how do you get a foot hold in life?

[wilsonian]

as i write this i'm in my parents house, still living in the same room i have done for the best part of 15 years now (no i'm not 15 - i'm 22, we moved house). i did at one stage move out (the new year of 2003) only to be smacked right in the face with bills, bills and more bills. at the time i was iving with three other people and running my own car. one wanted to buy nothing but computer parts and was an ex student so was use to the bills, the other was a bit like me however he use to spend all his money on his beer problems, the third had a rich GF so asked her to pay for his share of the bills most of the time). by dec 2003 i had run up a debt of nearly £4000. i have bugger all to show except a set of alloys and the experiance.

a year has gone by and i still owe £2000. i earn 14k and run a car as well (no not a high powered fuel hungry beast - no, my car is a humble micra.

Yet in todays modern world house prices are through the roof, the average house now costs £120k! and renting a small 3 bedroom house will cost £600 a month plus bills!

this time 20 years ago my parents were buying a house and planing for a family. where has today i can't even plan what i'm going to do for the weekend.

i see adverts all over the place telling me that IT is the way to do, i see free MSCE courses for the unempolyed, yet for some one like me unless i pay £££ for the course fee's - i'm never going to crack the IT egg. the average Techie for the high street shop is only £10k ish, and after the dot bubble burst the market is flooded with unemployed Web designers yet the goverment is pouring £££ into getting the unemployed into the IT area, drowning out my chance of getting a decent job. i feel IT is NOT the way to go and i've wasted 6 years of my life trying to get there. granted i'm only 22 but i meet people from my NVQ courses who are now on 20k plus. it really gets me down.

but i don't go for the noose option just yet. instead i have made a plan.

to pay off my bills and start saving some money. one lesson i learnt when i moved out is the save a little away for the large bills u don't see coming. my GF is in the same boat as she is IT trained too. there just aren't the jobs out there willing to pay for your skills. instead they look for that MSCE label. my role is supervisor. that means i get to deal with all the annoying customers, get most of the paper work and best of all - because we have no line manager - i have to do all that paper work as well, yet the company can get away by paying me supervisor wages (all 14k of it! ) hell my mate makes that much working in a warehouse booking in orders!


Sorry if this has gone on too long or if u feel u have wasted ur time reading this but right now i just need the vent my frustration out some where.

can any one relate to what i'm trying to say??

[Allen]

Well, apparently, the average age of a first time buyer these days is 39, so a lot of us are in the same boat I think... I know there's no way I could live on my own at the moment, I'm struggling as it is and trying to buy a car! Thankfully, living with my g/f helps as we share things between us so it helps reducs things a little. But thankfully, I've just got a new job, so once I see the extra money rolling in I'll be happy. It should pay for the car at least!

Oh, and you might wanna consider getting another job if you can. I know you said you're having troubles gettins a job in the IT industry, but really, £14k for a supervisor is pretty bad (please don't take that the wrong way, I'm not trying to belittle you or anything). I was on just over £15k before I came a supervisor, now I'm on over £20k.

[ACiD303]

I can relate exactly to what ur saying. I did exactly the same thing - I moved out, ran into debt, was doing me more bad than good (self-esteem, bad financial record, very very bad credit rating followed) and had to move back home. As it happens, Im still owed money by one of the flatmates (coz he never did anything) . . . tho he owed another flatmate 3 months worth of rent so it puts me in perspective.

Im still looking for something to do in life, I earn less than £14k so Im probably eligible for a bit of support, but after taking pot shots at uni twice, and ended up leaving the courses due to disinterest, I somewhat feel obligated (to myself at the very least) to do something Im truly interested in instead of thinkin about money (even tho thats what I should really be doing, but thats how I picked my courses at uni).

After a recent time away, Ive started to think a bit more clearly in my short term and long term goals and once my background reading is done, will be persuing them.

Life's a rollercoaster man - sometimes u plumetting like nothing, sometimes it's an uphill struggle. . . sometimes it just breaks down at some point undesirable and takes a while to fix, but u just have to ride it

[realm]

I know how you feel mate it is very hard to get somewhere in life. I am 20 with a mortgage, a baby, full time job and doing my HNC at nights also so as you can imagine i lead a very busy life. I think you have to either be earning a lot or have a partner to move in with these days. I and the other half tend to split the bills/mortgage and it works out nice. I have been trying to get a decent job for 6 months eventually i have got one but it takes time and dedication. As you said take the time to realize your goals and don't be scared to go for them.

