I Got Let Go From My Job But I Had A Good Run

If you’re not familiar with my story, I’m financially independent and currently semi-retired from my W2 job.  I work 20 hours a week and have taken back the other 20 to do as I wish.

Flash back 21 years ago when I was not happy in my then-new federal government job.  I had just switched over from a small dot com company and did not like my boss or the government culture.  Additionally, I had lived with a bad stutter my whole life, and it made life difficult. 

I needed a big change, and boy did I make it.  I took a teaching job at my agency, got over my stutter quickly by simply facing it head on, and grew to love teaching.  You can read that story in this post.

I did that teaching job for 4 years at my agency and had to move to another position.  But I grew to love teaching so much I applied for an adjunct faculty position at a large local university, and got the job. 

It was a perfect second job.  I taught one class, usually one to three times a year.  I was in full control of the content and curriculum of the class.  And it paid really well.   

 

Why Am I Doing This Again?

When I first started working this second job in 2002 I was still pretty low on the federal pay scale at my main job.  But over time I worked my butt off and front-loaded my career at my day job.  I got promoted a few times, and moved up. 

Next thing you know I was in middle management, and then senior management.  All the while, I was still teaching this class on the side a few times a year. 

I’ll be honest, as my salary at my main job grew, there were quite a few times when I asked myself “why am I doing this second job, I don’t really need the extra money”. 

But I wanted the extra money, I knew I was building a big stash of savings because I tracked it monthly in my spreadsheet.  And the income from the second job went right into my mutual funds – always. 

But the second job always seemed to cause problems and hassles.  It was like Murphy’s law, as soon as I’d book a vacation or a big mountain climbing trip, the University would inform me that they’ve scheduled an iteration of my class for the same dates. 

Then I would have to ask them to reschedule, or try to move my trip.  They were always easy to work with and understanding, but it was a pain. 

People usually work second jobs because they have to.  They’re either struggling to make ends meet or they’re acquiring new skills to make a career change.  Financially, I was killing it, because I save my money and live well below my means.  I didn’t have to work this second job.

But I did, because I knew it was accelerating my path to wealth.  I sacrificed.  In the end, I love teaching, so it wasn’t that much of a sacrifice. 

Of course it was still a job, and I still had to put hours in to keep the course content relevant.  And then teach it.  So on and on I did just that, for 17 years.

Well, the university informed me in a very passive and odd way recently that they no longer need my services.  I’ll get to why in a second.  But first I want to show you, with the real numbers, what this one sacrifice did for me over the years.

  

The Payoff

I went back and dug up all of my earnings from my adjunct faculty job since 2002.  As mentioned before, I usually taught the class just once a year but had quite a few years with higher earnings from teaching multiple iterations. 

Prepare to be underwhelmed. 

Averaged out, over the 17 years I only made $2,557 a year after taxes.  That’s it.

However, I always plugged all of that money into my S&P 500 fund (I didn’t own VTSAX when I started this job in 2002 but the returns are very similar). 

I used an online S&P 500 calculator and entered all of the data from my earnings over 17 years.  The calculator uses the actual returns of the market from each year, with dividends reinvested.  What has this meager $2,557 extra annual income netted me over the years? 

$103,737 

Yep, the magic of the stock market and compounding interest strike again.  Correct that – it’s first and foremost the magic of discipline and saving, because I could just as easily have spent the money every year on a toy or looked at it as “beer money” or “bonus funds”. 

But I didn’t. 

Teaching one short class once or twice a year for 17 years, and poof, just like that it tuns into one hundred thousand smackers. 

Saving and investing pay off folks.  Enough said.

 

It’s Over Johnny

In November of 2018 I logged on to my university email system and saw a message titled “your account will be terminated in 30 days”.  Doh. 

Upon opening, what certainly read like a computer generated message kindly yet clinically informed me that my employment with the university is ending, and thus my email account as well. 

So I called the program administrator and after looking into it she confirmed that I was indeed being let go.  It’s not really accurate to say I was “fired” since that usually evokes that I was performing poorly or that I did something wrong.  My class was actually the highest rated in the certificate program. 

It’s more appropriate to say I was “laid off”.  It turns out the university plans to start requiring current masters and PhD students to teach all of the classes in the certificate program that I was a part of. 

They don’t have to pay them nearly as much, or at all in some cases, as teaching is often part of their requirements.  So they’re getting smarter about saving money. 

The irony 🙂

Well, I had a good run.  In 17 years I taught 26 iterations of the class and enjoyed it immensely. 

And it’s made me $103,737 richer.  Was it worth the extra work and sometimes hassle?  That’s a 100% hell yes.  I have that body of work on my resume and it can no doubt help me secure another teaching job in the future if I choose to go that route. 

So start a small side hustle doing something you love, or work a second job like I did.  Don’t look at the income as spending money – save it and invest it.  What seems like a very small or modest extra income stream can and will balloon with the stock market as your growth vehicle. 

Seventeen years from now you’ll be happy you did.