Olympic Fever

Is anyone else sad that the Olympics are over?  I found myself watching more sports over the past few weeks than normal, like most people, I think.

I think my new favorite sport is the winter biathlon.  Cross country skiing combined with rifle shooting?  Awesome.  Ski really hard, then stop and shoot at a target.  Miss, and you have to ski a lap.  Someone said that a good way to try to approximate just how hard it is to shoot after all that skiing is to go for a run, stop mid-run and try to send a text message (without using auto correct).  With all that adrenaline pumping, it’s hard to stay still and aim correctly.  Besides, it’s really the only sport that’s also a survival skill.

This year, P&G based their ad campaign around Olympic Moms.  I believe they had something setup in Vancouver for all the US Olympians and their families, but the commercials were all about mothers of Olympians.  It was sweet, and as part of their coverage, they interviewed moms and asked them about the sacrifices made for their children’s training.  It was amazing what some of these families have been through – parents living apart so one parent can be with the training child, spending thousands and thousands of dollars on coaching and lessons and costumes and competitions.  It was amazing.

I think every parent thinks their kid is the best, but listening to how much money these people were spending on their kids made me wonder how you know when to stop.  Or if to stop.  Clearly, all these athletes who made it to the Olympics definitely shouldn’t have stopped and have achieved a huge goal (even if they didn’t win).  I found myself contrasting it with Toddlers and Tiaras, a ridiculous TLC show where parents pay crazy amounts of money for their kids to be in pageants.  I know, it’s a totally different situation.  Even if your kid turns out to not be a world class skier, just getting them outside and getting exercise is a positive thing.  Plus it looks like fun.

I’m impressed by the families who have made such crazy sacrifices for their kids.  But as the P&G commercials say, when those moms see their kids win, it’s worth every penny.

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.