[TiG]

i see adverts all over the place telling me that IT is the way to do, i see free MSCE courses for the unempolyed, yet for some one like me unless i pay £££ for the course fee's - i'm never going to crack the IT egg. the average Techie for the high street shop is only £10k ish, and after the dot bubble burst the market is flooded with unemployed Web designers yet the goverment is pouring £££ into getting the unemployed into the IT area, drowning out my chance of getting a decent job. i feel IT is NOT the way to go and i've wasted 6 years of my life trying to get there. granted i'm only 22 but i meet people from my NVQ courses who are now on 20k plus. it really gets me down.

but i don't go for the noose option just yet. instead i have made a plan.

to pay off my bills and start saving some money. one lesson i learnt when i moved out is the save a little away for the large bills u don't see coming. my GF is in the same boat as she is IT trained too. there just aren't the jobs out there willing to pay for your skills. instead they look for that MSCE label. my role is supervisor. that means i get to deal with all the annoying customers, get most of the paper work and best of all - because we have no line manager - i have to do all that paper work as well, yet the company can get away by paying me supervisor wages (all 14k of it! ) hell my mate makes that much working in a warehouse booking in orders!

Wilsonian,

sounds like you need more experience, and possibly a bigger company. 14k as you quite rightly say is nothing, how long have you been working there, are you confident enough to go looking for another job. The problem with IT is you need to stand out from the crowd. As there are lots of IT jobs, but you need to be in the right place at the right time. Usually getting your foot in the door is the first step.

It all depends on what you want, doing what makes you happy is most important. If IT isn't what you are enjoying there are plenty of other opportunities out there.

Good luck

TiG

[[GSV]Trig]

I kinda landed on my feet, the rents moved out of the house and left me with it, I still pay them £240 a month, I also pay my own council tax & NTL bill, they pay everything else..
I owe about 5k on credit cards, about 16k in loans, I've got about 3k in the bank which I really should use to pay off one of my cards but I've got this nasty habit of spending money on the car, oh well you cant take it with ye can ya lol...
As for job's I started off working in a school which was ok and enuf money at the time, then started our own company which lasted a few years until we merged with another company, this was fine for a while until there head guys decided that us being on a set wage wasnt fair for the rest of the people in the company and put us on hourly rates, this was fine for a few months as we were putting in a fair chunk of overtime but then one of the other IT guys left and took a load of the main customers with him, suddenly I was coming out with 1/3rd less money but it took me a while to realise how bad this really was as I had a loan and what I had loanwise in the bank was covering my shortfall in wages, when the loan ran out I was screwed, so went to "refinance" myself with a bigger loan, this worked for a while I was close to the line money wise and anything going wrong would of screwed me, and it did, I blew my car up chasing an Audi TT , guess what came next, I complained at work, they put my money back up, I got a bigger loan, bought a new car and everything was ok again, until work changed my money again, this time I wasnt takin it so I started looking elsewhere, last year was a good year for me, had a decent g/f, got a car I liked, got the job I wanted and sorted my finances out...

Now the girlfriend left me and moved to Cornwall, I spend too much money on the car, I get bored at work, I need to get into shape and I owe around 20k overall....

I'm 28 and I dont really care, I'm having a laff, I've got good m8's a pretty cushy job a roof over my head, yeah so I could find plenty of stuff to get me down but whats the point, life is all about the ups and the downs and you have to have pretty big downs to appreciate the big ups..
...or would you rather have a boring life where theres no big ups or big down and everythings pretty much on a level, who cares if u still live with your parents, who cares that I'm 20k in debt, who cares about stuff like that, so what if u dont conform with what society says you should or shouldnt have done by the time your 30, screw them...
Dont let the bastards grind ye down as the saying goes, its your life live it the way you want too...





Mmmmm random tuesday rant over me thinks, mite have lost topic somewhere


Oh and I wouldnt bother with IT unless your really good and can get your foot in someplace..
Everyone wants to do IT, same as they did with plumbers n sparkies years back, it was the trade to be in, now look at IT and look at plumbers n sparkies...

[nichomach]

I really do sympathise; I fell into IT by accident more than anything. My degree was in law, and I ended up stuck in the middle of Wales where no-one was hiring. I ended up on a YTS scheme, but after that, my first job was for £5k. I earn, well, erm, more than that now, but it was extremely hard. Something that I learned was that experience can count for more than paper; yes, there may be a lot of people with that MCSE tag after their name, but oddly I'm not one of them. I did the core elements years ago, but bluntly I've never needed them since. There's some luck involved in that, but as I say experience counted for more than paper. Maybe hawking your CV around more might help?

