I love vacation, but I have this tendency to take vacations that are so busy that I need a vacation when I return! No relaxing spa weeks for me. Though perhaps that’s something I should try out one of these days…
I learned on this trip that my attention to personal finance really has changed the way I spend. Normally, on a trip involving the airport, I hit up a store for a magazine or two. This trip, I didn’t buy anything but water and food in the airport (yes, I could have brought along all of my food, but it was really more hassle than I was ready to deal with on the way home).
Additionally, I came home with very few souvenirs. Again, in the past, I would have picked up a number of things that caught my eye, but this trip, I was much more choosy. I fell in love with a t-shirt and picked up a great new coffee mug, and also grabbed a gift for a friend, but beyond that, no spending. I entered all of my expenses into YNAB this morning and am quite pleased with how it turned out. I’m going to come in under budget this month!
I’ll be catching up for the next few days, I think, but I hope to be back to regular posting soon.
(And on a happy note, I arrived home to find my stimulus check in the mail. Definitely something to brighten the end of vacation!)
Megan is a 30-something government employee in the Washington, DC area. She got interested in Personal Finance when she got out of college and realized that her paycheck wasn’t going to go as far as she had hoped. Since starting this blog, she has managed to buy a house and make a solid start on her retirement goals, and hopes to help others do the same. Here is her story:
In 2007, I was a gainfully employed 20-something with no debt but not a lot of knowledge about personal finance. It was a co-worker’s comment about Roth IRAs that sent me to the internet, searching for information. It was then that I realized that I really didn’t know a whole lot about personal finance and that my current financial situation was due a lot to inherent frugal tendencies, generous family members, a fear of debt, and good luck. While that was working for me, clearly I needed a better plan.
While I had no debt, I was also pretty much living paycheck to paycheck and not worrying about going over budget (I say this as if I had a real budget) because I had an emergency fund set aside to cover any overages.
Except that’s not what an emergency fund is for.
So I did a lot of research, read a lot of blogs, and decided that I needed a plan. I needed to budget. I needed to know what I was spending my money on. I needed to prepare for the future.
I decided to create a blog not only to make myself accountable to others but also to share the knowledge that I gained along the way. I’ve learned so much from my fellow bloggers, and I hope that my readers can find something useful in what I have to share as well.
Hooray Stimulus Check! (and vacation)