BostonGal says, “Seeing how many people are on the Millionaire in the Making list due in part to secure state, government, or military pension plans is becoming a bit of a downer for me. Should I try to start a second career as a state or government employee? Just so I can get guaranteed income and heath benefits in retirement?”

Some of her commenters take issue saying that benefits are not guaranteed and changeable with the economic tides especially at the state level. I agree. It’s a risk and it has a lot of pros and cons. Living in DC, I can see that every day. The CNN/Money series has generally profiled federal government employees and if you ask me, a lot of them have been active military and I’m not sure combat pay is a great way to build your wealth up.

Check Office of Personnel Management if you really have questions. OPM is your best resource for general questions or else the HR office of your potential agency.

In terms of benefits as a full-time employee, you get:

FEGLI - Group Life Insurance: But you have to sign up for it when you are hired. No changing your mind later because you can’t sign up. OPM only runs a sign up period every few years, ‘few’ meaning ‘decades’. You can check their site for the open enrollment dates, they are very, very far apart. When you’re young, you don’t think you need it, so you think you’re saving money. Then you turn 40, have two kids and you want insurance and now you have to go get it on your own. Something to think about if you enter a government career at 25.

FERS-Federal Employees Retirement System: A three-part system consisting of
1. Social Security - Yes, they really think they’re going to pay it in 20 years.
2. Basic Benefits/Annuity - Pension benefit, an annuity payment of a portion of your salary.
3. Thrift Savings Plan - Retirement investments, which on the whole, are very generic and probably don’t chase a lot of risk for high reward. But it’s a little hard to tell from the available literature. The other thing is that the maximum match is 5% of your salary, for a total of 10%. The other good thing is that you vest in 2 years and they automatically give you 1% even if you don’t save anything.

Health Insurance: Health insurance, for your whole family, dependent children, adopted/fostered children.

I’m sure all that sounds great, but you have to work for the government for 30 years unless you are in one of several categories, all of which have stipulations.

1. Military or Law Enforcement: 25 years of service or Age 50 and 20 years of service.
2. Voluntary Early Retirement: Special retirement packages offered agency by agency, dependent on a matrix of age and length of service, determined at the time the packages are offered which could be few and far between.
3. Part-Time Employees
4. Members of Congress/Congressional Employees
5. Military Reserve Technicians

Frankly, I don’t like the idea of working for 30 years for anybody. At that point, I might as well be a company man for some large corporation or something crazy like that.

The other thing is that BostonGal might not like her pay grade and step. I know she’s in IT but some federal IT jobs in the DC area don’t pay well and frankly, they can truly stink. (I knew a sysadmin who left our company for two weeks and came right back because his FAA IT job wasn’t what it was billed to be.) You’re better off being a contractor if you ask me, but the government does pay for a lot of training, so you might be able to move your grade up a lot faster with an internal promotion, new degree, or an agency change.

At any rate, if you want to work for the government, check out USAJobs.com. It’s OPM’s website for recruiting. It works like Monster.com where you can set up agents and bulletins for new listings. That’s key since there are closing dates on postings which are very important. However, several agencies subcontract out to AVUE, like DOJ, USDA Forest Service, and TSA. (Get used to acronyms, that’s what government life is all about!)

There is much more to consider but these are some basics. Things like COLA, ‘danger pay’, locality pay, etc are more esoteric but can really make a huge difference in your salary comparisons. (For instance DC area pay is 30+% higher than published tables.)

Now, the part you’ve been waiting for! THE FOOD!

The food was pretty good all weekend. Because three meals of our trip were going to be provided as part of wedding festivities, boyfriend and I agreed to pick up some beer, sodas, and snacks and have one really nice meal. We picked up the equivalent of a case of beer, a case of soda, an orange, chips, hummus, soy milk and cereal for the house. Some of the beer we ended up giving away rather than take back with us. We did bring back the orange and leftover cereal to DC. Overall, the price on food I thought was expensive because everything has to be trucked in. I was hoping stuff would be cheaper but I think it’s not because nearly everything there is driven by tourism. Short of the poultry industry and some farming, we weren’t sure what other industries were down on the mainland there.

