However, the US Federal Reserve has been slashing interest rates all willy-nilly as of late. My savings account bank of choice, ING Direct, has already lowered the interest rate on their “High Yield” savings account twice this year. This hits me especially hard right now, since I just wrote a check for almost $8,000 to pay off the my car loan in full. And although I’m puckering from all sides and curbing all unnecessary spending until that money is replaced, I certainly wouldn’t turn down the extra money that I’m now not getting from my ING account.

Enter the CD Ladder

CD laddering is the process of buying multiple certificates of deposit with varying rates of maturity to take advantage of their high yields without having to tie up all of your money at once.

Here are two crude examples…

Example 1:

In January, I purchase 3-month, 6-month and 12-month CDs for $5,000 each.

At the end of March, my first CD (the 3-month CD) matures and I get my $5,000 plus interest back. I still have $10,000 tied up in the other two CDs, until the end of June and December. I can re-invest the money from the first CD into another CD, or redirect it elsewhere if needed now that it’s liquid again.

Example 2:

In January, I purchase a 6-month CD for $5,000. I proceed to buy another 6-month CD for the same amount every month for the next 5 months. At the end of June, the first CD I purchased matures and I get my $5,000 plus interest back. I can reinvest this money in another 6-month CD, or redirect it elsewhere now that it’s liquid again.

Because good CDs have a minimum investment amount that is significantly higher than the minimum balance on most high-yield savings accounts, they’re not affordable for everyone. However, now that the benefit of high interest at many high yield savings account providers is diminishing, this might be a good time to look at other investment vehicles.

For more information, check out the CD Ladder Calculators at Bankrate.com and Dinkytown.net.

I’ll admit the title sounds rather sinister.

In a perfect world, showing up on time and excelling at your job would be enough to grant you job security. However, there are times when circumstances beyond your control give you reason to fear for your job.

A great example of this is when a new boss is hired to manage a department. While some managers/directors are happy to draw upon the existing human capital in a company, others prefer to restaff.

I was presented with a situation like this some time ago. A new director had been hired to manage a small, 4-person team that I was a member of. Despite each team member’s efforts to welcome and accommodate the new director, he chose instead to actively make enemies whenever and wherever possible.

Why would a director do that? Well, rather than try to win over a small team that had been working together for years, his plan was quite obviously to get rid of the team one at a time and hire a new staff that would be loyal to him. Failing that, he could simply outsource as many jobs as possible and convince his boss that he was saving the company money.

He was fired within a month.

Should you find yourself in a situation where you have a reasonable suspicion that your company may be looking to replace you, here are a few ways to get an advanced warning.

1. Set up a job alert at Indeed.com

Indeed.com is a job search website that pulls listings from top job hunting websites, newspaper ads, and “careers” pages on company sites. When you run a search, you can ask to have future results for that query sent to you via email.

Set up “Email Job Alerts” for your company’s name and also for your title in your area. Here are two examples:

Job Alert 1 - “JoeBob’s Media n’ Things” in Michigan

Job Alert 2 - “Media Planner” in Kalamazoo, MI

Employers will often withhold the name of the company from their job posting, especially if they are using a recruiter or staffing agency. However, because there are probably not hundreds of Media Planner positions open in Kalamazoo Michigan, any that come up in the search might be yours.

Naturally, this works best for small and medium-sized companies and in small and medium-sized cities. If you were to set up Job Alert 2 for New York, NY, you’d be spending a lot of time combing the results.

Remember, do not check the email address that is receiving these alerts from work. As discussed earlier, the IT department is probably already spying on you. If they see you’re getting emails about other jobs in the area, you may have a problem.

2. Apply for your own job

No, don’t actually send a resume and cover letter.

When your employer is looking to fill a position, they are likely to either ask for candidates by posting the job opening or to look for candidates by browsing profiles on job sites.

I can’t sit here and actually tell you to create a fake profile on Monster.com.

