Best_Time_To_Work_Is_During_A_Pandemic
00:00:00.000 | Hello everybody, it's Sam from Financial Samurai and in this episode I want to talk about
00:00:04.160 | why the pandemic is the best time to work and also how
00:00:09.280 | rankings for public schools public universities
00:00:12.740 | Will continue to go higher and probably outrank many of the classic elite private institutions over time
00:00:19.100 | And in this episode I have with me a special guest Sydney my wife say hello
00:00:23.220 | So first of all, I just want to talk about work because it seems like
00:00:29.400 | A lot of my friends at least from the softball league are having a really great time
00:00:34.280 | During the pandemic because they get to work from home like one guy. He's taken four
00:00:39.680 | Vacations or trips. He recently was in New York City for a week and he said oh, yeah
00:00:45.240 | I went to go see my parents and I was able to quote work and then oftentimes on Facebook
00:00:51.720 | He's talking about watching games and Giants games on you know, one o'clock to four o'clock and I'm thinking myself
00:00:58.360 | Man, I want an employer who's gonna pay me multiple six figures to go watch a Giants game
00:01:03.120 | I mean, maybe it's not a Giants game
00:01:04.960 | But maybe I'll go play tennis and take a nap and if I can make big bucks
00:01:09.160 | Why not? So what are your thoughts on that?
00:01:11.600 | My first question to you is does this friend of yours have young children?
00:01:16.240 | Oh
00:01:18.520 | Yeah, well, he doesn't have young children. He works at Facebook
00:01:22.240 | Well thing is like other friends who work at ones at Wells Fargo
00:01:26.680 | One I don't know what he does, but they seem to be having really flexible
00:01:30.800 | Lifestyles, but again, they don't have children
00:01:33.840 | Yeah
00:01:35.560 | That's the first thing that popped into my head because I think all of us parents during the pandemic with young children
00:01:41.560 | Felt much differently about balancing work and child care because the pandemic changed
00:01:48.320 | Everything with preschools closing down and schools closing down and obviously a lot has reopened
00:01:55.600 | Since then but as a parent it pandemic has been hard. No, you know what?
00:02:02.200 | You're right. It's like double duty all day every day, especially if you have a day job
00:02:07.440 | You're working your day job at home
00:02:09.880 | there's very little boundaries between home life and work life and
00:02:13.440 | you've got to take care of your children who are always happy to see you usually or sometimes they're screaming and
00:02:20.560 | If you're creative and you're trying to do art or write or sing or do a podcast
00:02:25.760 | Doing a lot of things things is it's almost impossible
00:02:30.280 | We both had experiences where we've been sitting at our laptop and la la la la la here comes our son
00:02:38.160 | You know one on the days where he's not in preschool, which just started a couple weeks ago, you know, and he's like
00:02:49.120 | That's really cute and fun, you know the first couple times but then he keeps checking back in
00:02:55.360 | As the minutes tick by our patient starts to go down and there's a point where it's like, okay
00:03:02.800 | I just gotta escape. I need to escape or work when he's sleeping because this isn't working
00:03:09.280 | Right, right. I mean so many times you and I have probably rewritten a sentence
00:03:15.800 | many many times because of interruptions and we can't record this podcast if he's at home because he's gonna come find us in the house and
00:03:23.200 | Unfortunately, unfortunately, we don't live in a mega mansion
00:03:25.920 | So we don't have the left wing and the right wing and the north wing to hide and oh
00:03:30.200 | Right
00:03:36.760 | Okay, so maybe working during the pandemic with kids is not the easiest thing. However
00:03:43.320 | However, the great thing now is that he is back in preschool
00:03:47.760 | So we decided to pull our son from preschool in March 2020 when the lockdowns began
00:03:53.640 | And we decided you know what? He's only three years old once four years old once
00:03:59.320 | Let's just use this time and make some lemonade and spend as much time with him and homeschool him as much as possible
00:04:05.920 | since then so he just started preschool August 25th 2021 and
00:04:10.640 | So far he's been having a pretty good time. He's adjusted well
00:04:15.320 | So do you feel like you have more time to do more things?