Part of the fun of going on vacation is finding out what the locals eat, but I made a mistake. Some of the kids at the house recommended Dirty Dick’s, a local chain for seafood and while my dinner was alright, boyfriend didn’t like his softshell crabs and fries. I had snocrab with corn and boiled red potatoes which I thought was yummy, even though it took some effort to eat it. We also had some oysters on the half-shell, but oddly they weren’t fully shucked. They were still attached to the shell and I’m used to the shucker cutting the meat off the shell. Boo! Later I was talking to a shop owner and told him we were at Dirty Dick’s and he just shook his head. I guess I shouldn’t have listened to the kids at the house, but that’s ok. We made up for it later. (Dinner with one cocktail, oysters on the half shell and two entrees was $50.)

We lucked out on Saturday when we found Dare Devil Pizza on S. Virginia Dare Trail, in Kill Devil Hills. (Get it?) We had their jalepeno poppers (yucky with too much cheese) and a totally awesome white pizza, The Greek. We asked for it without the usual tomatoes. It was really tasty with a lot of garlic and spinach with a white sauce that was really rich. We ordered the large but should have had the small since we only ate 4 slices. We boxed the rest and took it back to the house, but didn’t end up eating it when we realized we didn’t want the garlic smell in the car with us when we drove back to DC. Stinky but fantastic! The crust was pretty good on it too. Nice and crispy.

Detour first to the lunch we had on the way home: I think I’ve fallen in love with vinegary Carolina BBQ. I love good tomato-based sauce with spicy kick, but that’s what I’m used to having up north. Carolina BBQ may be my favorite, especially Scott’s because it has some bite. Wells is ok, but I prefer it a little hotter. Add a dash of Texas Pete or Tabasco, and it’s pure goodness. We stopped at Southland Trade since I saw a ton of billboards for it and we ran into it just as we were feeling puckish. It’s just a little souvenir shop and take out place with a bunch of tables. Not large, but pretty popular with the locals. The staff was nice and friendly. One BBQ pulled pork platter with fries, and one extra pulled pork sandwich and two sodas was $15, about the same as McDonald’s maybe, but WAY WAY BETTER. I sat there squirting Scott’s on to my plate and dipping my sandwich in it to get the bread sopping wet with vinegar tastiness. (And it’s available via mail order online! Click the link for tasty food!)

Lastly, you’ll note on yesterday’s post that I spent $150 at Owens’ Restaurant. That was a mistake on our part. You see, I saw a 2005 Cakebread Cellars Sauvignon Blanc on the wine list and I thought boyfriend might like it since he prefers whites. But it turns out he very much did not like it at all and though I could have been happy with a glass or two of something red for $15-20 total, I ended up very drunk and silly on 2/3rds of a $54 bottle of wine. If it wasn’t for that, dinner would have been less than $100 and well worth it.

I decided not to be tempted by their lobster tail appetizer stuffed with crab meat. I was too full from snacking in the car and craving some salad. I stuck to the Shrimp and Grits diesh with sausage and the creamiest grits I’ve ever tasted in my life. I swear, they were fantastic! The online menu doesn’t give you a sense of how much entrees are, but you can guess that it’s much more posh than other places on the Outer Banks. There’s filet mignon and lobster and stuff like that so expect to pay the same prices as you would in DC, $20-35 an entree.

Owens was by far the best place we ate. It was also the most expensive, but I think it was worth it. Boyfriend and I agreed that we’d eat one really nice meal while we were down there and it absolutely fulfilled our hopes and expecatations.

We went two places run by the National Park Service down at the Outer Banks. However, the lands pass available for $80 is only good for admission to one place, Kitty Hawk. It won’t cover the climbing fee at Cape Hatteras Lighthouse.

The Kitty Hawk Memorial was interesting to visit. It was $4 a person, so $8 for the two of us. It’s been over 100 years since the first flight by the Wright Brothers so it was kind of fun to go. It was very educational if you like geeky aeronautical things or mechanics. The historical stuff was kind of neat too. They had an oral history project, a reconstructed camp cabin and hangar, and a few replica planes complete with mannequin in period costume.

