Thoughts on Managing Future Income Risk

The extent to which my current decisions affect my future is a subject I have struggled with over the past few years, often changing my views on the matter. Let me explain.

After graduating from high school, I enrolled at UIS, a school to which I could commute while also working a full-time job at my family's chain of dry cleaners. It seemed to be a fairly good situation. I received a partial scholarship from UIS and the tuition rates were pretty reasonable on top of that, so between my savings, my income, and partial financial help from my parents, I was on-track to be able to pay for college without taking out any student loans. Meanwhile, while working for the family cleaners, I learned a great deal about businesses and microeconomics outside of classes. If I had kept in this system, I believe I would have been set up pretty well for my immediate future after college as I would have a college degree, little-to-no debt, and experience in the field I was entering prior to graduating.

However, I was never quite sure whether I truly wanted to go into the family business, and if I were to, I would likely go into my parent's other business, Flynn Sales & Service in which we sell and repair commercial laundry equipment (I discussed this business in a previous post), as opposed to the dry cleaners. While I had been around the business throughout my life, I didn't have nearly the amount of experience with repairing equipment as I did at the dry cleaners, not to mention the lack of experience with the differing customer base, business operations, etc.. You may wonder why I didn't work at Flynn Sales instead of the cleaners. The reason is pretty plain: Flynn Sales would've demanded  me to work hours completely incompatible with my school schedule while the cleaners hours were flexible, and also the need for employees at the cleaners was much higher than at Flynn Sales. In addition to this oversight, I had become somewhat disenchanted with my situation as a whole. Long hours at school and work left little time for other things, such as a social life. Also, I knew that if I stayed in my situation, I may not get the chance to experience new things and would surely end up working for the family business, which as I said I was undecided on.

For these reasons, I decided to transfer to UIUC. If you travel to Springfield, you'd quickly see that Champaign  and Springfield are very much alike once you're outside the campus, but they were different enough for me and Illinois, being a state school was still within a reasonable price-range tuition-wise. That's not to say the transfer has not been expensive. This is where the new risk comes in. Transferring to a slightly more expensive school, coupled with living expenses and the loss of my full-time job, has thrown me completely off my plan to graduate without debt, which certainly increases the risk I am taking on my future. Also, the move to UIUC is surely not helping me in preparing to work for Flynn Sales. However, I hope that UIUC will help me in finding employment in a different field if I choose to enter one, as it is held in high regard and would insure that I receive a good education. I would consider this a very big risk considering I gave up a decent amount in both accounting costs and opportunity costs to attend here. However, taking the risk wasn't necessarily the goal in coming here. I wouldn't consider myself a huge gambler. I mainly transferred here in order to experience something different than I had been and determine whether or not I want to continue on with my family's businesses or take a chance on doing something different.

I still have Flynn Sales and the cleaners as a fall-back of course. In fact, I spent the summer back home in Jacksonville working for Flynn Sales in somewhat of an apprentice's role. Without classes to get in the way, I was able to dedicate much more time to studying how the business works and what my role may be there if I choose to work there full-time after I graduate. That experience should help me in deciding what I want to do after I graduate and also eliminate a little of the risk seeing as how I have a fall-back option if I choose not to pursue another occupation.


My choices have been slightly different than my siblings before me. My oldest sister, Becca, for example approached college a little differently than I did. Becca was incredibly efficient in her approach to college, which somewhat resembles my approach before I decided to transfer. She enrolled at Illinois College, a small private college in Jacksonville. This allowed her to live at home, cutting living expenses as well as work full-time. She was able to graduate with honors with an Accounting degree in a square four years with little in the way of student loans and quickly find a great job in Jacksonville which helped her pay off her loans in a somewhat painless manner. She seemed to have an understanding early on about what she wanted and was incredibly driven to achieve her goals. While I don't know exactly how intentional it was, she minimized her risk almost throughout the whole process. She controlled the amount she was spending in order to graduate without an obscene amount of debt, she chose a field of study that not only paid well but also was in high demand in our area, and finally, and also she made sure the things she did on the side; working, extracurriculars, etc. would all help her in the future in some way, shape, or form.

I have not managed to be quite as efficient in my approach as Becca was, and shame on me as an economics major for not being efficient. However, I also didn't quite know exactly what I wanted to do from the start of my college career like she did and therefore felt taking a risk may carry more utility for me. In taking the risk that I did, I may have helped myself find what I'd like to do as far as a career goes. She never had that problem and therefore never felt the need to take a risk when choosing a college and an approach to graduating and moving on after college.