00:04:20.480 | Yeah, it's funny it's just change takes a while to get used to and now that he's in school
00:04:27.640 | My my schedule is shifted. So I'm using more time to spend with our daughter one-on-one
00:04:35.560 | because
00:04:37.440 | When he wasn't in school, it was a lot of them
00:04:41.360 | Simultaneously, and so I didn't have as much time with her alone and I'm taking advantage of that now
00:04:47.320 | And I think she really likes it as well. So I
00:04:50.800 | Do have more time to myself when she's taking her nap in the middle of the day, which is nice
00:04:57.440 | So that's been that's been helpful
00:04:59.840 | Okay. Well, that's really great that you're able to spend more one-on-one time with our daughter
00:05:05.720 | So am I and so what about work productivity? I
00:05:09.520 | Still find that I do my best work at night when the kids are asleep
00:05:14.520 | Sometimes if you've gone to bed early, I'm the only one awake in the house
00:05:19.440 | That's when I do my best work and I think you're the exact opposite you do your best work
00:05:24.000 | Early in the morning when all the rest of us are asleep or busy
00:05:28.040 | So I do definitely
00:05:31.600 | use that time and
00:05:34.520 | I also get a I get more time during the day when he's in school as well, but
00:05:38.760 | ultimately my best productivity is
00:05:42.200 | late
00:05:44.360 | So early exact opposite. Yeah, I believe conquer the morning conquer the day you do something productive and awesome work
00:05:51.560 | Whatever it is, then you can feel guilt-free for the rest of the day. Do you not believe in that philosophy?
00:05:57.280 | I think that's a great philosophy. I'm just not a morning person. And so I start my
00:06:03.480 | My brain just isn't as clear in the morning. I'm busy getting him ready for school
00:06:08.120 | Our daughter wants all a lot of attention in the morning. And then at the end of the day, I'm tired, but
00:06:15.240 | If I can do something productive I can go to sleep easier
00:06:20.800 | All right, because I don't go to bed thinking I still wish I did this. I wish I did that
00:06:25.200 | I'll be like, okay. I am exhausted as heck, but I was able to
00:06:30.200 | Get this one thing done or these two things done now. I can really go to sleep and by that time I am
00:06:36.240 | Exhausted so my head hits the pillow and I'm out
00:06:39.480 | That's actually a good way to look at it to you go to sleep satisfied that you accomplished the things you wanted to accomplish, right?
00:06:46.240 | so I want to go back to the idea that during a pandemic is the best time for
00:06:52.200 | knowledge workers people who can work from home to work and one of the
00:06:57.360 | Big benefits I think is the greater ability to side hustle when I was working in banking
00:07:03.320 | You know, I started financial summary in 2009 during the bottom of the financial crisis
00:07:07.600 | But I didn't report to my firm that I was doing this because I was thinking well
00:07:13.380 | This is my freedom of speech freedom of creativity. I'm gonna go do whatever I want
00:07:17.240 | But really if you have any kind of outside interest at work
00:07:22.680 | Or from work you need to report that and if you're making any money
00:07:26.520 | You should report it as well, and you definitely don't want any conflicts of interest. So I think it's pretty cool that
00:07:32.280 | Employees can work from home
00:07:35.400 | You know their employer doesn't really know what they're doing all day
00:07:38.840 | which is why so many of my friends are going to ball games and taking naps and running errands and
00:07:43.880 | You can work on your side hustle, which they have no way of tracking and you can make some money and there's even a story
00:07:50.360 | Where employees some of them are taking two jobs at once?
