I admit it. I’m all about the sentimental value. So I was really excited when my sister arrived this weekend with a gift from my mom that she told me about a few months back.
A couple of years ago, my mom decided to get a new wedding set. She took it in for a cleaning and discovered that some major repairs were needed so as not to lose the diamond. She loved the set, but really wanted it in yellow gold rather than white gold, so she decided that rather than have the repairs done, she would have the stone re-set in a new ring. Conveniently, she was able to get an identical set in yellow gold, and was very happy with the change.
But she held onto the old set. She wasn’t sure what to do with it, but she knew she didn’t want to get rid of it. It was her original wedding set after all, and held a lot of meaning.
I’m not sure how she figured out what to do with the rings, but she called me and asked me if I would wear a ring made from her old engagement band. Would I? Of course! I don’t wear a lot of jewelry, but I do wear rings every day, and I love the idea of wearing the ring that my dad gave to my mom when he proposed.
Conveniently, my sister’s working part-time at a jewelry store, so she took the rings into work and had the jeweler work his magic. She brought me my ring this weekend. It’s very simple, but I love it, and I can’t help but show it to everyone I see. I love it more than any new, expensive piece of jewelry she could have bought me.
And all because she decided to put to use something that she had shoved away in a drawer.
Megan is a 40-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.
