House hunting

Woof! I have spent almost 3 relentless days on apartment hunting now. I have been living in LA for an year now but will have to move to Philly for work soon. It has been a tough time convincing tenants that someone in their right mind might even think about moving from LA to Philly at all. But well, you go where work takes you, right! 

I have three options to choose from. The first ones are independent studios or 1 bedroom flats. These places are roomy, have independent bathrooms and offer privacy. However, they come with little or no furnishing. In addition, I will have to pay for the electricity bills and in some cases the heating bills from my pocket. In Philly that can come out to be a hefty amount! 

The second option is choosing a room for rent in a big victorian house with 3-4 bedrooms and share the common space with other tenants. The rent is lesser by a 100-150 bucks both because it is a shared place and because the utilities are divided amongst the tenants. In most cases these rooms are not furnished either. And yes, the bathroom is shared by 2 people.

The final option is that of staying at a fully furnished place in a victorian styled house with the landlord. Mostly the rooms are located on a separate floor and offer some privacy. Usually the number of tenants are limited to two. The rent is midway between the first and the second option. 

I havn't talked to a lot of people about these options, but I am sure that I will be suggested to try the first or the second ones. Call me a wuss, but option no. 3 sounds much more appealing to me. I will be new to the town, new to the east coast. I argue that the third option offers the right amount of company (one other tenant) and the right amount of comfort ( a fully furnished place) for a little higher price. Yes, it does impose a lot of constraints and I may not feel so comfortable later on. But its so convienient! So I am working towards a middle path. I will sign the lease for 6 months. If things do not turn out for the better, I will move out and try one of the other two options. How does that sound ?!

The taxing maturity

One of the greatest defining moments of a new professional life is getting to know the tax structure. By the time I got a hang of it in India, I was packing bags to head to the US. Now as I plan to begin another stretch of professional life, I try to understand the tax structure here.

There is no CTC here, which in India is often used to dupe fresh, innocent graduates into a low paying job. In the US people talk in terms of the base salary. Except for a few deductions, the base salary divided by 12 is what you can expect in your monthly pay cheque. The deductions are as follows- 

a) Federal tax

b) State tax

c) Medicare 

d) SSN

All of the above are calculated as a percentage of the base salary. However, just like India, you can avail of some tax incentives. For example, if you decide to save some money for after your retirement, you can invest in the 401K plan. The taxes are then calculated on the base pay less the amount that you invest in the 401K plan. On a side note, unlike India, the money alloted to the 401K plan is usually invested in mutual funds. For example, the company that I work for will hire a mutual fund operator such as Liberty, Vangaurd or some other which will then lay out a variety of  mutual funds in which I can choose to invest my 401K money. Whether that money grows or not is subject to the performance of the mutual funds I choose. If I withdraw money that I had earmarked as money invested in the 401K, the fund operator will charge a penalty. In India, the pension fund is something very similar. The money is taken out automatically from the salary and is invested in a fund. This fund however, is a fixed interest rate bond and hence does not have a risk associated with it. In this case, premature withdrawl of money is penalized by the government. There are other ways in which the the taxable income can be reduced which I am on my way to learning. I will share the information as it comes along.

Fat slobs

I made a long journey from LA to San Jose yesterday. A bus journey. The mode of transport is worth mentioning since only the poor travel in the bus in California. That includes fat slobs, dirty black rappers and students. The journey usually takes 7 hours. Its better during the day since you get to see the changing landscape as the bus inches through the barren stretches of LA to greener agricultural feilds and then back to the barreness of San Jose. However, I did not get a chance to enjoy all that. I was, alas, travelling in the night. 

Sitting with my head popped against the window, I let my eyes wander towards my fellow passengers. Sitting right next to me was a big white slob of fat, so fat that her belly and her boobs tried to match each other in their expanse. Across the aisle was another specimen of digested burgers and fries - black instead of white. I also noticed a variety of heads in the seats ahead of me but they are not important to the discussion. So as I sit and watch these two fat ladies, I try to make sense of the emotions within me towards them. Based on the way I describe their free flowing bodies, I figured that disgust was the most prominent of all the emotions that I felt. However, thinking it through, I questioned myself whether it was the only emotion I felt. Did I not feel pity too? Pity for the poor, hapless dumb people in this country, and the ones that were travelling with me in the bus. After all, it takes a fair amount of intelligence and self control to cook right, to eat right and stay healthy. Do I really think, with all the cheap,greasy and easy food around, people with the intelligence equal to that of a door-knob would choose anything but that to eat? Are the people who dont even know the state KFC comes from capable of making such 'high-level' decisions? I dont think so. So am I justified in being disgusted by them? I guess not. 

I still am though