Let’s just say that if someone with all of your qualifications, but a different name and different companies on their resume created a job seeker profile online, your employer might contact them about the job. This person would live in the same area as the company, but have different personal and contact information.

Hypothetically speaking.

3. Talk to your boss

This often-overlooked strategy is less devious and more valuable than diving through the company dumpster looking for resumes.

You don’t want to plant the seed in your employer’s head that there might be someone better out there for your job. You can, however, ask for an informal performance review. Make it clear that you are not asking for a review to milk them for a higher salary. Show your boss that you value his/her opinion and have a desire to please them with your work. Gauge their responses and determine whether you still have reason to be suspicious that you may soon be replaced.

Well, I read it and I didn’t really enjoy it. Some parts of the book were inspiring and thought-provoking, but on the whole it wasn’t my favorite. I’m not sure if I disagree with a lot of what the author suggests, or just the manner in which he presents his advice. Either way, it’s not for me. However, copies fly off the shelf so obviously others do enjoy the book. Maybe you will.

Rather than let it collect dust on my bookshelf, I figured I’d offer it to a reader. The book sells on Amazon.com for $11.95 + shipping. I’ll mail my copy to the first reader who either mentions Yuppie Sherpa (with a link) in their blog or gets a fellow blogger to do so. Just claim credit in the comments area of this post or send me an email via the contact form.

Of course the blog is fairly new, so I may end up holding this book for a while if nobody takes me up on the offer. Anyone care to prove me wrong?

Update: Spam blogs are not eligible, so stop flooding me with trackbacks.

Two weeks ago I ordered a pizza for delivery. The delivery boy, who couldn’t have been older than 25, had a clear rock in his earring the size of a soybean. Very popular among the faux-homeboy crowd here in New Jersey.

Of course, he wants me to think it’s a diamond. Having spent many of my formative years delivering pizzas, I know it’s beer glass.

People buy, rent and lease lifestyles they can’t afford or haven’t earned for the sake of impressing others. Few people are fully able to overcome this desire. I know I’m not. But there does come a point at which you must exercise control over this destructive vice for your own benefit.

How to Buy Happiness

Happiness can be bought, or at least invested in. The trick is simply to spend your money on things that will make you happy — not things you hope will make people think more of you or things that will allow you to prove something to yourself.

And the first step to making this “purchase” is to know yourself and the ways you find happiness. Using myself as an example, here are some things that make me various degrees of “happy”…

1. Travel

Although I haven’t done so for a while, traveling to foreign places and immersing myself in the culture and beauty of my surroundings is an experience that not only makes me happy in the moment, but leaves me with memories and stories that outlast most material possessions.

2. Cats

Stop laughing. I realize it may seem like a strange item to place on such a list, but I have kept 1-2 cats at a time as pets for most of my life. I’m obviously not suggesting that you save up your money to buy the coolest cat in the store and put 22-inch rims on it. Being a pet owner, though, does cost money. Food, grooming and vet bills can become significant expenses. For me, these are all small prices to pay for the simple joy I receive from having a pet.

3. Food

I admit to being something of an aspiring “foodie”. I watch the Food Network and Anthony Bourdain religiously, I treat chefs the way most people treat celebrities, and I have been known to choose vacation spots based on the freshness of the local seafood. Because I have identified good food as something I enjoy more than blackout-drunk nights at the pub, I’m able to indulge in an evening of unpronounceable delights for less than what many my age spend in a weekend at the local watering hole.

4. Live Music

Having been raised on my parents’ music, I now have the opportunity to see many of these bands who have recently begun touring again. For me, better seats can turn a concert from good to great by enhancing the total experience. I also know that my opportunities to see these bands are fewer each year, so it’s worth the investment for me to see them live while I still can.

Your list may look nothing like mine, but it’s important to have a list. The alternative is to wake up at age 42 and realize you’ve become an expert on what others want, but have no idea what you want.

