Moneymoneymoooooney (Money!)

My rule of thumbs for anything financial: never spend more than you make. Keep it in the black and not in the red. DO NOT SPEND (unless the shoes are SUPER cute… Or the friends want to eat out… Or someone’s getting married. Or having a baby. Or it’s Christmastime. OR BIRTHDAYS). 

That’s the most important thing, riiiiiiiight? Never spend more than you make?

I worked a few jobs, went to college, got a career job, opened a Roth IRA and deposited money in it (once). Shunted money into savings. Saw a financial advisor (ONCE). Trolled the internets for forms of passive income, because who KNOWS what the future may hold with accidents, bad health, unexpected disasters, etc. 

Then this guy came around and we started talking about this thing called marriage and with marriage comes moving and houses and…. KIDS. And the thought begins: when a two income family becomes a one income family because Mama wants to stay with the kiddos…. And if the previous family didn’t learn how to stick to a budget before becoming a one income family… 

Cue internal hysteria. And All Teh Get Rich Quik schemes because of no good reason except PAN!C.  

After the initial freak-down and  subsequent melt-out, a more thoughtful form of research was pursued to begin learning the seemingly insurmountable cache of information on finances, investing, retirement, and budgeting. Because on the internet, there are a bajillion opinions about what a person my age should be doing with their life and money (travel, SAVE, INVEST EVERYTHING, no coffees out except for like once a year—-but you KNOW the money spent on that coffee could have made you $5,800,898.02 if you had INVESTED it, you idiot!). One article purports THIS method to be best and another advocates for a different concentration of focus. Here’s where my belated entry into the Realm of Reddit occurred. 

I confess, I previously had nothing to do with Reddit. I was ignorant of its wonders. Non-technically speaking, it’s a website for forums on every vile and wonderful thing under the sun. And it is INCREDIBLE.  The Reddit subforums have been an amazing resource for the lively back-and-forth dialogue and the links provided to outside educational sources—a starting point, if you will. Obviously, the buck stops with autonomous ME for making decisions and dealing with the consequences (whether I take advice from Reddit or a CFP)—the blame game doesn’t work in real life, not if we want to learn and move forward (false assuaging of pride and identity, notwithstanding). 

So, I am a slow learner and even slower processor to new information. Also, very distractable. Also, living on land and having the responsibility to help maintain both it and the house requires substantial time and effort. Sitting down and reading information? Especially new information that revolves around numbers? Quite the struggle! Especially since graduating college. Due to these considerations, my current foray in learning about all this stuff is through podcasts instead of articles—that way, I can listen AND work the chores. Of course, there are still the piles of poo to avoid, but if I waste time listening to crap, at least I still got the toilet clean. 

I am currently listening to Jeff Rose from Good Financial Cents and have quite enjoyed the three episodes I’ve heard. He’s an excellent host and shares information in an understandable and interesting manner. The titles can be quite clickbaity (“How I Showed a 16-Year-Old How to Turn $500 Into $520,367”) but the purpose, for that episode in particular, was to illustrate the power of investing early and letting compound interest work for you, resulting in large gains over the long run…. Even if the contributions made over the years were very modest. So hey, if the clickbait’s actually accurate, throw it at me! 

We shall see how long this interest lasts. But I just signed up for EveryDollar  budgeting app by Dave Ramsey and am cackling with glee, so I’m thinking it will last a while.