By Caroline Ceniza-Levine

Career choices are also financial choices.  Can I do something I love and still pay the bills? Can I make a career change without taking a salary cut? Can I afford to wait for that perfect job when I’m unemployed and need to make money quickly? Some jobs pay more than others. Some offer faster salary growth and bigger bonuses. It is not practical to make career choices without considering the financial repercussions.

That said, deciding your next job and career path requires additional considerations apart from financial planning. Ideally, finances are one criterion of many by which you plan your career.

Here’s how to think about your money and your next move:

If you are unemployed, your cash situation should dictate the timing of your job search. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t look for a job with a good long-term fit. However, you need to meet your immediate financial obligations, as well as your long-term career aspirations. If your short-term cash situation is dire (e.g., little severance, little savings), this could mean launching two job searches – one to meet your immediate cash needs that focuses on temp or project work; and one to meet your long-term career needs that focuses on finances PLUS other important considerations (e.g. your values and interests). A big mistake unemployed jobseekers make is to be too choosy and decline these “money jobs” that will keep cash coming in and enable you to continue a proactive long-term search for a better fit.

If you are employed but dislike your job, don’t assume your next move means a radical change in your finances. Yes, certain industries pay more than others so if you are leaving banking for poetry, you need to prepare for a lower salary. But most career shifts are not that radical. Confirm, too, if you really need to change what you do – perhaps you just need to change companies. You may be able to stay at the same salary level or even move up, even if you make a shift.

If you decide to try your own business, this often means a big change in your finances. If your target business requires upfront investment (e.g., in supplies, equipment, or retraining) then you have new expenses. If you leave your job to start a business, your regular paycheck stops. However, you may be able to start a business while you maintain your current job. You may be able to find a business with little upfront costs. Do not assume radical career moves require equally radical financial shifts.

Regardless of your next career move, you should be practicing good financial habits: setting aside an emergency fund; contributing to a retirement plan; paying off high-interest rate debt; and saving towards long-term financial goals (e.g., buying a house, your children’s education). These habits can be implemented in whatever job situation you have now.

We all know people with average or even low salaries who manage to save and be generous with their money. We also know people with high salaries who can’t make ends meet. Career path impacts your financial path, but does not determine it. You can have a strong financial picture with a lot of different careers. Use each to support the other but recognize that they are separate and need individual attention. Take care of your career. Take care of your finances.

Caroline Ceniza-Levine helps people find fulfilling jobs and careers, as the co-founder of SixFigureStart®, career coaching by former Fortune 500 recruiters.   Caroline is a former recruiter for financial services, consulting, media, pharmaceutical/ healthcare, and technology. Her 100 Dreams exercise appears in Laura’s book. Visit her website to get free coaching advice and free coaching workshops for your job search and career success.

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If you’ve made it to Chapter 2 in 168 Hours, you know that the List of 100 Dreams is an exercise dreamed up by career coach Caroline Ceniza-Levine (who I actually got to meet in person at In Good Company a few weeks ago!) The idea is to create a completely unedited list of anything you might want to do or have in your life. These dreams can be as profound as winning a Nobel Prize, or as mundane as keeping some really good dark chocolate-covered caramels in the house.

Why should you make such a list? When people think of time management and productivity, they usually try to figure out ways to save time. But what are you saving your time for? What do you want to be doing during your 168 hours?

The List of 100 Dreams gives you some ideas. You don’t have to truly do them all, and some, once tried, may turn out not to turn your crank. But better to think about this question than go through life not knowing how you’d like to spend your time.

On October 1st (10/01/10) I will be sharing some items from my List of 100 Dreams. I invite you to join me here or on your own blogs — challenge yourself to come up with 10 and post in the comments here. This will be fun, I promise!

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Sure, you’ll be sleeping some. Grown-ups will sleep about 672 of them. Kids a bit more. And many adults also have far less than 12 weeks off work. But even if you’re working 40 hours during each of those 12 weeks — 480 hours — that still leaves 864 waking, non-working summer hours. If you take a week or two off work (most people have a few days off around July 4th anyway) that puts you up over 900.

This is a lot of time, even if you already have commitments like camps or sports practices. Do you know how you’ll spend these 900 hours?

We have been trying to figure this out in my house. Sure, there are bigger things: a weekend trip to the beach, a few days visiting grandparents, a week’s beach vacation in August. But many of those 900 summer hours come in shorter spurts. They come as a lazy weekend day, or a gorgeous summer evening where it stays light up until bedtime.

In my book, 168 Hours, I reference an exercise created by career coach Caroline Ceniza-Levine, called the “List of 100 Dreams.” This is an unedited list of anything you might like to do or have in life. It’s a good way to start thinking about how you’d like to fill your time, because time management isn’t just about saving 5 minutes here and there. It’s about filling your weeks with activities that bring you and your loved ones joy.

I’ve been thinking these last few days that it would be a good idea for families to create a List of 100 Summer Dreams. Sit down as a family and start thinking through anything you might like to include in your summer. Evening bike rides? Camp-outs in the backyard? S’mores in the backyard? A weekend canoeing trip? A hike in a nearby state park? A family swimming class? Volunteering together? Making a quilt together? Picnic breakfasts?

You can come back to this list multiple times. But as you look through your weeks, keep looking at this list, and looking for places in the 2016 hours of summer where they’d fit. You have time for anything you really want to do. A canoeing trip your kids may remember for years could only take 10 hours or so on a Saturday. I don’t believe in scheduling our lives (particularly our summers!) down to the minute. But we live in a distracted world. When we don’t plan to do things that take effort, we tend not to do them. And we lose our summer hours to television, web surfing, chores, errands and puttering. Better to start off with the question of what we’d like to be doing as families, and go from there.

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