00:07:54.680 | Do you read that? I mean, it's like yeah, that's a no-brainer if you have the energy and time to do it
00:08:00.760 | I mean, maybe you will run afoul of the law
00:08:03.040 | I don't know and in one firm if they find out they'll fire you
00:08:05.760 | but that's the risk and if you can make double the money and the reason why you can make double the money is
00:08:10.880 | probably because
00:08:13.600 | They're not working as much as they were
00:08:17.520 | At their jobs or they can do things more efficiently right more efficiently there they don't have to commute anymore
00:08:23.080 | So they have that time save that they can put towards something more
00:08:26.720 | productive and I also would say
00:08:30.360 | Some industries are super strict on
00:08:33.520 | What you can and can't do outside of work
00:08:37.040 | like finance, right
00:08:40.120 | industries that have a lot of compliance and
00:08:43.600 | Restrictions I will say though if you do want to do a side hustle that involves being on a computer
00:08:49.640 | I highly recommend using a
00:08:51.760 | Personal computer that is not tied into your works network
00:08:56.680 | Because there are a lot of companies out there that are logging what you're doing online
00:09:01.680 | So if you're gonna side hustle keep it on a separate device. Yeah smart separate phone
00:09:08.340 | separate laptop
00:09:10.160 | That that's actually a no-brainer because I remember when I was in finance
00:09:13.320 | They were tracking everything, you know
00:09:16.080 | They had keywords they had like a software where they had keywords where if you typed an email and that keyword pop out
00:09:22.120 | They would review it. Yeah, there's a lot of technology out there that corporations are utilizing and they may not tell you you may have
00:09:29.440 | No idea until you get caught. So just be aware that there is a lot of tech out there for tracking and
00:09:36.800 | If you want to do something
00:09:39.680 | During your scheduled work hours. That's not for work. Just do it on a separate device
00:09:46.120 | Yeah, you know, it's interesting. I was on a podcast recently called paychecks and balances a friend rich
00:09:52.600 | I had been on his podcast. I think three or four years ago talking about
00:09:56.240 | One of the posts I wrote called scraping by on five hundred thousand dollars a year
00:10:01.240 | why some households have a difficult time escaping the rat race and
00:10:06.800 | the reality is I thought rich the host of the podcast was a full-time podcaster and blogger and
00:10:13.440 | He had a guest on named Roger
00:10:16.540 | Who I thought was a full-time, you know financial planner because he wrote a book and he also has a podcast and blog as well
00:10:23.800 | But it turns out both rich and Roger work at Google and they've worked at Google for seven to nine years respectively
00:10:32.320 | And I was thinking myself Wow you work at Google. So you got the best benefits
00:10:36.760 | You know, it's considered one of the best companies you're making multiple six figures and all this time. I thought
00:10:42.920 | They were just full-time solopreneurs
00:10:46.120 | so what I'm trying to say is it's possible to do both to have the comfort of a steady paycheck and
00:10:53.520 | the comfort of health care benefits or subsidies and
00:10:57.600 | 401k matching and so forth and that's something we don't have
00:11:02.120 | We have no safety net and we haven't had this safety net and since you left your day job in 2015
00:11:08.740 | So without this safety net
00:11:10.920 | Frankly, I have felt a lot more pressure, especially since our kids were born in 2017 and 2019
00:11:17.520 | To provide an income to manage our investments to make sure they don't blow up and we lose 30% in one month
00:11:24.040 | Like we did, you know in March 2020
00:11:26.040 | There's been a lot more pressure on me
00:11:30.160 | To make sure things will be okay, right more people are depending on me
00:11:34.400 | Yeah, and so I was wondering since I believe one of the best times to go to work is during a pandemic
00:11:40.800 | What are your thoughts about you going back to work?
00:11:43.960 | What I mean, I mean
00:11:49.400 | You are working you are working for sure. I'm working hard. We have very different roles
00:11:55.600 | I will flat-out say that we have very different roles very different skill sets and
00:12:00.240 | I think we're we're doing a pretty good job
00:12:03.680 | utilizing our individual strengths, and I think that's what
00:12:07.480 | Everyone should try to whether you're in a relationship or not
00:12:12.360 | Utilize your strengths because you're gonna have way more productivity, right? So are you saying that?
