Hello everyone. I realize placing (Brazil) in the title will get many to not even read this but I'm also looking for investment opportunities elsewhere so if you know someone who can contribute, please let me know or let them know. Thank you.
I made several stupid decisions early on and you can see the results. I'm 25 years old, unemployed, and unemployable (ok, not quite, I could probably find minimun wage jobs if I applied to, but getting one now to leave within a few months or so might screw my prospects even more, so I'd like to weight my options before making any decisions).
Current educational attainment
When I was 17 I got into a top-tier University (by local standards, frequently ranked top 1 or 2 in Latin America), Computer Sciences degree. Had I gotten the diploma I'd have excellent job prospects, with good wages to boost. As it was a public University the course was also free and I only had to worry about transportation, in addition to helping pay bills at home.
As it happens, I never managed to conclude it. For a few years I was employed 2.5 hours away from University, and unable to get there in time to have my presence computed (minimun of 75% presence or automatic failure on that class, regardless of achievments). Eventually I quit University and kept the job only.
Current work experience
My job history right now is an unpaid internship as Software Developer, a low-paid technical support (help desk) job at a Call Center, and a Government job at the Education Dept of the City gov, which was better paid and with better benefits. The problem here is, I have several months of gap between each job and prospective employers aren't going to look at that favorably. Government positions here rely on public exams that anyone can take, if I do well at the exams, they are a sure way to get jobs with nice benefits, even if pay isn't always great, but the problem with that is sometimes they'll take a while to call.
Eventually I quit University and kept the job only, then I took a big gamble for another government job (one that was quite well-paid) and quit my job as well. I know the usual advice is "don't leave your job until you already have something else" but I really needed the time to study for the exam (I'd never get in without it). Government jobs have great benefits that I can't expect local private companies to match. Since I'd already accumulated a bit of money in the bank and I had experience with those Government exams (not only the job I held at the time was also Government, and I also had been previously approved in two other exams for Government positions one of which might yet call me within two years, if so then I'll have an entry-level management position at the City Hall).
Current financial situation
The $ 26,000 I hold is all in BRL (not USD or EUR) and it's held on a fund that gets me around 7% per year (but since inflation is decreasing, that amount is bound to decrease as well). It has a 2% administration fee and there's a tax of 20% over gains. I'm already aware of funds with both better return and lower fees, although at greater risk. I'm willing to move a cetain % of my money but am still not sure how much, and would like to know whether there are better options before commiting (even if out of country).
I get around $ 100 BRL per month in passive "income" but I don't really see it as income. Were I to spend it then my savings would never grow and 26k wouldn't really last for years of retirement. I've always been very frugal, when I work I usually give around 40% to my mother to help pay the bills, law says that if I don't have a car (I don't) then I can pick between a loss of 6% of my wages and in exchange my employer pays my transportation costs (calculated on least costly route, which might take longer) or I can receive 100% of my wages and deal with transportation costs myself, so far no job I held was well-paying enough that 6% of my wages were greater than my costs so my employers have always paid transportation for me, and as an University student I paid half fares for a while.
Without a job, sometimes I buy groceries here and there, or help pay some bills, but I avoid spending on anything else at all. Which is hard because every $1 I save is $1 my mother will have to cover. We live in a big city (Southern hemisphere's largest one) and thus prices are relatively expensive. Cost of living is probably second only to the capital.
Medium-term expenses coming in
My mother will retire soon. It might be next year, it might be within 3 years. We don't know yet and it'll depend on how much she'll be making from her retirement funds. She intends on moving to the interior, in which case she'd need to sell this house to buy something else there. Another option would be for us to keep this house, I'd live here and pay rent to her and she'd use that to pay rent in a less expensive city.
Yet another option would be for me to move to a smaller house/apartment and put this up for rent at a higher price than she'd charge me, the rent would go 100% for her, of course.
Options for the future
Employment: Government exams are held all the time but at any one time, most of them will be for city govs on far off locations, this means they'll have lower wages and since I'll be moving away from home I'll need to start paying rent and everything in-between. Even with lower cost, small cities around here, in general, have worse cost to income ratios.
