hey guys Serg here back with another episode I thought this would be an
interesting topic for a video because a lot of people want to be CRA s out there
and the clinical research landscape and there are some things that you have got
to have that would make your CRA life easier or some things that you may not
quite realize when becoming a CRA so first thing is when your CRA you want to
make sure that you maximize your points do not be using debit cards or any like
cash back cards to pay for your flights and your trips and things of that nature
you want make sure that you're using a credit card that gives you great points
does not require you to pay the balance in full every month because you're not
gonna be fully reimbursed from your company if they allow you to use your
own personal credit card you're not gonna be fully reimbursed every month by
that time so it's that you're gonna have to be paying the statement balance and
you know someone like me that was tough at first because I'm used to paying
everything in full every month but you know that's just something you may have
to realize - you're gonna be spending a lot of money on your credit card so you
got to make sure that you have ample amount of credit a credit limit on your
card I have one credit card where my limit is only five thousand so that's
not gonna cut it for being a CRA so I mean that's that's just one card I have
another car where the limit is over twenty five thousand so that's more in
the range of the kind of limits you need to be a CRA because you're gonna be
spending a ton of money as a CRA every month you know flights hotels I mean
these things cost hundreds thousands of dollars you know sometimes a trip will
cost almost two thousand dollars depending on where you're going
especially if you're going across the coast if you're going to a different
country you sometimes hotels when you're booking sometimes only booking a week
and a half two weeks out something I would never do in my personal life but
you know sometimes you're spending two hundred three hundred four hundred
dollars a night and these hotels and you might be there all week for a long
monitoring visit so this is something to keep in mind but the topic of this
the this episode is how much money I spend a month as a CRA
so I'm going to kind of talk about I'm going to my expenses here and discuss
kind of you know how much money I'm spending a month so let me let me open
up my my chase account here and wait a second
it's getting weird alright so how much am i spending how much did I spend last
month so I spent five thousand two hundred thirty-nine dollars last month
on travel most of that is going to be air flight airplane tickets and food and
hotel most of that's gonna be airplane ticket in hotel so like I was saying
before you're spending hundreds and hundreds of dollars a month on that and
you're booking these things very very you know you're not really looking out
for deals and stuff you're just booking them when you when you're able to
schedule them so you're not booking at the cheapest price either so you know
sometimes I spend a thousand dollars on a flight before I spent $800 on a flight
before most of the time they try and keep you regional to kind of keep those
costs down and you know that really helps keep the cost down but you know
you you are gonna get reimbursed so it doesn't really matter per se what the
cost is but you want to make sure that you're following your company's policy
when it comes to being reimbursed and everything like that because you don't
want to have to end up you know paying for some of the flight you wanna make
sure that everything is per policy and things of that nature so last month
spent five thousand dollars which is a which is not a bad month that's not bad
and of course I'm not complaining because I get those credit card points
that I get to use for my own personal travel so that's a pretty good month and
I travel a say about four times a month probably about once a week about once a
week I travel but obviously sometimes you might be booking flights for the
next month during that month too so that might be coming up
that month anyway the month before that I spent four thousand four hundred forty
eight dollars which is even less so I must have not been traveling as much
that month and then the month before that I spent eight thousand three
hundred fifty four dollars so like I was saying before if I were using my other
card it's a small little American Express card as the cash back card if I
were using that card I would not be able to be a monitor on that I would not be
able to afford that I would have to I would have to use the company's card if
that was my only credit card and of course the company card is terrible
usually it's terrible you don't get to keep your your points or your miles that
you rack up and that's pretty much the major downside sometimes the company
will pay all that those expenses for you and you just have to itemize them and
submit your expense report and they'll pay all that for you but if you're given
the opportunity to use your own personal card you definitely want to do that get
the best person to get the best card you can get and I'll make my I'll make some
recommendations later because that's not necessarily a topic of this video I'm
gonna go through all that stuff about being a CRA and things that I've learned
and hopefully people comment down below some of the things that they've learned
also so then the month before that that was a holiday month that was November
two thousand dollars I spent so must must not have been traveling that much
during that time actually no I lied I paid too I paid twice I paid the bill
twice that month so though so I paid two thousand seven hundred dollars and then
I paid four thousand one hundred fifty six dollars that month so that's about
that's about six hundred about almost seven thousand dollars that month so
you're looking to spend anywhere from about five to eight thousand dollars a
given month as a CRA and that's a lot of points on your credit card imagine if
you're getting 2x and 3x points so you know you're racking up a whole lot of
points and that's just credit card points we're not talking airline miles
or hotel miles I mean our hotel stay points so you can rack up a lot of
points as a CRA which you want to do so just want to let you guys know
a quick video how much money does a CRA spend thousands and thousands of dollars
and this is not normal spending but this is business spending so if you are on
the road a lot you're gonna be spending money like this if you travel a lot for
work you're gonna be spending money like this and it took a while to get it took
a little bit to get used to because I'm not used to seeing bills so big on my
credit card you know even though I had a high credit limit I was only spending
like you know a few hundred dollars a month on it you know groceries eating
out getting drinks you know normal things maybe had to get a couple work
shirts or something like that I'm not really a big spender anyway but you know
I'm used only spending a few hundred dollars and then - all of a sudden go up
to eight thousand dollars in a month that's a crazy big swing but you know to
take some getting used to now I'm used to seeing those big bills every month
and it would be weird if I were ever to not be a CRA to go back to the small
bills so that would be kind of crazy but anyway I'm sure a lot of people are
curious how much money do you spend how does it work how does a reimbursement
work so I wanted to let you guys know about that so that's the end of this
episode if any of you guys are interested in any career consulting any
resume review any interview prep you can email me Allie clinical group at
gmail.com for anything like that take care guys