How To Move In With Your Significant Other

Dating is one thing. Living together is a whole different story!

Thomas and I moved in together after we had been dating for about 2 years, but we had been discussing the logistics for 6 months before that. There are a lot of things to keep in mind when considering moving in with a significant other and lots of things that can help keep the peace once you do live together. Here is a list of some of those things.

1. Discuss finances. How will the rent be split? Who will pay for groceries or utilities? If one person makes more money, should they have to pay more than the person who makes less? Thomas and I were not making the same amount when we moved in together, but we decided to split the rent cost down the middle since we felt that if we shared the whole apartment, then the cost should be shared evenly as well. We split groceries, each of us paying every other time we went to the store. I paid the utility bills, while Thomas paid for dinners out each month, which basically ended up being about the same. This was not the easiest conversation to have, but it is the most important one to have before moving in together.

2. Discuss chores. Will she cook dinner every night while he cleans the dishes? Who will take out the trash? This one can feel silly discussing beforehand, but if not discussed, can cause fights later. Thomas and I again agreed to split everything. We cooked dinner and cleaned up together and we spent a couple hours together cleaning the whole apartment every few weeks.

3. Discuss alone time. Everyone needs their space and time to just unwind alone. If you move in with a significant other and you are sharing a room, you no longer have your own space. This doesn't have to be set in stone and can change each week depending on how each person feels, but it is good to be upfront about needing some time to do your favorite alone activity without your significant other looking over your shoulder. Thomas and I still spend plenty of alone time weekly and we find it to be a healthy aspect of our relationship.

4. Discuss the future. Is moving in together a step towards marriage, or just a step where marriage might not be the end goal? It doesn't matter which opinion you have, as long as you and your significant other are both OK with it. Be honest about where you feel this will put the relationship and what changes for you. Thomas and I agreed that if we were to move in with each other, the next step would be marriage, and he proposed about 9 months after moving in together.

5. Discuss how to furnish the apartment. Maybe you both have furniture, dishes and TVs, so how will you combine all those? If new items need to be purchased, will you split the cost, or will one person pay for the item? Thomas and I managed to easily combine all of our furniture, as I had things he didn't have and he had things I didn't have. We had to buy everything for the kitchen, so we split the cost of everything.

6. Pick your battles. Living in such close quarters with someone will bring to light all kinds of things about your significant other that may fiercely annoy you and that you never realized before. Sometimes, you should tell them, and sometimes you should just let it slide. Does her long hair clog the shower drain? Ask her to clean it at the end of each shower. Does he leave the toilet seat up and you almost fall in? Agree to keep the lid down all the time. Does he hum while he sautes veggies for dinner? Let him be. Does she not screw the toothpaste cap on tight enough? Get over it. Thomas and I found little things that annoyed us about each other, but they have quickly become humorous to us. Thomas never closes things (doors, cabinets) and I am constantly running into them. But each time I do, I just laugh because I know he literally just forgets. I use all the hot water in the morning, and Thomas has learned to take quicker showers, since he never knows just when the water will turn freezing.

Living together can be a great experience and something Thomas and I are very happy we did!

What did you learn from moving in with your significant other?

The Importance Of An Emergency Fund

How important is an emergency fund? How much money should be in one? How long will it take to build one up? These were all things Thomas and I thought about when we first combined our bank accounts when we got married. We were worried about the state of the economy and thought it would probably be a good idea to protect ourselves if one or both of us were to lose our jobs. It was the very first thing we saved for together and was much easier than we thought it would be.

How important is an emergency fund?

When we got married, the economy was in the middle of falling apart. While we both had steady, well paying jobs, we both knew many people who had lost their jobs and knew we might not be immune to losing ours as well. We were not yet at the point in our lives where we were living on one of our paychecks, so if either of us were to lose a job, we knew we would need help. Neither of us were comfortable with the idea of taking on credit card debt, even in an emergency, so we knew that having a chunk of money that would help us survive if the worst happened would be a good idea. Money websites say that an emergency fund can help pay for unexpected medical bills, car repairs, home repairs, etc. Thomas and I tend to think of our emergency fund as something that can keep us afloat if one or both of us are laid off, but everyone can create their fund to help them in the ways they feel they most need help.

How much money should be in my emergency fund?

Most money experts say that you should have 3 to 6 months worth of living expenses in an emergency fund, so that's where we started. We had just started a Mint.com account and had created our monthly budget and knew exactly how much it cost us to live for one month. We debated between saving 3 months vs. 6 months. Three months seemed like it may not be enough money if both of us were to lose our jobs in a bad economy. It may take longer than that for one or both of us to find new jobs and to stop draining money from the account, so initially, we thought that saving 6 months might be a smarter choice. When we calculated how long it would take to save that sum of money, we re-thought our decision and decided to just try for the 3 months. We knew we had a lot of expenses in our budget that we could easily and quickly cut out if we needed to, which would extend the 3 months of savings much further living on a leaner budget. Deciding how much to save can be based on extra bills you might have and how easily you can cut back your bills if needed.

How long will it take to build up my emergency fund?

We were pretty much starting from scratch after paying for our wedding and honeymoon, so our first deposits into our savings account went directly to the emergency fund. We decided on a dollar amount we would transfer in every month and made the deposits to our emergency fund like another bill we had to pay so that we didn't skimp out some months. When I got a bonus in March of that year, I put the entire amount in our emergency fund. Thomas got a bonus in June and after we paid for our car insurance, we put the rest of the money in the fund as well. Within 6 months, we had built up our emergency fund.