00:12:20.640 | You don't want to go to a full-time job
00:12:24.480 | Even though it's much more flexible now. It's just not worth it for me
00:12:29.200 | in my current state of mind, I don't feel like I can handle it because I
00:12:35.280 | Already have enough guilt as a mom. I feel like I'm not doing enough for our kids and
00:12:41.240 | I'm I
00:12:43.920 | Don't want to say struggling, but I'm I'm busy working on back-end stuff for
00:12:49.120 | for the blog for you know, the administrative stuff and
00:12:54.240 | I have I feel like I have a full plate and I'm I will say I am trying to be more involved in writing
00:13:00.120 | I've got stuff in the queue that
00:13:02.960 | Interesting stuff that I've been researching and learning about as well as sharing my own experiences. I have some upcoming articles on
00:13:11.960 | Ambulance surprise bills and how the whole EMS system is way more complicated and broken than I ever
00:13:20.640 | Understood before this whole experience happened. So I feel like
00:13:24.400 | Right, so one of the things you know, you know, I wrote I wrote about this before as a father as a new father was
00:13:32.960 | I'm thinking about taking a vacation from parenthood by going back to work
00:13:38.200 | so I think there's a chance that you might feel less stressed if you go back to work full-time because
00:13:44.840 | You're away from home at least mentally because you're focused on work and you're making a steady paycheck and we've got you know
00:13:52.080 | Subsidized health care and benefits and so forth and that guilt and that stress of the homework
00:13:58.400 | Would be greatly reduced. What are your thoughts about that? I
00:14:02.040 | Know myself pretty well, and I don't see that happening. I just see my my mental health
00:14:10.560 | Further and
00:14:14.080 | feeling more chaotic more disorganized
00:14:18.000 | More I feel like my mental
00:14:22.080 | Explode
00:14:26.000 | Because a lot of the work that I'm doing can't just go away right it has to keep going
00:14:33.240 | There's there's just all these tasks that I need to do on the back end
00:14:37.320 | and
00:14:39.360 | Maintain it's just an ongoing thing, which is fine
00:14:42.560 | And I love doing it and I also love having the time
00:14:45.920 | to do more writing and editing being more involved in that as well and I
00:14:51.680 | I just know
00:14:54.840 | Yeah
00:14:56.520 | Maybe it's the grass is greener on the other side syndrome that I'm feeling right now when I see friends just
00:15:04.640 | Really flexible work hours side hustling and you have to remind yourself if those people
00:15:11.000 | If they don't it's a very different right, okay, so I got it I know what the solution is
00:15:19.440 | When both our children are in school full-time
00:15:23.800 | You'll go back to work full-time
00:15:31.360 | Okay, I might go back to work full-time because oh here's one of the things that I'm really
00:15:36.480 | Surprised about ever since our son started going to preschool. So I got a drive, you know during rush hour 830
00:15:43.920 | A.m. I got to send him to school. So that takes
00:15:47.240 | Up to 20 minutes to get to school and then I got a park and I gotta walk him and give him a hug and
00:15:53.000 | All that because I love that but the driving I don't like
00:15:58.360 | It's crazy in San Francisco and I feel like now that I'm commuting during rush hour
00:16:02.920 | I feel like I'm mentally going back to work and the commute itself is the worst thing
00:16:07.840 | Was the worst thing I hated about work just commuting. It just it's terrible, right?