It’s definitely more of a family place to go where kids can fly kites and run around. There is a massive lecture hall there where I guess more serious stuff takes place after they wheel in a plane. Also, if you are a pilot, there is a small airstrip there, but no tower.

I didn’t want to climb the hill to the monument there, but it’s a great way to burn off some energy, and no, you don’t have to walk all the way from the main visitors center. You can drive over and park at the bottom of the bill, and save yourself a little energy to walk up in the heat. Honestly, don’t go on a really sunny or hot day because there is no shade at all.

The big attraction for the Outer Banks is the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. It’s the world’s tallest brick lighthouse. However, it’s not in the original location and there are a few other lighthouses out there, like the Bodie Lighthouse. It’s $7 per person to climb the tower, so $14 for both of us. It’s a lot of stairs. They even have a defibrillator at the top just in case. I was definitely huffing and puffing, but it was a lot easier to climb than St. Peter’s in Rome. It’s less steep and much wider. However, you do get dizzy going down because you go down much faster. The view is very nice. The water is really beautiful from there. But don’t go with really small kids since they have to be 3′ 6″ high to climb the stairs alone. They don’t let you carry kids since the stairs are iron and a slip would be rather nasty.

It’s an hour down to Cape Hatteras from the park entrance in Nags Head, but fear not, there’s a few towns along the way within the park itself where you can stop for lunch and gas, so don’t feel like you have to buy gas before entering the park, though it is marginally more expensive per gallon in those towns. BTW, if you do stop for a convenience store snack, look for some frozen burritos from a local place. I didn’t catch the label, but I had the chicken one with the blue oval sticker. It was really tasty, but needed some spicy hot sauce.

Lastly, there is night fishing and bonfires on the beach. The fires have to be out by midnight and when the sun sets later in the evening later in the summer, that doesn’t give you lots of time to get a big roaring fire going. But it’s still nice to kick back with a few beers and a fire.

Personally I don’t think the Outer Banks will be my beach of choice since I kind of like people watching on the boardwalk in Jersey or places like Cape Henlopen or Half Moon Bay which are more like day trips from the city. But I definitely won’t say no if my friends organize a trip and invite me down. It really was pretty there with some of the cleanest beaches I’ve ever visited.

The Outer Banks are one of the few places left where you can drive a car out onto the sand. There are designated areas for it, but some are only seasonal, and you can only drive from beach to beach in Corolla, far north of where we stayed in Nags Head. Though we spent a lot on gas, this was the first time my boyfriend had a reason to take his Jeep on to the sand, so there was no way we weren’t going to take his gas guzzler instead of my sedate little Altima.

Jeep culture is kind of interesting. We definitely waved a lot at older guys in tricked out Jeeps, but the dippy girls in newer stock Wranglers less so. They’ll learn after they realize that a thousand people just waved at them, not because they are cute, but because the wavers are driving Jeeps. It’s kind of like motorcycles. I had a friend tell me once that Rule #1 was hang on while I’m riding on back and Rule #2 was wave at other motorcyclists. It’s the same thing.

At any rate, the wedding was very cute. It ended up being a GEICO commercial when a plane with a banner flew right overhead as the bride was about to start walking down the aisle. We all cracked up. My friends had a ridiculous number of bridal party members. (Almost double digits on both sides.) And it was good to spend time with my former boss and his wife, who I think are really neat.

His parents fed us on Thursday afternoon at the Rehearsal BBQ, then again on Saturday morning her parents fed us a post-wedding brunch. There were bonfires on the beach, a little night fishing (mostly rays) and some carousing, which we old folks fortunately skipped. No sunburns for us, fortunately, but the groom was his usual summer-sun-kissed self. I was seriously going to loan Mr. Peanut some green concealer to tone down the red, but it faded to a nice piggy pink by the time the ceremony came around.

I am going to have to write about the food in separate posts as well as some of the local activities. But for now, I’ll tell you the total cost of the trip and how it breaks down.

