I think the desk attendant at my apartment building thinks I’ve been doing some crazy online shopping as of late. It seems like every day, I’m getting another package.
Well, he’s partly right, but partly wrong. This week I got a bunch of boxes that I shipped to myself. Some held Christmas gifts that I received while at my parents’ house, others contained stuff I cleaned out of my old bedroom while I was there. I haven’t lived with my parents for years – you would think I would have done this by now. Perhaps when I actually lived within a reasonable driving distance, for example.
But I have been doing a bit of online shopping these past few days. A lot of it was planned shopping. I wanted to stock up on a few items that are FSA eligible, and had to wait until January first to order. I also had a few birthday coupons I wanted to use. Typically, I go to the mall for my birthday and blow my birthday funds, but this year, I decided to shop online instead. I wandered the mall right after Christmas and didn’t see what I wanted, plus I knew that I would spend less if I bought the few things I knew I wanted (new pants, a perfume set) online rather than wandering around stores.
It kind of takes the fun out of it a bit, but I’m saving a good chunk of money this way. It’s money I’ve earmarked for spending on myself – clothes and shoes and that sort of thing. But this way, I can spread out the spending (and thus, the fun) a little bit more.
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.
that’s so funny. I have a remote mail place and I’m always having packages delivered. I buy a lot of things online rather than in the stores (esp health-related items and natural cat supplies) so I always several packages to pick up. The best was when I ordered 25 pounds of cedar cat litter (unusual free shipping offer) and at pickup, the guy said, “oh, dog food?” When I said what it actually was, I think he thought I was a nutcase. But whatev. It’s all about saving, right?!