00:16:12.700 | and then so I go there and then I come back home and
00:16:16.600 | Then around 3 or 5 I go there not as much traffic. So it's only taking 15 minutes
00:16:21.960 | You know, I park we go walk around and then I come back home
00:16:27.000 | So that in total is about an hour and 20 minutes
00:16:31.160 | Now the other day I decided to go play tennis with a friend of mine at 4 45 p.m
00:16:37.760 | So I went to school dropped him off came back. I went to school pick him up came back
00:16:44.040 | You know just hung out for like 20 minutes and then I went back out to go play tennis
00:16:47.880 | Which is like a 16 17 minute drive
00:16:49.880 | So in other words, I was almost on the road for two hours the other day
00:16:54.640 | And I was thinking of myself. This is so inefficient. Like this is the inefficiency that I
00:16:59.620 | Long to escape that I've appreciated since 2012. And so if I took a full-time job I could
00:17:06.960 | You know drop them off by 9 a.m
00:17:09.640 | And then continue on for another 5 to 7 minutes to downtown office
00:17:14.480 | You know just twiddle my thumbs at the water cooler make some money tell people what to do and then leave at around
00:17:23.920 | 215 310 pick them up and then come back. It would just feel much more efficient
00:17:28.160 | Perhaps perhaps it just depends
00:17:31.920 | What happens during those work hours and what happens outside of that day that still involves work, right?
00:17:39.420 | Because I know a lot of times
00:17:41.420 | You might have to do work for that job
00:17:45.320 | at home
00:17:47.880 | You know, it's just hard to say it just depends on the jobs demands
00:17:52.200 | but so one of the psychological benefits of
00:17:55.320 | Generating enough passive income to pay for our living expenses is that you don't you're not all in on work
00:18:02.960 | Right that that promotion you didn't get or that pay raise you didn't get
00:18:07.520 | Doesn't crush you as much if you've already if you're already financially stable
00:18:11.640 | so my thought process and I and I felt that when I did some consulting back in 2014 2015 is that
00:18:18.800 | You know what annoying co-workers are annoying, but I don't really care
00:18:23.360 | I'm not competing with them to you know, climb the ladder or whatever
00:18:26.200 | Just give me something interesting to do have fun people to talk to make some money and then pick up our son and then go
00:18:32.880 | Home, so do you think I would enjoy that? I
00:18:35.920 | think you I could see you enjoying that for a
00:18:40.200 | few months and then I could see it getting old and frustrating because
00:18:47.320 | Jobs come with stress
00:18:49.320 | Dealing with people is
00:18:52.400 | often
00:18:55.040 | Frustrating right? Okay. Well in conclusion, it looks like I am unable to convince you to go back to work
00:19:02.400 | This is like the fifth year in a row running. I
00:19:05.880 | Sorry, you are
00:19:08.280 | But I'm talking. No, no, you are working very hard
00:19:11.160 | but I'm talking about traditional work where you bring home the bacon and
00:19:16.920 | You know, let me
00:19:19.240 | Relax a little more
00:19:22.400 | Okay, so I failed in that however, I am working more on our business
00:19:28.680 | Okay good and new ways with with producing more articles
00:19:32.540 | Which you got you readers will and we're doing this podcast, which is which is great. Yeah, okay
00:19:37.680 | So but anyway, I failed that tradition
00:19:39.680 | Convincing you to traditionally go back to work. I
00:19:42.280 | Have also kind of failed in convincing myself now is the ideal time to go back to work
00:19:47.800 | But I'd love to hear from all of you guys, especially with
00:19:51.000 | People with kids who are back in school
00:19:54.360 | Do you find it better because the comments in my post a lot of people said oh, it's so much easier now better
00:20:00.800 | I only work three to four hours a day
00:20:02.720 | Whereas in the past I had to travel a lot and work ten hours a day
00:20:06.920 | so I'd love to hear from all of you about work during the pandemic and what am I missing and
00:20:13.680 | Maybe what are you missing?
00:20:16.000 | Thanks so much. And if you enjoyed this podcast love a positive five-star review leave a comment
00:20:21.400 | We'll read them all and it drives us to keep on recording. Thanks everybody. Take care