$266* – Gas for an off-road vehicle, i.e bad gas mileage
$4 - Tolls
$220 – Rental
$22 – Admission to National Parks
$44* – Groceries/beer
$30* – Dare Devil Pizza
$15* – BBQ lunch at Southland’s
$56* – Dirty Dick’s Restaurant
$146 – Owens’ Family Restaurant
$5 – Gag gift

Total Damage $808

Boyfriend picked up everything with a star (*) for a total of $411. Add on various small things like sodas, water, snacks on the trip home and it was pretty evenly split between us. Not too shabby for a 4-day weekend to the beach. It could have been much more expensive, but we had many delicious meals provided for us as wedding guests.

As far as a gift goes, my friends asked for nothing since they know most of their friends can’t afford much beyond the trip and rental itself, but I asked Mr. Peanut what he wanted and he said there is honestly nothing. I know what Mr. Peanut likes and I know what Mrs. Peanut will appreciate. But I’ll have to send something along later since cash is tight at the moment. But I have something in mind.

I will elaborate a little more on food and entertainment the rest of this week.

Thanks to SFOrdinaryGirl of SF Money Musings for stepping in with a guest post for me. I read her blog regularly, partly because I miss San Francisco so much. Wish her luck on her new roommate search. It’s tough to find a good roommate with all the kooky people out there. You have run a serious screening process or else you’ll end up with candles all over the house that will nearly burn the place down. (Happened to my friend.) But of course, you could end up meeting someone cool through the traumatic process. (Happened to the same friend.)

As far as my vacation goes, I’ll have to write that up later for you. It isn’t tracked down to the penny, nor the dime, but it does elucidate what spending is like these days.

*Guest Post*
I’m SFordinarygirl at Sf Money MusingsI’m a 26-year-old girl still making $30K a year after two years at a job I’m desperately trying to leave. Thanks to Mapgirl for allowing me to contribute a guest post while she’s enjoying her three-day vacation.

I want to emphasize the importance of eating and buying local food. Over the last year and a half after living on my own, learning to eat on a limited income ($30K) I’ve discovered a lot of things about food.

On my own I discovered a few things about food:

Most of the garlic, ginger and certain root vegetables sold in ethnic grocery stores and in Chinatown came all the way from China
Some of the produce is treated or coated with an exterior wax to maintain freshness
Imported produce flooded the grocery stores

It really surprised me to learn most of the garlic sold in Chinatown came from China. Gilroy, California is garlic capital – a mere 80 miles one-way from San Francisco. China’s even farther and who knows how they grow garlic. I was also disturbed me our grocery stores were stocking produce from a country with its own environmental and safety problems.

The problem with bringing fruit and vegetables far from our soils is freshness and quality. In order for produce from far away countries to be sold without spoiling they are often picked before their prime. This means garlic is plucked weeks before they are ready. It’s not just imported garlic that’s a problem. There’s also the problem of bringing blueberries from Chile. There’s no guarantee or assurance even organic produce shipped from far away is safe.

So I made a personal commitment to buy most of my groceries at the farmers market. At the market I have a direct relationship with the people who grow the vegetables and fruit I consume. There’s something exciting about eating a quart of big, red and plump strawberries. I had my first taste of fresh locally grown arugula and compared to the plastic packaged kind I used to buy at Trader Joe’s – there was no going back. The local grown arugula had a sharp bitter taste, typical of the fresh kind.

Our schedules are hectic and busy. It’s not always convenient or easy to buy local. We are often eating on the run, in the car or on our way to work. Dinner tends to be either a Lean Cuisine, a box of Mac and cheese or something prepared from Trader Joe’s. If each of us makes a commitment to buy one locally-produced vegetable and support our farmers, we would be help save the environment and see an improvement in our own diets and health.

I’ve noticed how much better my food tastes when it’s fresh and purchased directly from the farmers. Nothing beats a deep red heirloom tomato in the summer from the market.

For a listing of local farmers markets go to Local Harvest

We are taking the off-road vehicle because we’re going to a beach that allows them. WHEE!

