However, $30 is $30 that could go toward my debt.

Can anyone else (women, I guess) relate to this problem, or do I sound hopelessly extravagant? This is a real dilemma for me.

That’s a saving of at least £1030 assuming you use a cheap barber.

I also cut my own hair (straight, all one length) with the help of mirrors.

I recently graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Culinary Arts. When I was 16 I thought this was a fabulous career, I was working in a restaurant with other cooks that I idolized. They were always partying getting laid and having tons of fun. Why wouldn’t anyone want to do this? I thought.

I thought wrong. Now, I spend 80 hours a week in a hot kitchen working my ass off getting yelled at for what amounts to about $6 an hour, and no benefits, vacation, or days off except for the one day a week the restaurant is closed. Sure we produce great food, have gotten great reviews and the customers are happy. But why am I sacrificing so much? So some reviewer will give this restaurant one more star? So what. I may be proud of what I do and it’s enjoyable sometimes but the quality of life is horrible and not something I can see myself doing for much longer. I could make more money and work less at a fast food restaurant. Degree? Skill? Experience? Who cares.

I’ve been finding myself spending the little free time I have reading and learning about money and finance, a topic I enjoy that actually pays well. I envy people I see in office jobs that work half as much as I do with vacations, benefits, etc. But people say you have a craft, a skill that other people don’t have. You have the pride of doing something great. Yea, well my kids can’t eat my dignity.

Does anyone have any suggestions or advice on changing careers after graduating from college? Or what jobs are available to people with Bachelor’s degrees? I’ve about had it with this one.

Initially, after an undergraduate degree and graduate degree (to put the financial investment in perspective), I chose a poor-paying career because I had the passion for it. It’s an industry that people don’t choose for the money but for the feelings it provides (thrill, passion, warm and fuzzy, etc.). When you’re 22 it’s easy to declare, “Money will work itself out, it’s important that I love what I’m doing.” Cute, huh?

I’ve since switched careers, as have most of the others I know who were in that first career when I was. They too have two levels of postsecondary education. Some have gone back to school for a third (or more) time. We’re all in our late 20s-early 30s.

Passion moves out and is replaced by burnout. We worry about saving money, the stress of living pay-to-pay, student loans, and the realization that some day we want to have a family with the expenses that go with it. Many of us are single, fending for ourselves. Most of us are female.

A lot of the tips in this blog – such as the one earlier today about cutting from bills – are methods that I used while in my previous career. Now I have the luxury of spending more, but I don’t. The freedom to do so is enough. I’ve grown accustomed to that lower standard of living and enjoy watching my savings grow and debt shrink.

I’ll gladly do something ELSE that I enjoy that pays well rather than something that I have passion for but causes financial stress. One can often pursue the other industry part time without the pressure.

Re. hair cuts: No one’s mentioned the Flowbee yet?

You’ve got a great blog, by the way!

Say what? Real estate appraiser? Real estate appraisers earn in the six figures???? The guy across the street from me–proprietor of Dave’s Used Car Lot, Marina, and Weed Arboretum–is a real estate appraiser. Even when things were good, he didn’t appear to be making any money.

Meanwhile, excuse me? I’m an academic, and I can assure you that researchers in the hard sciences make a good living, and so do those in business. Arizona State University recently hired a young woman fresh out of graduate school with a Ph.D. in accountancy at a salary in the six figures.

True, if you’re in the humanities or the social sciences, you most certainly are not going to start at a good income at the university (or any other) level. However, many university administrators work their way up from the humanities–my dean is tenured in French literature, for example–and academic administrators make six-figure incomes.

But if you want to start out well and not have to politic your way into an administrative position, a Ph.D. in engineering, biosciences, any business subdiscipline will get you a good income right out of the box.

It took a few times to perfect the process of using a hand mirror to see the back but I’ve got it down pretty well.

I was most nervous cutting my own hair a week before my wedding figuring that would be a bad time to make the first big mistake but it turned out fine.