[wilsonian]

the problem is see is because i'm working i can't afford to go on these high priced MCSE coruses, yet if i'm on the dole for ONE DAY (ONE DAY!!! ) i can get any i want for FREE! i've worked at the same place for 4 years nearly and the only reason why i've stayed here is because i don't want to move to another computer store hence trying to find IT Support jobs out side the computer market (which is almost impossible with out the MCSE tags). i know the money i'm on is crappy and i'm under paid for what i do but try telling the general manager that (who is paid around 40-50k!!! ).

i've been looking at video editing, but i'm unsure of the courses and what jobs i could do afterwards. does any one know if the BBC etc do training courses, i couldn't find much on their web site.

At the moment my plan is simple. pay off my debt by aug 31st 2005. that means paying £350 a month off (a fair chunk of my wage). but once that is paid for save up a chunk of cash and jan 2006 move out again and try once more in the big bad world. or i might even try investing the money into my training and see what comes of it.

my problem is i'm employed but not highly trained (on paper) thus i have to fork out loads to get any where.

life sux

[TiG]

Wilsonian,

You do understand that you can just learn MCSE and do the exam at about £85. The offical Microsoft books are great. Doing a course isn't a required part of it. Isn't that the best way to move forward if you really want to go into IT?.

TiG

[Aaron]

I agree with what people have been saying about careers in IT. It's a very overcrowded market and the pay for support roles is appalling.

Learning a trade like plumbing will earn you a lot more money.

[nichomach]

Wilsonian,

You do understand that you can just learn MCSE and do the exam at about £85. The offical Microsoft books are great. Doing a course isn't a required part of it. Isn't that the best way to move forward if you really want to go into IT?.

TiG

Quite right; when I did my exams, I did them via self-study. You can get evals of any of the MS server software, which should help, and working your way through the MS course books'll get you through, especially if you've got relevant experience.

[TiG]

all of the Microsoft books come with evals of the software. I've got 2* 90 day trials of win2k, and 2*180 day trials of SQL server 2000 Enterprise/developer for the MCDBA i'm self studying for.

TiG

[Rave]

Learning a trade like plumbing will earn you a lot more money.

I'm planning on doing that. I considered moving into IT- for about 5 minutes, until I saw how much competition there is for jobs, and what the pay's like.

Wilsonian, have a look at Deckard's money saving thread. I moved out for four years- two at uni, two after I flunked out. I was living in a student house even though I wasn't a student (£200 a month for my room), and even though my job paid atrociously (my take home wage was £600 a month) I still had plenty of cash free just because I spent it pretty carefully. When a council tax bill for £350 turned up I was a bit screwed for the month though. If you're going to move out on your own then you don't need a three bed house. My wife and I pay £650 a month for a one bed flat here in suburban London.

Rich :¬)

[Kumagoro]

The problem is that I.T accounts for a broad range of areas. Most of which are pretty
menial. If you want to get a decent job having a good degree (2.i or above) in the area you want to work is the way to go. Many places will accept a 2.2 also but big companies normally will not. When i was at uni one of the courses was career development and we had people in industry come in and tell us about stuff. One of them said with nice curvy graphs how your career and money situation evolves in a company. To maximise this you should change company every 5 years. So when you hit the 5 year mark maybe start looking around and applying for other jobs see what you can get.

[Romanov]

IT is no longer what is used to be , contractors came into a job with a manual on NT4 admin back in the late 80's get a trade that will allow you to go self employed, if youre willing to work hard and be damn reliable you'll do well. try and get a Euro friendly qualification so you can goto europe if needs be.

as an aside I found being booted out of the house at 18 and told 'theres no coming back' concentrated the mind wonderfully, if you have a way out that is
'I can always go home' you'll never get on in life its that simple. As for debts well its the same old story of alot of young peolpe nowadays , they think debt is an option when it isnt at all. I came out of Uni and a 1 yr teaching thingy with £7000 in debt in 1994 how the heck did you spend so much in a year and what use are alloys with no money??

( and no mommy and daddy are not rich nor did they pay my way...grrrr)

(but the wife is quite well off......never choose love ...choose mooney)

[Lowe]

I'm in the same boat. I'm 26, stuck at home and trying to move out with my girlfriend. She's got about 6 months left at uni then she's going to try and get a full time job. With the two wages we should just about be able to rent somewhere and then pay the bills. Buying a house is just impossible, at absolute best I could get a mortgage for 60k which won't even buy a one bedroom flat around here. On the upside, I'm not in significant debt, but I'm in a dead end job which won't pay me any more.

I do feel that going to university was a waste of time. I could of gone into something else and worked my way up, and been in a much better position financially now. I do want to change jobs, but just don't have the experience in anything else to let my jump ships into another trade. IT support and audio engineering within the music industry is what I do and do best, but there's just not enough money in it to get me somewhere to live.

Halifax rekon that 92% of the towns and cities in the UK mean first time buyers are priced out the market. Shocking state of affairs really.