Hey! Where did June go? I haven’t even put together my net worth update! I did remember to pay my rent though. That’s a good thing.
Today, one of my favorite coworkers is retiring. We had a party for him earlier in the week because so many people are off today due to the holiday weekend. So it’s a bit of a quiet day. He has been talking about all of his retirement plans, and I have to say, I’m a little jealous.
He has been very good with his money over the years. Even with helping his kids with school, he’s still got a nice chunk of cash stored away that along with his continued income from his part-time job, he and his partner will be able to travel and enjoy the rest of their lives. He’s talking about all the different trips they plan to take and what he wants to do with his time. It’s really inspirational to listen to him talk, and it makes me want to work harder at saving for retirement! One coworker was inspired to finally start contributing to his retirement account. It’s made me think about increasing my contribution a bit. I currently contribute 7%, with a match on 5%. Maybe it’s time to get up to 10%. Retirement is a long way off, but every dollar counts.
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.