Obviously, the time it takes to build up your emergency fund will depend on how much your fund needs to be and how much you are able to deposit each month. It can be hard to be careful and put your hard earned money into a bank account that you are not technically going to be using unless needed, but the security of having the fund is worth the sacrifice. If it will take you too long to build up your fund, maybe you need to take a closer look at your monthly budget and see if there are expenses you can cut down or eliminate to make your monthly spending smaller, therefore making your emergency fund smaller as well.

Questions or Comments? Post them below!

How To Write A Skills Based Cover Letter

In the current job hunting climate, you need to maximize all of your efforts to stand out from the crowd. The days of a standard cover letter attached to your resume are long gone. Employers are flooded with resumes, online submissions, and emails right now. To them, your resume looks exactly the same as everyone else's no matter what the content. Likewise, a cookie-cutter cover letter isn't going to get you noticed.

Throughout the year that my unemployment lasted, I went from completely clueless about cover letters to what I know now. When I started looking for a new job, a stumbling block I kept running in to was the industry I came from. How would I get myself noticed by employers who were in completely different industries? As a marketing professional with a focus in online marketing and social media, I knew my skills could transfer over to pretty much any industry. But how I could prove that to potential employers?

We'll keep using me as an example and set up a scenario. Let's say I find a job in the solar panel industry that looks like its up my alley. They've got a website that needs an administrator, an email newsletter that needs to be distributed, and trade shows that need to be attended. Great! I've done all of that before. How do I prove to the hiring manager that I can perform the duties required when the industry I came from is so different from his?

A long time ago I found an example of a cover letter online that blew my mind. They suggested a radical format for a cover letter that I have really liked using. Start off like all cover letters introducing yourself and why you are applying. Then, follow that up with a paragraph covering your experience and skills.

The next part is where this style deviates from the norm... Set up two columns. A lot of job ads will have a bullet list of the employer's requirements and/or duties. In your left column do quick summaries of what they're looking for. In the right column, you provide examples of your skills and experience that would fit. For example if they say, "This person will coordinate the setup, attendance, and tear down of all company trade show appearances," you summarize their need with, "Trade Show Experience." Now in the right hand column, you do a quick sentence or two about your trade show experience.

Below is a quick example of my column setup. When setting up your own, you would definitely want to make it look better, but this mock up should give you the basic idea.

Email Marketing	Over three years creating and distributing company e-Newsletter in compliance with SPAM best practices.
Website Administration	Experience managing several high traffic websites utilizing custom CMS interfaces. HTML, Analytics and data analysis to ensure strategic goals were met on time and with maximum efficiency
Trade Show Coordination	Trade show attendance and representation at small to large scale trade shows across the country assisting with coordination of booth setup, collateral shipment, and interaction with booth visitors.

Always tailor the cover letter to the job ad you're applying to. Employers have a problem or situation that they're looking to solve by hiring a future employee. Give the hiring manager reasons why you fit the bill.

Unfortunately, right now it is tough to catch a break and get in to a position where an employer doesn't mind teaching you how to do half your job. When times were better and I was younger, I landed an awesome job where I barely knew anything. In time, I learned the job functions and mastered it. Its a lot more difficult to get into that situation now. You still need to apply for positions you are under qualified for (because hey.. you never know) but make sure to pull out all the stops and explain the parts of the job you do know very well.

Questions or comments? Post them below!

LEGO Project: The Aquasharks

The LEGO Project series is a look through the Second Snack collection of LEGO sets from Thomas’ childhood as well as some modern sets. For years these LEGO bricks and pieces have been laying dormant in plastic bins but with the pooled resources of the Internet, reassembling sets is now a reality.

When I look back on some of the sets LEGO produced during my childhood, I wonder why these older themes didn't seem strange to me. Take the Aquasharks for example. They were the bad guys of the Aquazone LEGO theme. Just like every other LEGO world, the undersea world is filled with good guys and bad guys. The two teams fighting for the precious resources of chrome crystals had custom submarines with faction color schemes. As an adult, its weird to think about warring groups under the waves battling for crystals, but as a kid, the Aquasharks were just awesome.

This was a short-lived theme for LEGO and the Aquasharks didn't get many sets. You're looking at all of them in the picture above. While the Aquanaughts (good guys) had more traditional looking subs, the Aquasharks had shark-shaped, mean looking submarines. These sets were great as a kid and they are some of the last I actually played with before the Dark Ages set in for me.

Overall, really cool, a bit bizarre, and full of great colors and bricks. I had a blast reassembling these.

Questions or Comments? Post them below!

An Unconventional Valentine's Day

We're not exactly what you'd call a traditionally romantic couple. Our wedding in Vegas is probably the biggest piece of evidence of our deviation from the norm. Its not that we're against romance or Valentine's Day itself. Realistically, its because we're tired and lazy. We could fight the crowds, reserve a table months in advance, and pay the markup on the flowers, but we just don't. And looking back, I realize we never have participated in the Valentine's rush.

Our Valentine's Day celebration tonight will feature some Del Taco, a bottle of $3.34 wine and some ice cream drumsticks. We'll probably plop ourselves down in front of our TV and Netflix the night away. Sure, it completely lacks any shred of romance, and its not very exciting, but it sounds great to us.

A couple people have heard what our plans are and a few thought this was a great idea. I never thought something so boring could sound so appealing to other people. So, it made us wonder... what are YOU doing for Valentine's Day? Are you being a better couple than we are and actually getting off your butts to do something nice together? Or are you doing something different that a lot of people wouldn't think to do? Interested to hear so post up below!

Meme Monday: Happy Valentines Day!

Meme Monday brings you a weekly Internet Meme that we have found. Internet Memes are described as something that catches on like wildfire with Internet communities with no outside source of promotion. They exist purely for enjoyment and laughs.