Since I've graduated, I've realized a lot.

I was fortunate enough to have a job set up after I got my BA degree, however, that job is working for my parents. Now, this sounds degrading and like I just couldn't find a job, that isn't true. I didn't look for other jobs because I wanted to work for my parents, they own a small business, and I knew that I needed to get more work experience before heading off into the real world. 

I still needed to learn from them, and they were willing to teach me stuff and didn't worry about me leaving them or screwing me over. I already knew the basics because I've worked here over the summer for the past couple years, but now I get to learn the good stuff.

My official title is secretary, and that's what I want to do at other places of business, maybe eventually go up to manager once I get more experience, but I wanted to get more information and know-how into the brain before I truly "left the nest." They are teaching me everything from taxes to payroll to customer relations to how to actually make a business survive, especially with one like theirs that is seasonal.

Now, since I was lucky enough to get a job, I get to focus on the bills that I get to start paying back. This includes a car, and credit cards, as well as new expenses like house bills, which I basically had when I was renting an apartment), and now dental and medical bills.

I can't believe how excited I am to finally have dental insurance. My parents never had it so they paid cash for what I needed as a kid, and I can't do that, so I finally broke down to pay the monthly amount that helps and then I'm doing a payment plan through my dentist, so I can get the couple fillings I need, since I haven't been to a dentist since I took off my braces. 

Also, since that I'm living with my girlfriend, I've been helping out with the house bills. This means I'm paying garbage for the first time, which seemed expensive just because they do it for two or three months at a time, and the same goes for utilities, but I'm so used to the monthly bill that it shocked me before I realized that I didn't have to pay that every month! haha. It's going to take a while to adjust!

Of course, learning to save money is just as hard as it sounds, not spending money but keeping it, which sucks when you've finally started to make it! I've been waiting to be able to have a life and do stuff when I was done with college, but if you are going to get anywhere, you need to start saving money!! I've dedicated a whole other blog post to this topic… and the link is… here!

Another learning experience that I'm having is that I have to gain a new social group, which is hard because I don't want to get new friends, I loved the ones that I had at school and do keep in touch with, but I'm in this way of thinking right now that I hate technology and don't want to text people when I could spend time with the people right in front of me. This would be all fine and dandy except that the only people I interact with are my parents and the 2 guys that work there, whom are over the age of 40, not exactly the right people I want to interact with after work. Then the others are my girlfriend's friends. I'm all for having common friends with her, but I'd like someone that was just mine so that I could talk to them if I needed advise, about my girlfriend, or other stuff, and feel like it won't get back to my girlfriend, not that that's bad, but it does suck sometimes. 

So, I'm trying to branch out more and gain new friendships, but it's hard when you work five or six days a week and then go home to your girlfriend and son, and spend the evening with them because that's where you want to be anyways and spend at least one of your days off with the girlfriend so you can get some quality time in (the kid goes to his dad's on the weekends, which works awesome for us). It's a work in progress, and will probably be much better when I get another job, but for the time being, it's on the back burner trying to sort itself out. 

I'm sure there's more I can add, but this is the general idea of what I'm personally going through since graduating.