Money has mystified me.
The last few days I’ve been reading a lot of personal finance blogs. I’ve been a long time reader of The Consumerist and followed some links from there and here I am.
I looked because I wrote a check I couldn’t cover at that moment. I was nearly positive it wouldn’t be cashed before my paycheck was deposited – but I wasn’t sure. And I said to myself, damnit, you’re smarter than this…why do you fear understanding your own finances and money in general?
And in reading stories and ideas, it clicked:
I’m in my mid-20s. I get a pretty decent stipend for studying and I’m in my first semester. I have a stable and reliable income (assuming I don’t fail out or quit). I have a four-year bachelor’s degree with no debt (not my doing—I love my parents). I have no children. I have no wife. I have no car. I have no cell phone. I live in a fairly rural area. I live relatively frugally already. I’ve had no major unexpected expenses.
I don’t have a lot of savings and I have no investments…but I’ve been shit lucky with money to this point…and I’m in a great situation to do something more. So why the Hell don’t I?
One of the first pieces of advice that made perfect sense: track every penny you spend and every penny you get. So I whip up a spreadsheet with pretty colors. I create another spreadsheet of what essentially amounts to a check register. Another spreadsheet to start keeping track of prices.
I started working on a budget. Dear Lord, was that enlightening. Realizing just how much money I’ve essentially wasted over the last four years…wow. I’m an idiot. Even on a grad student’s stipend, even after budgeting over 1/3 of my paycheck for savings – I still had money left over. So, yeah, let’s throw that into savings too…
So get this: I will not buy a car while in school. Assuming no unexpected expenses (medical bills, ineffective birth control, getting the band back together), the day I get to add those three sweet letters after my name, I’ll be able to walk into a new car dealership and pay cash for an above-average vehicle. I won’t, but I love the idea of opening up a briefcase full of crisp $100s…
For the first time in…probably forever…I know exactly how much cash I have. I’ve stared at that number a lot in the last couple days. It’s small, but damn it’s nice to know.
Yeah, so the next few posts, even if they only come once a month, are going to be about money, I think, because I’m a little excited about this.