A New Job

Last year when we were looking for a job in Utah, Tom found out about a company that provides dentist on a temporary basis, or locum tenens as it's called. When we put our practice up for sale, Tom contacted this company again to get them to start looking for a job for him. We really felt like a temporary job would be good for us because we knew that we eventually wanted to buy a practice again, but needed to be in better financial shape. We also knew we just wanted to collect a paycheck for awhile and not have to worry about all the stresses that can come with owning a practice. When we asked the company to start looking for us, we told them to start looking in Texas.

We left Texas because we wanted cooler weather ... honestly, the sun and our family don't go well together - maybe if we had more pigment. We also had dreamed of going to Washington State and really wanted to make that happen. We also wanted to have a fresh start since our dental school experience had been sooooooo rough on us. The fact that cooler weather generally means less bugs, particularly roaches, was another perk to our plans. Of course our plans were obviously the wrong ones!!!

Well, last year while looking at the available temp jobs, we noticed something ... there were NEVER any jobs in Utah or Washington, but there were ALWAYS jobs in Texas. Honestly, if you're looking for a job, Texas is a great place to be.

In Utah we had needed the support of Tom's sister Cynthia and her family in order to make everything possible ... we really would have been homeless and bankrupt without them ... and maybe in an insane assylum as well. We knew we would need some more support, and with the great job opportunities in Texas and my parents living in Houston, we decided to head back to Texas. I knew my parents would help out because they had offered last year. Tom had forgotten about the offer or maybe I hadn't told him or maybe in our zeal to get to Washington and our urgency to leave dental school behind (i.e. San Antonio), we overlooked my mom's offer. I checked with my parents, and the offer was still good.

Once we decided on Texas, we knew we needed the right job ... not any ole job would do. In Utah we barely made enough money to survive. Tom even took on a job as an associate dentist for 3 days a week and still we made barely enough to cover our bills and living expenses. The sad thing is our bills and living expenses didn't include rent and utilities (they were free) or any student loan payments, which were on forbearance or deferment until Fall 2010. Last year we read a book by Dave Ramsey called Total Money Makeover. The author gives a plan on how to get out of debt, which we really liked and were ready to try ... but we made no money to put that plan in effect. With whatever new job came, we knew we needed money to cover all of our student loan payments, to pay our bills, to allow us to live minimally, and to give us money on top of all that to make extra payments so that we could get out of debt more quickly.

Thankfully, by the time Tom sold his practice, the company found a job for Tom as well as a little weekend job in Cedar City, UT before we moved. After looking at other job opportunities in Texas, we decided we wanted Tom to take this job, so he agreed and will now be working for a government clinic in Raymondville, TX, which is in a part of Texas known as The Valley. The job has great pay and lots of other perks. We also just found out that because of the location and the patients Tom will be seeing, the job might also qualify for Federal Loan Repayment. Bonus!! This job should definitely be sufficient to support our family and get us in better financial shape.

Unfortunately, Raymondville is 300 miles from my parents' house, and to save on expenses, the kids and I will be staying with my parents while Tom works in The Valley. Of course we will get to see Tom on weekends after he's been working a bit, but during the week we will miss him a ton as I'm sure he'll miss us. After about a year, we should be in a position to start looking to buy a practice again. I definitely am not looking forward to this year, but I can honestly say ... we've been through worse.