• Will you be happier inside your 1996 Accord now that you’ve spent $600 on chrome wheels?
• Would your BMW make you less happy if everyone knew you bought it used with 170,000 miles on it?
• Is anyone ever going to sleep in that 4th bedroom?
• Do you enjoy cracking open lobster claws, or telling people that your ordered it?

Ask yourself: What was the last thing I did that made me happy?

By looking to your past experiences, instead of trying to invent new ones, you evaluate investments you have already made (which is, of course, free).

Was it spending time with your spouse or family? Learning a new skill, whether for your career or simply for personal enrichment? Having a de-cluttered home? Doing some local volunteer work?

My first suggestion for anyone finding themselves faced with this necessary evil is to separate your trips into two categories: evaluation and shopping.

During your evaluation trips, you’ll visit car dealerships to test drive different cars and sample the various price ranges they come in. You should endeavor to learn as much as you can from independent sources about the makes and models you’re interested in. A car salesman is not going to come clean about the fact that the upholstery in the Mazda3 will snag and run if you so much as look at it the wrong way.

Your shopping trips are where you go out with the intention of buying a car. These are the trips where your price haggling takes place.

A car salesman’s goal is to combine these into one trip. Your goal is to keep them separate.

Here are a few tips to make your trips successful…

Get a ride to the dealership

When I did my used car shopping, my car was in a scrap heap somewhere. It was during this unfortunate time that I learned the value of this little trick.

See, a car salesman wants you to buy the car now. If you drove yourself onto the lot, that means you either have to leave with two cars, or trade yours in and leave with the one they just sold you. But if you don’t have your trade-in with you…

Bingo! Exit plan! No matter how badly they want to sit you down and get you to agree to a price, no car salesman is going to promise you a dollar amount on a trade-in they haven’t seen in person.

Shop locally first

Like it or not, used car dealers are competing with private sellers for your business. This is precisely why the Kelley Blue Book lists separate values for retail, trade-in and private party sales. By looking in the newspapers, auto trader magazines, Craigslist and eBay, you can compile a price range for your desired vehicle in your location. This, much to the dismay of many used car salesmen, is the local market value for your car of choice.

It also never hurts to print what you find and bring it with you. The printouts won’t make any difference to a salesman, but they’re nice to have handy when they refuse to believe anyone would sell such a car for less than they’re offering.

Get the car’s wholesale value

A used car has a wholesale price which is far lower than what your salesman is asking you to pay. This is the price the dealership paid for the car when it was traded in, purchased at auction or bought from a wholesaler. Theoretically, this is the number that the dealership cannot sell for less than without cutting their own throat.

Finding out the wholesale value of a car involves asking everyone you know if they have a friend or relative who works in a car dealership that can look it up for you. All serious dealerships have wholesale prices for cars, even if they don’t have any of that car on the lot themselves. They need to have an idea of what to pay in the event that a customer wants to trade one in. So while these prices may not be exact, they’re an estimate that the dealership considers reliable.

Does this mean that you can’t get it for less than wholesale? Of course it doesn’t.

When I told my local Mazda dealer that I could buy my car of choice at the dealership down the road for thousands less than he was asking, he said it was impossible. He said “that price is below what the wholesale is on this car — I can’t even buy it for that!”

And he was right! But the dealer who offered me this low price was in a bit of a slump and had bought a car that didn’t fit what his average customer was looking for. As a result, he was willing to lose a little money just to get it out of the showroom. Now, a year later, I could sell the car with all of the miles I’ve put on it and make money.

Don’t get steamrolled — know!

Something is only worth what someone else is willing to pay for it.

Know what a car is worth to you. Do not rely on a salesman who eats off his commission to establish the car’s value for you. Unless you truly misunderstood the value (as defined above) of the car in the first place, nothing you’re told while on the lot should be able to change your mind.