It’s not fuel-efficient to take this car, but in the name of fun, we spend extra.

My friends, Mr. and Mrs. Peanut, will be tying the knot on the beach. Very exciting stuff. Mr. Peanut and I met 5 years ago at work. He’s one of my totally awesome co-workers and I wish him all the best. When I first met him, he was kind of a freewheeling kid playing the field. Mrs. Peanut is really nice and I can tell they are going to be mega happy. My old boss will be there too! (He’s still Mr. Peanut’s boss. I left a few months ago.)

I have a super special wedding present for Mr. Peanut. It’s a gag gift, but it’s going to be great and it cost me less than 5 bucks! I’ll tell you what it is when I get back since there might not be internet access this weekend. (Rumor says yes, Gut Feeling says no.)

Have a great Memorial Day holiday!

1. My old company’s 401k plan finally rebounded back to $24K this week. It’s bad that I haven’t rolled the funds over, but I like the international funds available to me there. I think I will wait a bit longer to do the rollover though since I’d like the balance to rebound back up to about $27K before rolling over. (I prefer to sell and move the cash. Then I can reallocate.)

2. I think I’m going to donate $100 each to Doctors Without Borders for Myanmar and China as a one-time donation. My company is doing a matching donation, and gratefully, no one in our China division has been directly effected by the earthquake.

3. The awesome Thai restaurant near my house will substitute tofu in my favorite curry. I swear, I opened the box and it looked just like chicken. The texture was different, but I needed the visual illusion last night. I *almost* ordered meat for dinner, but I’m still trying to eat meat only once a day.

4. I had lunch for $1.05 on Monday. That was for a small soda at McDonald’s. For some reason, boyfriend got some free chicken sandwich coupons in the mail. All I had to do was walk into a store with the coupon and redeem. Very easy. I have one coupon left for a breakfast sandwich. I’ve had them before. They’re really greasy so I’m not sure I will get one, but it’s nice to know I have a freebie if I’m hungry. Maybe I’ll give it to the next homeless guy I see.

I had something pulled together a little while ago that was Arlington-focused, but after an WAMU (local NPR affiliate) story this morning, I wanted to pull together a regional list. If I have left any off here, I am sorry. Please let me know in the comments and I will try to update them when I return from vacation.

It breaks my heart to hear that people are hungry in the US. 200+ years of democracy and we still can’t feed our people.

Some of these require a referral by a social services agency. Others restrict the number of visits you can make. Please call to find out the hours and ask what kind of services they provide. Different agencies give out different amounts of food too.

Virginia Social Services Agency
Maryland Social Services
DC Department of Human Services

This list is not in any special order because some agencies serve more than one jurisdiction. They are open to donations of all kinds so if you are inclined, please consider a donation.

Capital Area Food Bank
645 Taylor Street, NE, Washington, DC 20017
(202)526-5344

6833 Hill Park Drive, Lorton, VA 22079
(703)541-3063

Bread for the City
1525 Seventh Street, NW, Washington, DC 20001
(202) 265-2400

1640 Good Hope Road, SE, Washington, DC 20020
(202) 561-8587

Food for Others
2938 Prosperity Ave, Fairfax, VA 22031
(703) 207-9173

St. George’s Episcopal Church
915 N Oakland St, Arlington, VA 22203-1916
(703) 525-8286

Our Lady Queen of Peace
2700 South 19th Street, Arlington, Virginia, 22204
(703) 979-5580

Grace Episcopal Church
3601 Russell Road, Alexandria, Virginia 22305-1731
(703) 549-1980

Our Daily Bread
10777 Main Street #320, Fairfax, VA 22030
(703) 273-8829
info@ODBfairfax.org

Loudoun Interfaith Relief
213 South King Street, Leesburg, VA 20175
(703) 777-5911

ACTS Food Pantry/Potomac Food Bank
3900 ACTS Lane, Dumfries, VA 22026
(703) 441-8606

Manna Food Center
614 Lofstrand Lane, Rockville, MD 20850
(301) 424-1130
info@mannafood.org

