So, you may be thinking: Isn't this a bit early for your next post announcement? Don't they normally come out in late fall? And you would be correct! This bidding cycle State started an early bid season for posts that are historically difficult to staff. It allows posts to get positions filled sooner and it allows bidders who wish to avoid the scrum of bidding (ie avoid the stress of multiple interviews, bid lists, ranking posts, and hoping you are your number one's first choice) and get that handshake earlier. We saw one post that has been in orbit a few times, but there were always shinier posts that got the rose. We checked out the school, we both chatted friends who we know who've been posted there, it has R&R's (good with a kid heading off to University), we read post info, and Richard threw his hat into the bidding ring. None of the other posts really piqued our interest or check enough boxes off for the risk (ie you throw your hat in the ring you have to be prepared to go there). Richard had the usual interview and on the final day bids were due, he was still the only bidder (good odds!!). We then only had to wait two tortuous weeks (versus the usual month plus) to get the handshake and the paperwork started!
map from: https://www.britannica.com/place/Cairo
I'll have a chance to stick my toes in another part of the Mediterranean Sea, SCUBA dive in the Red Sea, cruise down the Nile River, and many other cool things (like Pyramids and Sphinx anyone?). Since 2010, 'Ancient Egypt' was one of the favorite Playmobil sets we had (loved by both kids)....so it seems only natural to go live there...lol. (For the record, we also had a coral reef set, remember Fiji, hmm I'm seeing a pattern.....).
We still have a year left in Frankfurt, of course. So we are planning the last trips we want to take over school breaks of course. Once we arrive in Cairo next summer that will mark our fifth continent (of the basic seven....we know there are tectonically more!) that will visited or lived on. I am hopeful I will get caught up on editing photos so I can upload pictures from all the trips we have taken and adventures we have had this tour...lol.
Staying true to all that is 2020, this was a very weird bidding season. The list of total posts available to bid on was relatively small compared to last time (60 posts this time versus 160 posts last time). With a teen that will be a rising junior when we arrive, we had to be a tad more choosy when it came to schools as well (so of course all those posts had 10-20 bidders). Richard made the 'getting an interview' hurdle at a large number of the places he bid. He was also told he made nearly every short list (aka top 5), but not the coveted #1 spot (so there was always a chance someone would get two top spots and if you were on the short list you would move up....but it is a gamble). After several nail biting weeks, a few new sparkling tresses, and likely an ulcer or two.....Richard found the perfect position.
We see many road trips in our future - both via car and train. We are excited to get to explore Europe and not be in a time crunch - COVID-19 dependent obviously, we can take weekend trips to so many countries! An added bonus....we are not moving all that far....our HHE and car shouldn't take that long to arrive!
The public transportation system seems a bit more complex than what were used to....hopefully we will quickly learn our way and get off on the correct "ausfahrt" (yes - I know that's technically a freeway exit....but at the moment, that's about the only German word I know....lol).
So there you have.....I know there is a backlog due to the pandemic. So start getting your passports renewed and let us get the our haus unpacked at the end of Summer 2021! (look at that...now I know two German words!). For now, our animal crossing characters can start to walk the walk...lol.
Hopefully, we will have a bit of time to do some more exploring Qatar and other nearby countries, before we leave the middle east region....especially with the weather finally out of the triple digits!
So as you know, we typically take R&R during the summer (this summer due to C-19 it is still TBD).....but given all the extra 'stay at home' time Richard and I finally tackled something we'd been putting off for a while....and it ended up not being all that difficult. I've decided to share our 'imperfect work around' to the TSP and Quicken problem. For those not in the know, TSP is the US Federal employee retirement program - it stands for Thrift Savings Plan and is the 401(k) equivalent for civil service and military.
We have been using Quicken for a while and recently upgraded to Quicken for Mac 2019 with the online/mobile features (so if we ever do go on R&R, I can keep things up to date while gone for a month or two by updating it online, then when I get back home the desktop version will sync with everything I did online and I won't spend days playing catch up). Unfortunately, Quicken and TSP don't play nice (aka unlike other investment accounts that will automatically download information). This has been a common problem for a while (from what we read, it is something to do with paying for fees/allowing software access and TSP just doesn't have time to bother with Quicken). We found some stuff about downloading CVS files and importing but everything we found either had to with the Windows version of Quicken, really old versions of Quicken, or the links were dead. So we finally figured out a work around - it's not perfect - we use the end of quarter data versus using live or transaction by transaction data, but it gives us a general idea as to what's going on in the account - something we haven't had for the last 7 years....so I'd say that is a much greater improvement. So I'm going to stop babbling about it and show you what we did.