Before I settled on my car, I toyed with the idea of buying a used SUV at my local Mitsubishi dealership. I knew what I was willing to pay for it, but the salesman wouldn’t come close to my price and he let me walk. Then they called my cell a day later and asked me to come back in, which I did. And again, they let me walk. Three times I sat there and refused to budge on my price, three times they let me walk.

A little under a month after I purchased my Mazda, I stopped back into the same showroom with a friend who was car shopping. Sure enough, the same Mitsubishi Endeavor was still sitting there. When the salesman learned I had gone elsewhere, he immediately began trying to push the SUV on my friend!

If the car is really worth so much more than what I was asking, then why was it parked in the middle of an indoor showroom, in May, where nobody could test drive it in the first place? Remember, you’re probably not the first to be offered the car you’re looking at, which means that everyone else has passed on it.

After college, I spent a year commuting from my home in New Jersey to my job in New York City by bus. Riding a public bus when you’re 6′5 with a fractured knee is bad. Having to pay the full cost of the commute yourself when you’re making pennies is worse.

Below are some tips and tricks I picked up that could save mass transit commuters hundreds or even thousands of dollars in transportation expenses per year.

Buy your tickets in bulk

The bus line I rode in and out of Manhattan gave commuters the option to buy a 20-pack of tickets for less than 20 individually-purchased tickets would cost. For my particular route, the 20-pack worked out to be $22.65 cheaper for every 20 tickets.

Math time!

20 tickets divided by two trips per day equals 10 days per 20-pack of tickets

240 work days divided by 10 days per pack of tickets equals 24 packs per year

$22.65 saved on every pack, multiplied by 24 packs is an annual savings of $543.60!

When you’re getting double-taxed and commuting every working day of the year, $543.60 is a lot of money saved. Additionally, tickets purchased before a fare increase (think gasoline surcharges) may be grandfathered, depending on the policy of your local mass transit line.

Buy unused tickets from others

When I left my job in NYC, I had quite a stockpile of unused bus tickets, the cost of which I foolishly ended up eating. I would have gladly accepted far less than I paid for the tickets just to cut my losses. There is, however, no shortage of people in similar situations selling their unused tickets, rail passes and metro cards on Craigslist at a significant discount.
Naturally you must be wary of scams and frauds when dealing on Craigslist. Since most of the people selling tickets probably live in your home or work area, though, purchasing in person is very doable. These deals are plentiful in any major metro area, and the savings add up very quickly.

Find a cheaper route nearby

Speaking again of bus lines, many towns have multiple pick-up points that are priced differently depending on their proximity to the final destination. My pick up was actually in my driveway. However, there was another pick up spot within walking distance that was significantly cheaper. How much cheaper?

As I mentioned earlier, I purchased all tickets in 20-packs. This alternate pick up spot was $7.10 less per 20-pack than the one in front of my house. Using the assumption again that I purchased 24 packs of tickets in a year, my total savings would have been $170.40 per year.

Check the routes on your mass transit line’s website or check at their ticket desk to see if there are cheaper pick up / drop off points on your route. If walking isn’t an option, perhaps your spouse or neighbor could drop you off on their way in the mornings.

Get your employer on board with Commuter Choice

Commuter Choice is a program maintained by the Association for Commuter Transportation in partnership with the Federal Highway Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency.

By participating in the Commuter Choice program, your employer can give $100 per month tax free to their employees for mass transit or vanpooling. The employer can then receive a tax deduction for the total amount paid out to employees. You, meanwhile, get a tax free $100 worth of transportation each month.

This is only one of the incentives offered by Commuter Choice — for a full outline of programs offered to employers and participating cities, visit their Employer Resources page.

Negotiate compensation in place of vacation time

Companies can be very pliable when it comes to negotiating vacation time for a new employee. I’ve seen many cases where an admin-level employee received twice as much vacation time as their boss, because they requested their new employer match the amount of vacation time they had at their last job.

