working late

Tales from the Wallet: Where You Live Is One of the Biggest Money Decisions You Make

04/06/2011 by Kat

One of the biggest money choices you make is where you live. When you’re renting, the kind of rent you pay can hugely affect your savings and your cash flow. If you’ve bought, your mortgage payment may now be the biggest factor in what kind of job you can take. (Pictured: Lodis Accessories – Audrey Continental Wallet (Aqua/Orchid) – Bags and Luggage, available at Zappos for $84 (in this color combination as well as a few others).)

Experts generally say that your rent should be no more than 25-30% of your salary. When I first started working right out of college, that was laughable — even with a roommate, I couldn’t find a place that I felt safe living in for less than $X, which wound up being 50% of my salary. Yeouch. On the flip side, when I got out of law school, that math (25-30%) meant I could have spent as much as 3X on an apartment — which a lot of my friends did. For some people, I think they thought they “deserved” to come home to a swanky apartment; for others I think they thought, “I will never see this kind of paycheck again! I’m going to enjoy it!” But cut to three or four years later, and they suddenly didn’t want to leave that nice apartment or that lifestyle, and it had an affect on which jobs they looked for. Hello, golden handcuffs. [Read more…]

What to Eat for Long-Haul Days at the Office

04/29/2010 by Kat

2018 Update: We still stand by this discussion of what to eat for long-haul days at the office — but you may also want to check out some of our more recent discussions, such as on the best energy foods to help you work all day, eating late at the office, or 40+ snack ideas for work!

We smiled when we got this reader mail because, well, it’s a subject near and dear to our hearts: what to eat for long-haul days at the office.

I would love to see a story on what everyone eats! Given that the topics of conversation frequently discuss clothing size, size of models, etc, I’d love to know what everyone eats. How do women have enough energy to make it through long days? Are people subsisting mostly off of coffee and redbull? Do people order in all the time or bring PBJ (like me!)? How much is typically spend on food a week? (I know that will vary greatly by location)

We’ve talked about it a bit here before, but it does seem like an evergreen topic. So here’s the question: What do you eat for the days when you know you need to make it through a super long day at the office? (Original image for this post (2010): Dinner @ Office, originally uploaded to Flickr by jetalone. Current image (salad + keyboard): Shutterstock / benedix.)

For this author, the answer depends upon small meals that keep energy levels high and blood sugar levels constant. For us, this translates to lots of fiber and protein. A typical long day might look like this: [Read more…]