1. Log in to your TSP account. Go to Statements. Download all your Quarterly/Annual Statements (I found it was easier to download than view. If you take too long, you tend to get booted off and have to do the whole log in process again). I gave the statements easy names like 2013 Q1, 2013 Q2, etc. We did Richard's first and then mine (I only worked as CLO a bit so I only have a few statements).
Once they were downloaded, I took all the end of quarter information and entered it into excel. I'll figure out how to share a blank copy of this excel sheet, no need to re-invent the wheel. I've circle the values I took from the statement. Only the first statement would you need the beginning number of shares (which should be 0). All future statements you will only need the Ending Balance numbers as I have Excel calculating the Starting Shares for you (but you can verify the number if you want).
For each statement, I entered the End Share Price and the End # of Shares for each Fund we have any Investments in. Excel then calculated the # of shares bought (end - start) and the total cost (shares bought x end share price). I'm aware Total Cost is like Dollar Balance on the statement but you need all the extra decimal places for Quicken to calculate the Share Price properly.
All my undergrad/grad school data entry skills are still sharp. This part took only an hour or so, I spent more time opening pdf's than entering numbers. Now for getting this into Quicken. It's possible we could have made a cvs file and done it one step, but I probably would have spent longer figuring out how to do that then just entering it.
So now into Quicken for Mac we go. First thing we need to do is make our TSP Account. So go up to the top, click the + for 'Add Account', then select Investments, then select 401(k).
At this point, a screen pops up asking you to enter your bank name. You can try to search TSP or Thrift Savings Plan, but it won't find them (unless something has changed and after reading this post they felt bad and are now playing nice). So save yourself the time and click the 'My bank is not in the list' and then 'Add Manual Account' on the next pop up.
At which point you will be presented with an Add Opening Balance info screen. Enter your start date and balance, then click finish.
Your account is made. You can click the little settings button on the bottom right hand side and change the name of your account (must be on transaction entry format - to switch just click on transaction or portfolio below the name).
Now to start entering your quarterly contributions. Click the 'Add Button' on the bottom left side (again must be on the transaction entry format). Enter the date the quarter ended, then select 'Add Shares'. The format will change to what you see below. Change the date of acquired to match date the quarter ended.
For Security add the TSP fund. The first time we did this, we had to add our own (as they aren't in the system and we are updating it all manually). After that, we had a nice drop down list.
Then you enter total cost and number of shares. I would always check that the Quicken calculated Price per Share matched the Statement Price per Share on the Excel spreadsheet (a little data verification while entering). Then Save.
Once everything is entered you will see them listed under the transactions.
You can then switch to the Portfolio format to view how everything looks together. Here's just the sample one.
Here is Richard's pretty portfolio graphic. All in all, I think it took us 2-3 hours to enter all 7 years worth of 5 funds worth of data (we split it up over 2 days and took turns entering/reading off really long ##.##### numbers). When you're stuck at home....it's a "fun" project to suddenly get a pretty graphic that looks like this!
Now you might be wondering, how can you see that C-19 March 2020 stock market dip and the start of the recovery if you are only entering quarterly data? You can add closing price data anytime you want....daily even. So if you log in to your TSP account. You can see what the share price is on any given day. Select 'Account Balance' on the side bar and after that screen opens, you can adjust the date at the top You can also go to this website which posts TSP data without being logged into your account!!
You can then take these share prices and input them into Quicken. While on Portfolio view, click on the share who's price you want to update and it brings up this option window. Select 'Edit Security'. After you select that, it brings up this next screen. Click on 'Price History'.
In the Price History, you will add a new price History. Enter the date and the Closing Price you got off the TSP 'share price for the day' page. Then click the Add button.
Just like that you will have pretty wiggles in your TSP Investment profile graphic. We've decided Richard will log on to TSP on Saturday's and get the closing price on Friday's and I will update Quicken. A nifty feature is if I update the price history for his L2040, it automatically updates the price history for my L2040, etc. For this, we have a little spreadsheet (we've put it on google sheets to share between us since we have different computer profiles).
From this point on, it will be easy to quarterly continue to update the share values as well the new shares acquired. It should only take a few minutes to keep on top of it.
That ladies and gentleman is how a Marine Biologist and a Political Science major outwitted the software!
If you want to do this for your own investment account, feel free to use our spreadsheets. For the Spreadsheets, they are now in Google Sheets (similar to Excel). Click here to download.
