working with the two main traders doing trade settlements and other duties; with the finance part I will be helping the CFO with quarterly/yearly reports and other things involving the financial aspect of the firm itself; then I'm assuming the operation duties will have to do with account maintenance and client requests/questions.
I'm definitely going to have to get used to the hours. I will be working from 6am to 3pm and this might be tough. I'm not exactly sure when I will have to wake up, but taking into account time to get ready and transportation time, I think it might be around the 4am area. At my last job I was usually awake by 5:45, so this one will be tougher. I think I'll get used to it, but I plan to wake up early a few days before my first day to get comfortable. I've been known to have sleeping problems (sometimes I go to bed and it still takes a few hours before I fall asleep) and I might use some over the counter sleep pills for awhile to get used to my sleep schedule.
Now that I finally have a job, I've been slowly thinking about expenses and savings. I know I will have some upfront expenses: I need more work clothes. I also know that I will have some weekly expenses and I'm going to think of ways to limit these expenses. For instance, right now I'm living at home and to get to work I have to drive to a BART station (for those who don't like, bart is like the bay area subway system) and this involves a $2/day parking fee and the roundtrip ride totals a little under $5. So the total transportation expense will be $7/day, $35/week, and $140/month. I will look into parking lots nearby, but I doubt they will be less than $140/month. To put things into perspective I've seen some parking lots in the financial district charge $2.50 for every fifteen minutes! I'll try to figure something out.
I'm also slowly looking for an apartment to move into by searching Craigslist. I'm not looking to rent out a full unit, but just one room. My goal is to find a place with people around my age with a maximum rent for my one room of $550/month. I've found a good amount of listings, but I don't know when I will follow-up. There is also a chance that I will move in with some friends.
If I move closer into the city (I'm living just south of San Francisco right now) I will be able to cut down on some of the commute time.
Savings: I haven't spent too much time thinking about things, but I plan to make full contributions to my Roth IRA, set up an emergency fund, and set some goals for myself.
My job is going to FedEx me the offer letter and benefit package, so I don't know the details about a 401(k) or anything like that. I also don't know what my pay will be after taxes and expenses. I made a few estmates and I think I might be able to save around 40% of my after-tax pay. The rest would be used for expenses and spending. This is definitely not set though, just some ramblings. Once I see how things turn out, I will be able to set more defined goals.