Instead of asking for more vacation time (which doesn’t impress many employers to begin with), run this one by your boss…

A person making $50,000/yr for 240 work days is getting paid $208.33 per day. Those 5 vacation days carry with them a price tag of $1,041.65. That’s over a thousand dollars for five days of your employer getting nothing from you.

Perhaps your boss would rather put that money towards your transportation expenses and have you in the office being productive for those five days. In this negotiation, not only do you cut your expenses, but you also show your employer that your primary concern is not taking time off.

Telecommute one day a week

This is not a possibility for everyone, but if your responsibilities allow it, see if your employer will as well. Remote workstations and office virtualization software are very common in companies of all sizes.

If your daily transportation expenses total $10/day, that one day a week spent working from home would save you around $480 per year!

Commuting for your job can be tough on anyone, but it doesn’t have to clean you our financially. Question the price tag attached to every aspect of what it costs you to be gainfully employed and accept no expense at face value.

What other ways of saving on your transportation costs can you find?

Update: About an hour after publishing this post, I saw that Sasha over at Consumerism Commentary posted about the Chase Commuter Cash card. The card gives cash rewards for money spent on certain transportation expenses in NYC.

“They’re mean, they’re lazy, they talk down to me, etc.”

To be blunt, you need the IT department a lot more than they need you in the microcosm that is your company or office. So, rather than be discouraged, take into account these three things that every professional should know about the IT department.

1. They’re the hardest working people in the company

There are exceptions to every rule, but this is one I’ve found holds true for every company I’ve worked for. While you may not think they’re the hardest working people in the company, they probably do — and that’s what this is about.

You need to understand that the average employee will never make a request to the IT department that qualifies as a “major” project for them. If you were to listen to two IT specialists discuss a project in non-layman’s terms, your head would explode. Kind of like the movie ‘Scanners’.

Much like the CIA or your local police, a successful IT department is one where you forget why you need them.

2. IT professionals have preconceived notions about you too

I’ve befriended IT professionals everywhere, from big companies like Viacom to small companies using the janitor’s closet as a server room. They can be some of the friendliest folks you’d ever want to meet, especially if you’re able to sympathize. Sympathize with what?

Imagine asking Alan Greenspan to help you balance your checkbook.

Now, sympathize with the fact that your IT department, despite years spent elbow-deep in server code, spends a significant portion of their day recovering forgotten passwords and explaining how to get the little cartoon paperclip to stop popping up in MS Word. There’s a reason why the common acronym among IT professionals is ‘PEBKAC‘, which stands for “Problem Exists Between Keyboard and Chair“.

3. They know everything you’re doing

I’m always met with disbelief when I explain this to others who are just entering a corporate workforce for the first time. You are being watched. Yes, you.

Everything you do with the company computer, including the sites you visit, how much time you spend on them, and image captures of your screen throughout the day are probably being fed to your IT department. Now, the IT department uses some of this information to protect the company network from malware sites and viruses. The rest of the information, however, is available to your boss at any given time.

While we’re on the subject, know what else your boss has? Access to your entire MS Outlook, including your sent and deleted items. Before you go in and start emptying out your “Deleted Items” folder, you should also know that most companies also make frequent (as in nightly) backups.

You don’t have to love your IT department, but making an effort to understand their needs, limitations and frustrations will go a long way towards making sure you get what you want from them.

I prefer to secure pay increases from my existing employer, rather than switch companies to inflate my salary. Because of this, I’ve negotiated many raises for myself with several companies in my (relatively) short time in corporate America.

Here are a few tips and strategies that have helped beef up my paycheck over the years.

1. Research Industry Salaries

It’s much easier to justify your desired salary level if you can show your boss that you are being paid less than you are worth. Salary levels vary by industry, experience level and geographic location. By researching what other professionals with comparable profiles are making in your industry, your contention that you deserve a raise can be backed up by multiple objective sources. Always print out your findings, as it’s much easier to dismiss someone telling you what they “read online” than someone who has his data in-hand. Some places to begin your research include:

- Salary comparison sites, such as Salary.com and PayScale

- Independent research and surveys from industry groups, usually conducted annually. These can usually be found by searching Google for “[your title/industry] salary survey”.