Further to my previous post on promotion within the Foreign Service, another way the Department rewards hard workers is through the process called a Meritorious Service Increase, or MSI (we have lots of acronyms in the Department).
As a bit of a background, up until a few years ago MSI's were rewarded to those employees whom the promotion boards deemed "doing a good job, but not enough to be promoted". This was the bridesmaid list. You did a very good job, but not enough for promotion, so we will give you an additional step increase. For Federal employment, pay is determined by your grade. In each grade there are steps. For IMS (like me) we all come in at a FS-05 (that is our grade). Our initial step is determined by many factors - prior Federal service, job experience, education, etc. The more of those "things" you have the higher step. After 1 year of service, we are all administratively promoted to an FS-04, step whatever. The "whatever" is determined by what step you were previously. So as an example, if you came in at an FS-05 step 14 (14 is the highest step you can have), when you are administratively promoted (or promoted to the next higher grade in general), you go up one grade to your closest step and over 2. So for FS-05 step 14 the pay is $79070/yr. Promoted to the next step you would be FS-04 step 9, or $84176/yr. You get an automatic step increase each year up until step 10, which then becomes every 2 years. If you want to look at the FS pay chart you can visit it here (look at the Overseas Comparability chart).
So back to my story. As I said up until a few years ago MSI's were rewarded by the promotions board if you did a good job but not good enough to warrant promotion. Then the Dept. changed the rules where MSI's are a separate process. Posts nominate worthy staff for an MSI. Before I departed Fiji the cable (a cable is official communication within the Department) came out for nominations for MSI's. I mentioned to my supervisor that I'd like to be nominated for an MSI, as I felt like I had done a bang up job. He said "sure thing, give me a list of bullet points". So I put together a list of accomplishments that I had done during my tour that I felt warranted me to be considered for an MSI.
My supervisor wrote it up (after I departed in April), I sent it off to Washington. There, our Bureau (the Bureau is the group in Washington that is responsible for a particular geographic region) reviews the nominations. If they agree the MSI is warranted, it is passed to the MSI review panel. If they disagree (or if the MSI panel disagrees) it is sent back to Post. The MSI panel convened in September.
About a week ago the results from the MSI panel came out. And I was on it. So for my tour in Fiji, I was promoted AND received an MSI. Double bonus!!
Now what?! I can't sit back on my laurels. Even though I'm not eligible for promotion for another 2-3 years, I can get another MSI during my current tour. The promotion panels look at all of your EER's, so I have to keep performing at a high level to increase the odds of promotion as soon as I'm eligible again.
Promotion within the Foreign Service is different than the private sector. You aren't promoted just on doing a good job - you are promoted based on continuously proving you are/can work at a higher level AND there is a slot open in at the higher level for you.
Here is how it works. For IMS, we all come in at a Grade 5 Step whatever. In 1 year, you are administratively (ie automatically) promoted to a 4. Then you get in line and wait to be promoted to a 3 (then to a 2, then 1, etc). Every year all State Department Foreign Service officers submit what is called an EER (Employee Evaluation Report). EER's are different, in that you write about what you did. Then your supervisor (called a rater) "rates" you. Hopefully he or she will say how awesome you are and you deserve to be promoted. Then another section has a "reviewer" write about you. For IRM, usually that is the Management Officer but depending on the Post and your position it could be the IPO, IMO, DCM. Who knows. Again you want them to say how awesome you are and you deserve to be promoted.
All of our evaluations are due each May. So from March - April everyone is frantically writing, and rewriting their EERs. Then it is submitted to an internal (Embassy) panel for review. Basically they are looking for grammatical errors, things that are inadmissible, etc. Once panel approves it, your EER goes off to Washington. Each summer the Department convenes the Promotion Panels. It's a group of about 4-5 individuals who look at hundreds (thousands) of EERs. I've heard they only have about 5 minutes to read and make a decision. So it all comes down to how well you write and convey what you've done for the past year (why you are the most super awesome person in the world and deserve to be promoted). If you pass the first round, they put you in the pile to be reviewed again. If you are in that pile they go back and read it a bit more carefully, and the board can even go back and look at previous EER's. As I mentioned above, there are only so many promotion slots. So you want to be the best shining star you can be.
Last year, I didn't even make the bridesmaids list. The bridesmaids list (not an official term) means the promotion board liked what they saw but you didn't make the final cut. In years past making the bridesmaids list got you an MSI, or Meritorious Service Increase (ie more money). Now the MSI is a separate process. Being a bridesmaids means you get bidding privileges and a "way to go" pat on the back. Last year I was mid-ranked, meaning I was doing my job right but not to the point of promotion.