Whitman-Walker Clinic: Food Bank (For HIV/AIDS positive clients only)
1816 14th St., N.W., Washington, DC 20009
(202) 797-3574 - more

Oxon Hill Food Pantry
4915 Saint Barnabas Road, Temple Hills, MD
(301) 899-8358

Christian Community Presbyterian Church
3120 Belair Drive, Bowie MD, 20715
(301) 262-6765
info@bowiefoodpantry.org

Howard County Food Bank
c/o Howard County Community Action Council
8920 Route 108, Columbia, Maryland 21045
(410) 313-6185

Anne Arundel County Food Bank
List of recipient service agencies

I’m not a huge camper, but I have done it to go to music festivals and stuff like that. This past weekend I went out to the George Washington National Forest for a little camping trip. We had tagged this weekend for the last month as a target for a small trip, but the weather looked iffy all of last week. Boyfriend was thinking of canceling, but because I’ve been in some really sh*tty, sh*tty weather before, I ok’d a little rain. The NOAA forecast didn’t look too bad.

I didn’t have much time to stop and rummage through my own camping gear to pull stuff during the week. The construction in my apartment prevents me from really pulling everything out and going through it carefully. I made a point of grabbing my headlamp, coffeepot and thermos. I also grabbed a set of gloves, hat and scarf. For some reason, I just had a bad feeling it would get chilly at night. We pretty much stayed up till 2am packing the car, getting groceries and other preparations. This was our first camping trip together so it was a learning experience.

Saturday morning we woke up early but I misunderstood something boyfriend asked about washing a pair of jeans so we had to wait for them to dry. As soon as they were ready, we put the dog in the car and hit the road around 9:30, a half-hour behind schedule. The weather was kind of sunny and it smooth sailing. We made a stop in Woodstock, VA for gas. I got a Southern Chicken sandwich and a soda from McDonalds (not as good as Chik-Fil-A), but boyfriend got an awesome slice of NY style pizza for $1.50 in the middle of nowhere. (Actually it’s I-81 at VA-42 in Woodstock. It’s the pizza place next to the Shell on the east side of 81.) Till we got to the forest everything was great. A few places boyfriend already knew about were occupied but we found a good spot eventually near a river with a firepit and log carved out as a couch. (Complete with cup holders!) It took a while and we didn’t get camp set up till about 2:30p. A little later than I think he would have liked, but c’est la vie. We weren’t able to traverse to some better camping areas without another off-road vehicle following us, or a winch, so we had to make do.

The weather held out all night and the near full moon was amazing. The moonglow off the water was gorgeous. Boyfriend was great about foraging for firewood and we started a good fire going for a weenie roast. I put two potatoes in foil to put in the fire and soaked some corn in water to cook in the fire later. It was one of the first times I’ve ever had to manage cooking on a fire completely on my own. (Usually an expert camper friend is there to guide the process.) The potatoes need about 2-3 hours and the corn should have taken 30 minutes, but I couldn’t stick them deep enough into the fire (no long reach tongs), plus we were impatient. But it all ended up really tasty anyway.

Sunday morning was really cloudy, but the rain wasn’t too bad. We cooked eggs and sausage patties for breakfast and then struck camp as the rain went from a drizzle to full rain. We got out of there pretty quickly since we had most stuff packed up from the night before, just in case. Got back to DC by late afternoon. The sun came out and we were able to open up our wet gear and air it out!

Approximate budget:
~$80 for gas (2 tanks in an off-road vehicle with crappy gas mileage)
Groceries ~$40
Excellent yummy pizza $4.50 = 3 slices!!
McDonald’s lunch $4.50

~$150 total for the weekend. Not too bad. Since boyfriend did some of the grocery shopping and bought the first tank of gas, I can’t really pinpoint exactly what we spent, but it was a pretty cheap weekend of fun and adventure. I got to wear my fancy hiking boots while fording some small rivulets. Hooray for Gore-Tex! There weren’t too many bugs either since I kept covered up and we used little bug spray.

All in all, a good trip.