I was approved for a low-level position at the Management Dept of my city's government in 2016, but that year we had elections and the new Mayor who's big on efficiency decided not to hire us at the time to save on costs, the exam is valid till 2020 at best and by then we'll also have another election. I expect the current mayor will call us then to fill positions but I can't wait till 2020 to get a job.
I've been looking for online work from translation to freelancing to walking people's dogs, but that isn't really sustainable long term. Going to eBay and selling some of my possessions isn't going to bring me much money and I don't have much to sell anyway.
Academic credentials: an University degree would certainly be useful to get jobs but any bachelor degree would take me a least of 4 years to get. I might try something in Computer Sciences/Software Development, that'd allow me to validate the credits I already have and I wouldn't need to partake in those classes but I still wouldn't get a degree prior to the minimun of 4 years.
An option would be a 2 years degree, they are considered higher education and would, thus, qualify me for Government positions which require a higher degree. That'd not only increase my options, but also reduce competition, and increase prospective wages, but wouldn't be of much use when looking for jobs on private companies.
So I have several choices for a degreee: public or private, campus or online, 2 years or 4years, CS related or a new field. Public Universities are in general higher quality (even online public ones are better than the average private options). The problem is, one of my fuckups was not thinking about that on time and now I need to wait until next year to try a position on a public University. Even for a 2 years degree, I'd only receive it by the end of 2020.
If I want to have a degree by December 2019 then my only option are 2 years private degrees but any private degree of quality would eat a substantial part of my savings (15,000 BRL in total costs at the very least, in a field I don't care for and an University that doesn't hold much name anyway). In order to reduce costs I'm thinking on getting an online private degree of 2 years (gasp). Those are the worst ones, I won't learn anything, employers will wrinkle their nose and throw my resume away. But with one of those, if I do well on a government exam I have guaranteed job in the government. And if I go for the really low-tier ones it'll only cost me some 4,000 BRL. Then once I have a job (even if low-paid) I can look into a free quality degree for employment prospects.
Something I'd like to do was a Machine Learning course and get into the field but prospects in this particular field around here are nearly non-existant (I think) and getting something on another country wouldn't be easy without a bachelor or at least 2 years degree.
There's an entire industry around those Government-held exams, selling courses, books, personal coaching, etc. Some of those think there'll be exams for the Senate next semester (as in, civil servants on the Senate, not Senators who are elected). That's a very hard place to get into, in 2012 there were 160,000 candidates for 250 positions. It's also the twice in a decade opportunity, It happened in 2008, 2012, and nobody actually knows when the next one will come. There are people who've been studying for it for years. If I start now and it really comes next semester then I'd only have 6 months of study but I think I can make it, and I am unemployed so it's not like I lack the time, and I'd never have to worry about money ever again. But it'd be an even bigger gamble than the other one that didn't pay, so what I'll probably do is study for the lower paid ones and let that one pass.
So here's the thing: I can go for the lowest tier of accredited degrees available to me, for a cost of 4,000 BRL, have a degree by December 2019, and jump into government jobs (which have great benefits but might be slow to call, thus landing me a job who knows when). Or go for a quality free degree, get the degree one year later, have reasonable job prospects (but not great, due to a lack of experience and employment gaps), with worse benefits, and wages that might be better or worse depending on field (and I might land a job 1 month after getting my degree, or 2 years, depending on field).
And I need to think about the money I already have. I have 100% of it on a single fund. It's not based on stocks, it's low-volatile and low risk, high liquidity, but still, it's 100% of my money on a single place and I'd like to know what else I can do with it.
I thought about getting $10 on Bitcoin and Ethereum each, on the hope that at least one will have a boom again, if they both tank I only lose $20. But after checking the prices they (and a bunch of other options) were all tanking so I'm waiting a little before I do that.
Submitted February 11, 2018 at 10:03AM by EutopicSimulations http://ift.tt/2Bn1nDm