- Job postings for positions similar to yours that list salary. Note: Use for reference only, DO NOT print these out.

2. Research Market/Industry Forecasts

In my job, which involves managing ad campaigns, a forward-looking industry forecast that says ad spend is expected to increase X% in the next year helps my cause. By showing that the industry as a whole (including my employer’s competition) will be increasing their spending, I’m not better able to make the case for why having a skilled campaign manager who is familiar with the market/company/industry is worth more than what I’m asking for.

3. Know What You’re Worth

The nature of my work allows me to draw a clear line between myself and the revenues generated by my efforts. I don’t mind telling you that, in a year, my work contributes millions to my company’s bottom line. I also don’t mind admitting that I don’t have a 7-figure salary. By showing on paper how much I was worth to the company last year, it’s easy for me to present my request as a pittance by comparison.

4. Ask for a Performance-Based Bonus

Before I even go into this, let me say: get it in writing! You’re about to ask for a contractual arrangement, whereby you will receive either a one-time bonus or a permanent salary increase for meeting one or more performance goals. The advantage this has over asking for a salary increase is that you can outline exactly what your employer will be getting for their money. However, to successfully execute such a mission, you had better come prepared…

- You must have done your homework in advance to find the offer(s) your boss can’t refuse.

- You must make sure you’re not offering something that you should already be doing.

- You MUST put in writing what the goals are and what specifically constitutes “meeting” them.

Don’t give away how you will meet these goals, otherwise you may find your plan of attack is now the job description for the person being hired to replace you. This is a high risk/high reward strategy, which is why I don’t recommend it for anyone looking to get just a small pay bump.

5. Timing is Everything

Do not ask for a raise during your company’s slow season or around holidays. Instead, make your request when the thought of losing you as an employee is downright terrifying. I’m not suggesting you ambush your boss or hit him/her when they’re weak. Doing so will only create a loss of trust that may limit your future with the company. Wait until your participation is about to become more valuable or you are about to have more work to do. Not only will this redefine the consequences for your employer of turning down your request, but it will also give you an extra leg to stand on. A person asking to expand their pay along with their responsibilities comes across more reasonably than a person who wants extra money for the same effort.

6. Start a Rumor - Note: At your own risk

This can only be done if you are confident you know how your employer will respond, or if you’re willing to ditch the job. Speaking from experience, I can say that I have seen many cases where an employer caught wind of an employee’s desire to leave the company, and approached them with a pay increase. It happened by accident to me one time when I actually was planning to leave. I’ve seen others approached by their bosses with salary increases of over 10% based on a rumor alone. Now make no mistake… like with the other strategies, this one depends heavily on your value to the company. If you haven’t made yourself needed, your boss may spend your raise on a piñata party when he hears the rumor.

Above all, don’t ask for what you don’t deserve. On the one hand, if you don’t believe you deserve what you’re asking for and you’re challenged on it, you’ll fold like a cheap suit. On the other hand, if you secure a salary that exceeds what you’re worth, it probably won’t be long before your employer realized this and fixes the error. Asking for what you feel is fair and right will instill you with the confidence and conviction that you’ll need in order to do battle with a tight-fisted boss.

But don’t be fooled by the radio, the TV or the magazines
They show you photographs of how your life should be
But they’re just someone else’s fantasy
So if you think your life is complete confusion because you never win the game
Just remember that it’s a Grand Illusion

…
Someday soon we’ll stop to ponder what on Earth’s this spell we’re under
We made the grade and still we wonder who the hell we are

-Dennis DeYoung, Styx

Yuppie Sherpa is a collection of thoughts and lessons on finance, career development, and life as an ambitious young professional. My hope is that others who are not content to settle for mediocrity or nepotism will connect with some of what is written here.