The promotion results usually come out the Friday of Labor Day weekend. If you are in a different time zone than Washington, you usually find out you got promoted (or not) from friends sending you emails/texts etc. This past Friday night Deb and I were watching tv. About 1045pm my time I glanced at my phone and saw an email from a colleague who is in Washington. I know this person doesn't email a lot, so I was intrigued. I opened it up and there was the "congratulations" email! Next thing I know the congrats started flowing in.
So now what? Well the 03 grade (for IRM) is the "sweet spot" when it comes to overseas Posts. There are lots of opportunities out there. However, for those wanting to move up the 03 can also be considered "the wall". Making that jump from 03 to 02 can be challenging, and take a long time. But for now, I will just enjoy the moment.
So to the kids and I, our time in DC was much more relaxing as we had no doctor appointments to rush off to and lots of museums to explore...so it was more like home leave to us. For Richard though, he had six weeks of training at the State Department education facility. Given we were migrating from a winter bidding cycle (aka moving in December/January like we previously had) to a summer bidding cycle (aka arriving in July) we ended up with this block of time that needed to be filled. Typically it is extremely hard to get enough time for training...so Richard was actually lucky and was signed up for a number of courses he had been wanting to take for a long time.
As I mentioned in the previous post, Mason flew into DC the day after Clarissa, Isa Lei and I drove up from Charleston. We had some visa paperwork and vaccination stuff that needed to be done that required Mason to be in DC with us. It also gave Mason some time to visit with my parents/brother & his family. One afternoon, after his arrival we went to our favorite Smithsonian museum...the Natural History Museum. This one gets hit every time we are in DC! They had a special narwhal exhibit....who doesn't love sea unicorns?!?! So since it was new, that was the only thing I took pictures of. Mason who had been thinking he was getting tall, quickly realized he was small potatoes in relation to a narwhal tusk!
Clarissa reading up (and then telling me....ha ha, see how I snuck some summer reading in!) how the narwhal tusk never stops growing!! That is a fun fact!
The following weekend was the Memorial Day holiday. My mom, sister-in-law, niece and nephew came over for some lunch. We had planned to do the parade but the weather forecast wasn't looking too nice so we opted to walk from our apartment to the Iwo Jima memorial and Netherlands Carillon. None of them had been to the Memorial and due to the holiday we got to hear the bells playing live in the Carillon. On our way, we passed a little hidden statue of King David, his wife Haggit, and their child Adoniyya. It is called 'The Family' and given my sister-in-law is a church youth minister I thought she might like it....Clarissa is blocking 'the child'.
This shot was my mom with her grandkids (less one grown one in Illinois), but the youngest wanted her mommy in the photo....it happens!
On our way back, we stopped at the a cool little pocket park playground I knew about to break up the walk for the kids. Clarissa loved finally having cousins her own age to play with!
As luck would have it, some of my/my brother's cousins from St. Louis were in the area for a vacation. We met up for some lunch one day and then hung out on the boardwalk. It was great seeing them and catching up. We let my sister-in-law (aka the 'out-law') take the cousins photo.....
Mason has gotten into collecting the special quarters series (really tricky and slow when you live overseas), as well as, collecting pennies. So given there are no mints you can tour in DC, the next best thing is you can go tour the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and see how money is made! You can head downtown super early in the morning, stand in line, and hope to get tickets for some point later in the day OR you can book group tickets in advance. I went with the group ticket option, unfortunately due to all the snow days in the DC area my nephew was still in school that day and my sister-in-law had to work. The rest of us went and had fun though!
Don't know why, but now I am humming "If I had a million dollars" by Barenaked Ladies again....
Our motley crew....
Since my brother and niece were cheating, Clarissa and I decided to cheat too!
Possibly the most interesting thing we learned was that $2 bills are still in production! Who knew! So the DC location prints $20, $2 and another denomination. The Texas location prints the other denominations. The main thought going through my head besides $$$$$$$, was if I worked here I would have so many paper cuts!
Great picture of Mason and my parents (now taller than my mom). There's my brother photobombing in the back.....sigh, little brothers!! Afterwards, we headed to lunch!
