Clearly, I needed a break from blogging. Things have been crazy in my life. I ran a second half marathon last weekend, went to a college football game the weekend before that, and finished up a huge project at work. I’ve still got a lot going on this month, but I feel a little more in control thanks to a weekend to myself where I just worked through my list of tasks.
This month is a three paycheck month, and I’m definitely glad for it. I always bank at least 2/3rds of the third paycheck, but put some towards those expense categories that are languishing. Right now, that’s things like clothing and gifts. I have been doing a lot of purging and cleaning out my closets and drawers and I’m realizing that I need to replenish my wardrobe. I hate shopping, and that’s a big part of the problem. I find a few things I like, and I wear them and wear them and wear them, and then they wear out and I have to buy new clothing. That’s where I’m at right now. I just haven’t gotten a chance to go to the store. I’m hard to fit, so while I can buy some things online, a lot of times, I just have to go try things on. I’m hoping to be able to do that next weekend.
I’m also hoping to get back to blogging, at least three times a week. It’s weird, but talking about money helps me manage my money. I’ve been so overwhelmed that I missed net worth updates for the past two months! Here’s to catching up at the end of the month.
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.
