For the purposes of comparison I’ve attached below one fake set of living expenses (my expenses are higher and I am married) for a year and it shows how much money is left over at three different salary levels.

Here’s some things to consider if you decide to do your own comparison:

Don’t estimate for the cheapest places to live in a new area,  you’ll probably want to live somewhere nicer, people who are single may be able to save money by renting a room but don’t count on being able to find one initially if you have a short amount of time from hire to start date.

Remember that the cost of health insurance, 401(k) contributions, and many other costs will vary greatly from one work place to another so be sure and input all your expenses for an accurate comparison.

Please note that for the 401(k) / retirement contribution line the cost per year cell is actually showing the % income being save, in this case 5.5% which is equal to 0.055.  If you wanted to save 8% per year you would change the number to 0.08.

If you haven’t rented by yourself before please note that the numbers used in my estimate for utilities are a bit low for many months of the year, I just adjusted the numbers till the $40,000 column had a positive number of dollars left over.

Please do not mess with the taxes etc. column, it isn’t 100% accurate but it’s a decent estimate of combined government with holdings.

If you are married or single and have a child your health insurance may be more, if you are single it may be less.  Be sure and count any annual shots or physicals, specialist visits, mammograms or colonoscopys, allergy shots, daily or seasonal medications, and of course allow for the possibility that you just might get sick once or twice in a new area.  Don’t forget dentists, teeth cleaning, and eye doctors and glasses / contacts.
For car expenses remember gas, oil lube and filter changes, tires, insurances, maintenance, windshield wiper fluid, oil, and any ongoing or potential maintenance costs.

If you haven’t been attending conferences consider this a reality check, most major conferences run for $120-$1000 just for registration.  Add in plane fare $300-$600 if you book it at a good time, and a hotel room, usually about $200-$250 per night for larger conferences and you can be looking at a hefty bill before you even pay for you food, cabs around town, and transportation to and from the airport.  Depending on which conferences you need to attend even a hefty stipend may not go far, and some places don’t provide any support for conferences (which should be a huge red flag in my opinion since I have yet to hear of a library that doesn’t require conference attendance.)

And of course you need to budget for things like clothing, especially if you are moving to a different climate, shoes, undergarments (these do wear out, if you buy a few new every year you can avoid having everything fall apart at the same time and spread the cost out over time.)

If you are married don’t forget to put in your spouses expenses, especially if they don’t have a job waiting for them, you never know if they will find a job immediately or a year from when you move so plan to live without their income.

Be realistic and admit that you are going to end up spending money at restaurants and coffee shops.  Even though I don’t frequent these places  a lot on my own I have had many very important meetings over lunch or a cup of coffee so budget for these events accordingly on top of money to go out with your family/friends, etc.

There are some empty columns at the bottom you can fill in if you download the file or Google Spreadsheet.

Please, please please check your costs of living before you accept!

To play with your own numbers feel free to download a copy of the Excel file or click the link to the Public Google Document and save your own Google Spreadsheet to play with.

XLS Estimated Cost of Living File (Excel File to Download)

Google Spreadsheet Estimated Cost of Living File (Web Page, I recommend downloading your own copy in whatever format works best or saving a private copy to your Google Account.)

Remember, if you can’t afford to pay for all of your monthly expenses on the salary you are being offered you will either need to: find a secondary income, cut your expenses, or think about refusing the job.

Cedar Point Biological Station

Monday 7/25/11

Get up to take 7:15 am bus to center city area.

7:45 am get off bus at 11th and N.

Start 2 mile walk to Transportation Services (which is not located near any campus or city bus routes) to pick up a university car for our 5.5 hour trip to service the Cedar Point Research Station’s library.

I decided to pick up some books from Dr. Griep Vice, Chair of Chemistry since it and the library were on my way.  When I arrived I assure Dr. Griep’s secretary that I was not really there, just passing through, and then dropped off the books at the library.

Lake McConaughy

During the remaining 1.3 miles of the walk I discovered that the walking path takes you along a sewer route.*

I finally arrive at Transportation Services around 8:30 am drenched in sweat (did I mention it was super hot!) and receive my keys and a gas card

after signing my life away.  I walked out and discover they’ve put me in a huge Chevy Malibu O_o.**  After a moment to freak out about the monster car I’ve been assigned I got in the car, readjust mirrors, figure out how the darn thing works.  I couldn’t find the release for the parking break at all, and it wasn’t set, so I didn’t use it.  After successfully starting the car I drove to my apartment to pick up my luggage and a borrowed work computer before heading out to pick up my coworker who was accompanying me on the adventure and head out toward Cedar Point which is located next to Lake McConaughy.

Around 12:30pm we stop in a random town for lunch and find a great inexpensive Chinese Buffet, hurray!  An hour later we are back on the road.

Check out TED.com for more great content!

*This post is in response to @wawoodworth TEDucation: 5 TED Talks Librarians Should Watch (and Why)

The keys to innovation in science and in librarianship are to relax, look at things with a new perspective and then: solve a problem, create efficiency, find a new way of looking at things that creates order out of chaos.  Conference budgets may be finite but thanks to the Internet there are plenty of ways to seek inspiration from other professionals without traveling hundreds of miles or spending thousands of dollars.

