I think that maybe I think about finances and value a little too much.
This weekend, I ran a local 5K. (Yes, I ran a ten mile race last weekend and am running another ten mile race next weekend. I realize I’m crazy.) When I say local, I mean that it started a few blocks from my apartment. It seemed silly not to run!
After the race, I started to think about what I got for my money. I paid $30 for the race, which benefitted an environmental organization (it was an Earth Day race). For my money, I got to run a great race, complete with electronic chip timing and closed roads. It’s nice to be able to run and not worry about cars. But I also got some tangible things as well. I got a t-shirt and post-race snacks. Very nice post-race snacks, actually.
And I started thinking about the cost of those post-race snacks, had I purchased them. It didn’t add up to much – probably $6 or $7. And then I wondered why I was putting a price on my race experience. I ran it for fun, not to get a “deal.” And it was definitely fun. And tasty afterwards too.
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.
5Ks are fun! I should find one to run around here soon. I would probably take something like that out of my “charity/gifts” budget, so I’m not so worried about the value I’m getting out of it.
I think that blogging about money and reading all of the pf blogs makes us hyper-aware of where our spending goes. And to some degree, it’s a little unhealthy.