So seeing as we’re already well into 2009, it’s time to start my year in review. Who’s ready for some time travel? Here are some highlights from the past year.
January
Well, the year started out with a net worth drop for 2008. I talked about my new Kindle, which I still love, though I’m a little jealous of the newer version. I thought about keeping your stuff safe and discussed CYA files. I felt a little survivor’s guilt over still having my job after a number of friends lost jobs. I screwed up and misdirected an Amazon.com shipment and Amazon.com fixed it for me!
February
I talked about my cotton handkerchiefs, which are still in use. I did my taxes. Fun. We had the first of what would be many late-night fire alarms and I thought about material possessions. I talked about workweek cutbacks, a post which got me a few angry e-mails.
March
I love my cats, but pets are not cheap. I heard about people cheating the food bank. I talked about collections (and thinking about that makes me want to declutter). Going out with friends meant stupid money issues. I talked about financial blogging and privacy. Of course, there’s not a whole lot of privacy on the internet to begin with. And the first quarter ended with a promotion. Not a bad start to the year!
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.