5 TED talks you don’t want to miss!

TED2003 Don Norman on 3 ways good design makes you happy
There’s a tendency to get very process oriented, we all have goals and our focus narrows to achieving those goals as efficiently as possible.  Yet, if we take a moment to think about the goods and services which we use the ones we stick with are those that amuse, inspire, fill a void in our lives or otherwise cause us to connect emotionally.  Join Don Norman for a delightful look at what good design is and how we can apply those principles to what we create.

TEDWomen 2010 – Sheryl Sandberg: Why we have too few women leaders
It’s the irony of libraries and the life sciences, these areas traditionally have a strong female presence, but the majority of the leadership in these areas are still the stereotypical older white male.  This inspiring talk by Sheryl Sandberg shares several of the things which hold women back (some of these things also hold male introverts back).   Even if you don’t think this topic is relevant I challenge you to listen to this talk and think about the example situations she mentions from her own life.  Many of these situations can be changed just by paying attention to others, acknowledging someone’s good work, or raising your hand.  For men and women who choose to take time out to raise a family she provides advice for how to set yourself up to reenter the workforce when your ready at the level you want to.

TEDGlobal 2010 – Sugata Mitra: The child-driven education
Sugata Mitra reminds us that children are very smart and capable of learning anything if they are motivated and receive positive support.  His educational ideas will not solve all of our problems, or even be appropriate in all circumstances.  But, I think they do have a lot of potential for inspiring educators to allow more self-directed learning and to reach people who otherwise would not have access.  (And it provides more ammunition for those of us who want to see more doing and less lecturing in education!)

TED2011 – Deb Roy: The birth of the word
Most people don’t understand what we do, that’s our fault for not expressing ourselves clearly.  Deb Roy had his entire house wired for video to examine how his infant son learned and began using words.  He analyzed how and why we learn new words and concepts.  Reflecting on how we learn to communicate will, I hope, inspire you to think about how you express yourself to others.  Instead of telling people what we do with lots of jargon, try explaining your job as you would to a child, briefly and accurately, and not a recitation of your position description.

TEDxPuget Sound 2009 – Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action
You may think you aren’t a leader, maybe you don’t want to be a leader, but libraries and science are both in desperate need of great leaders.  In addition to recognizing and nurturing talent being a great leader requires good communication skills.  Using Apple as an example Simon Sineak identifies what’s necessary for communicating effectively and ties his theories into biology.  He then challenges us to pursue the things that we are passionate about in order to succeed.

What are your TED talks to watch?

Jeff and Kiyomi Deards Relaxing With Family

As far back as I can remember I’ve always managed to take alternate routes in life.  From friendships and education, to career path, I’ve always marched to my own invisible (and possibly neurotic) drummer.  My path to being a #Scimom is typical of my life, but different from most.

Whatever the reason I’ve never felt the urge to procreate. My oldest friend reminded me recently of a conversation we had about 20 years ago when we were about 12 where I expressed my disinterest in being a birth parent but was willing to adopt if needed to ensure my friends and relatives children always had a home.  I have always been passionate about education and mentoring, and had a reputation for “being good with kids”.

In spite of this lifelong lack of desire to procreate I have found myself in the position of being a #Scimom through marriage.  Fortunately, I enjoy a very positive relationship with my step-children.  Perhaps it is because we’re closer in age than is usual, I’m more like the young hip aunt than a step-mom.  Basically I skipped to the fun part, no diapers, no teen age rebellion, I came on the scene just in time for my step-kids to be in or starting college.  Both of them have successfully graduated from college and been on their own for several years.  The biggest challenge for me is to maintain my slightly older and wiser rep with the kids, and not foist my views of what they should do on them.  I think it’s a little easier for me than for their parents, because while I love them dearly I did not spend years protecting them from life, dreaming about what they might do.  What I see is their potential, all the different and varied careers that I imagine them succeeding in using the skills they are passionate about, and I know that even though I can think of several careers that I think both of them could be successful in there are probably a dozen more that I haven’t thought of that they’d probably love even more.

The major family issue we deal with is that I am the faculty member who drags their “trailing spouse” around with them.  The whole family has been very supportive about my career, but I know it’s hard on everyone that we moved from California to Nebraska.  Thankfully the kids have been really supportive of my career change; being a science librarian is very different from being the quality control manager at an environmental testing laboratory!  And even though they’re starting to spread out geographically themselves, I know they miss having us in the same general location as their mom and step-father.  So how do we (my husband and I) try and mitigate our absence?  It’s less than one year since our move and my husband has gone back to visit family twice.  We have also made a deliberate effort to be extra early with birthday and Christmas cheer so that even though we’re only able to call on the phone instead of meeting up for dinner, at least the presents are there early/on time.  Thanks to the internet and smartphones we are able to keep in touch through Facebook, text messages, and the odd phone call, but it’s really not the same as visiting in person.  Hopefully once things settle down we’ll be able to bring them out to see us periodically or set up a more regular visitation schedule.

Am I good #Scimom?  I don’t know. But location aside, I put my family first because they really are the most important thing.

P.S.  I list our names as Jeff and Kiyomi in that order because that way our names are in alphabetical order, can we say compulsive? There’s a reason I was drawn to physical chemistry and cataloging