While watching the inauguration with some friends yesterday, we commented how strange it must be for an outgoing president to just go home and then… what? I’m sure that the Bushes are exhausted and will enjoy a bit of relaxation and settling into their new lives, but after having your life so very rigidly scheduled for eight years, how do you go back into a normal life? And what do you do with all of that new found free time?
I can’t even imagine what I would do. Read all the books I never got the chance to read and watch all the movies I never got to watch, perhaps. Most likely, I would just waste a lot of the time, as I managed to do with this long weekend. Of course, with traffic, I really couldn’t go anywhere, but all my plans to scan photos and organize things got waylayed by a sinus headache, a backlog on the DVR, and a few really good books.
Not that I’m complaining, of course!
Imagine that all your work and school responsibilities are suddenly gone. You still have some responsibilities, of course, to your family and your home, but what would you do? Let’s also assume you’ve got a bit of money so you can take a nice vacation but probably can’t go on a 6 month cruise around the world. What would you do?
I think I would go on a very quiet vacation, somewhere secluded where I could avoid the news and just relax and read and enjoy the peace and quiet. But I’m not sure what I would do when I got back home!
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.
Hmmm…. If I was him I would get out of town, for more than one reason!!!
pinkrenegade, thanks for your comment, but this blog is non-partisan for a reason. I have always believed that regardless of whether or not you agree with a politician, they deserve the respect because of the office they hold. I try to keep politics out of my writing except for how it affects personal finance. This question was more about what would you do and not what should the former president do.