I wanted to share with our readers the big news that I will be headed to Afghanistan in September to work on the Afghanistan Higher Education Project (HEP). I will remain with my current employer, the Academy for Educational Development (AED), and be based in Kabul. I mentioned this briefly in a post the other day, but I figured it would be good to provide our readers a bit of context and relate it to our blog.
To give you a bit of background on the project, the Afghanistan Higher Education Project is part of an overall program to rehabilitate and strengthen the capacity of the education system to improve access to quality education throughout Afghanistan. The project will strengthen both the individual and institutional capacity of sixteen Universities.
My new position as the International Training Coordinator of HEP will take me around Asia and the Middle East leading groups of Afghani University staff on training activities. The basic idea is to demonstrate the capacity of other Universities and equip them with the skills to develop their Universities back in Afghanistan. Thus, my position will have me traveling fifty percent of the time outside of Kabul to regional countries. Currently trainings are scheduled for Dubai, Delhi, and Kuala Lumpur.
The only downside of this fabulous opportunity will be being away from my husband James. Given the career development potential and extra allowances provided, James & I will learn to live with the challenges of an R&R marriage for the next year or two. Given that James is working on his PhD in Criminology and we have yet to consider children in the near future, this is very good timing for us. We will have four R&Rs a year, totaling seven weeks, anywhere in the world we choose to meet.
The upside, aside from career opportunities and the chance to live and travel on my fifth continent, is certainly the money.
As an aside, I think it is very interesting that I find myself hesitating to share my salary. Certainly our net worth is posted month here for the world to see, but there is something to do about the cultural expectations about salary being a hushed issue. Obviously reader can have a pretty good sense of what my salary is given many various posts, but it is another thing to go out and say it.
My base salary is $63k, there it is. Not bad for having had that go up from $35k in my seventh raise (some of those annual) in the last three years. The great part is that is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to places like Afghanistan. Generally those who work abroad know that you are pretty well set up, to put it mildly. Working in a country like Afghanistan takes that to a new level.
I’ll be getting an extra 70% of my salary in allowances and then an extra grand a month for housing. That brings the my total new income to $120,000 annually.
While we’ll have some added expenses for R&Rs we have the added bonus that there is nothing to buy in Kabul and I’ll be having additional per diem while I’m on training in other countries. Taking a conservative estimate we think we should be able to stash away an extra $40k a year (on top of what I already save on my current salary).
Using a quick online calculator this showed me that with one year of saving it would worth $591,413 at retirement (35 years at 8%). If things go well on the assignment and I stay an additional year this means $1.2 Million in the bank at the same rate.
I of course, would not take this job only for the money. It happens to be in the exact technical area that I work in, and is in a country that deserves a great deal of help after all America has done over the years to help it to where it is today. I have also heard incredible things about how kind Afghanis are.
The best part is that James & I are able to enjoy a marriage where we are both about to pursue our individual and joint goals simultaneously. No matter what your goals are, I believe that a balanced marriage needs this as a component. One of the ways that James & I will stay connected will certainly be through our blog, just with a different perspective.
Miel
DINKS (Dual Income No Kids) Finance is a blog discussing personal finance for couples. While by no means financial experts, we own a variety of assets including real estate and stocks. We've both been up to our eyeballs in debt and have made tons of financial mistakes. However, we've both successfully retired that debt and we both do learn from our failings. We hope that our voice in this blog can help others in achieving their goals!
