My roommate came back to clean up the rest of her stuff on Tuesday night, so yesterday, I went into what is now my guest room for the time being to see what I could do with the room now that she’s gone. Not surprisingly, her version of clean and my version of clean are two very different things. But once I got the cleaning done, it was time to see if I wanted to move things back into the room.
I knew that I wanted to bring in some pictures for the walls. She had taken them down when she moved in, and the room looked bare now that all of her things were gone. I was glad that I had kept everything.
One of the other big things in the room is a floor to ceiling bookshelf. I’ve had it for years, and always kept it full (or close to overflowing). Now, all my books have been moved to different rooms, boxes under the bed, boxes hidden in the back of a closet, everywhere. I also got rid of a lot of books while I was at it. So the next step was to unearth all the books I had stowed away and go through them, putting them up on the shelves and also getting rid of the ones that I no longer wanted.
I’m most excited to have the closet space back. My closet is currently crammed with clothes and boxes and all sorts of things, and it’s nice to be able to use that closet space for the time being. Again, it will be useful to really go through my stuff, spread it out, and see what I can get rid of.
I may be looking for a new roommate after the holidays. There’s just too much to do between now and Christmas to worry about getting a new roommate, and I’m reluctant to have someone move in and then be out of town for the holidays. But for now, I’m going to use the extra space and enjoy the extra space. Nothing worse than a lonely, empty room.
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.