So after doing a number to transits through DC, we have seen a lot of what there is in the nearby area. So for this trip, we expanded our horizons! We discovered that Hershey, Pennsylvania was a little less than 2.5 hours away. After doing many 3-4 hour trips slowly around Fiji due to villages and cows (National Speed Limit is also 80 km/hr....aka 50 mph)....2.5 hrs via freeway....easy! So one rainy Sunday we went to the Hershey Chocolate World! We did the free tour....it was a bit lame (all automated....like an old theme park ride) but we splurged on the 'Create-Your-Own-Candy Bar'.....and that was amazing! We got decked up like good ole factory workers (best part was the kid size aprons!).
We took our tickets and scanned them at the first computer station where we picked what we wanted in our bars. Richard and I opted for dark chocolate (yum), Mason went with white chocolate, and Clarissa went straight milk chocolate. You could also pick add-ins like rice bits, cookie bits, sprinkles on top (both kids added sprinkles). Once done there, you entered production, scanned your ticket, and pulled the magic lever!
You then saw your name/bar up on on the production schedule with everything you had selected to put in it.
A shell that is the chocolate type you picked comes down, then what ever add-ins are dropped into your shell, then all go through the milk chocolate waterfall and get covered in chocolate. Then if you selected sprinkles they are added before the chocolate solidifies. Watch as our bars move through the chocolate waterfall!
You then could watch as your chocolate bar "cooled". That was probably the longest part, during which you headed to another computer to design your cover. You could add icon's, fancy font, resize your name....all kinds of fun stuff!
Once dried, your bar went to the boxing section. It was super neat in that the machine boxed your bar and then laser printed your name onto the box! After it was boxed it moved to a real person who put it in a tin, slipped your cover around it, and handed it to you.
It was pretty neat and fun....as we all had one of a kind Hershey's chocolate bars!!
Based on everyone's faces, I think we all had a blast!!
With the ticket package we had gotten we also had a viewing of their 4D movie, while the kids enjoyed it - Richard and I thought it was really cheesy. They did have it so you could text what you were at Hershey celebrating...since it was only a day after, Richard texted we were celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary....aah how sweet! So during the show, they acknowledge birthdays, anniversaries, and other things being celebrated. They also had Hershey, Kiss, and Reese walking around for photos. We didn't run into Hershey but we did the other too!
Later that week, the kids and I did find our way to coin mint in DC. It doesn't do tours (anymore?) but they do have a little shoppette you can buy some things you didn't know you needed! The guy working the shop happened to be a foreign service brat....so Mason had fun talking to a grown up who lived survived this lifestyle! Mason ended getting himself a set of uncirculated 2018 coins! On our way back, we had a little impromptu Chinatown photo shoot (because why not?!?).
Mason then headed back to Texas for another month with his dad. Clarissa and I took Richard to the Chesapeake Brewing Company for Father's Day. We picked it because we like the cool mermaid logo and we know Richard enjoys a craft brew from time to time. As luck would have it, on their sign when we walked in, it said they were giving Dad's free pint glasses for Father's Day! Richard collects pint glasses! Score! I do have to say, Annapolis is a very sleepy town on weekends.
So for months now, Clarissa has been wanting to have a lemonade stand. Living overseas on orders with visas and such....earning money is a no-no. We had thought about trying to have a stand at my in-laws, but they live on a quiet street without much traffic....so another bust. Given her cousin is not much younger than her....I approached my brother/sister-in-law....they have a house on the corner! We decided a weekday when everyone was heading home from work would be perfect. So that afternoon we passed the 'is it time yet' time by having the kids make posters and the lemonade. We had regular and a special lavender mint brew!!
I had sewn Clarissa a money apron for this (and the yard sale) that she proudly wore. She was the money keeper (because she was the oldest of course)!
Once up from her nap, my niece even got in on the action!
They did awesome! Not from volume of sales, but more from tips they got. Working the cute factor while they have it!! We did a few more fun things in DC. I had (another) Groupon for a pottery painting. So Clarissa painted an ice cream bowl for her and Richard to share evening ice cream in (even has a line down the middle so nobody eats too much) and her cousins painted a plate and car. It was fun. I also signed up from some sewing classes for myself (I can now do patio cushions with piping) and Clarissa wanted to take a class too! So she learned how to make a pillow! She really enjoyed it and hopefully I can find some classes in Doha for her to take.
We also spent some time at my parents (though I didn't take pictures of us sitting around...lol). The kids and I enjoyed our relaxing time in DC (less the construction on our patio from 9am to 4pm everyday....the noise was horrific and ran us out everyday). After this training, we headed back to Charleston for a little bit of vacation time before we head to Doha! Coming soon in another post!
