Well, looks like my finances are changing

My roommate informed me yesterday that she is planning to move out in November, provided everything works out with the other roommates in the shared house she’s hoping to join.  Technically, I asked her to give me a month’s notice, which she isn’t doing, but at this point, I’m just glad that she’s moving out.

I guess we are an example of where the roommate situation can really go wrong.  She moved in a little over a year ago.  She was a graduate student at the time, and we had known each other since our freshman year of college, but had never lived together.  While she was a grad student, she wasn’t home a lot – which was good and bad.  Good in that I never had to really share my space, but bad because that meant I did all the household chores.  For the most part, I didn’t mind, since they were chores I would be doing anyway, but the little things did start to bug me – like when I had to clean the kitchen before and after the dinner she held for her friends, because she wasn’t going to bother to do it.

The situation really hit a breaking point when she finished school and didn’t find a job.  She was still paying rent, of course, but she was always home and still not helping with the chores unless I specifically asked her to – and even then, she often forgot.  She’s pretty absent minded, so I don’t doubt that she forgot, but after a rough day of work, it was annoying to come home and find her watching Jeopardy while ignoring the dishes in the sink.

So she’s moving out.  It means that my savings rate is going to take a huge hit.  I can afford the rent without her, but I just won’t have as much money to squirrel away at the end of the month.  It will make things tight.  But I think I’m going to spend a few months on my own and not jump right back into a roommate situation.  This one just didn’t work.

I’m hoping that our friendship isn’t totally ruined because of the situation, and I think it can be repaired.  I just think that we need a little bit of time apart.

Of course, she tells me she’s moving out the same day I came home to find that wonder of wonders, she actually vacuumed on her own accord.  Guess everyone can learn, if you just keep reminding them.

Megan Smith

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.