Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Paid the bills for June

I just finished paying my last bills for the month of June. The most important of those would be the $600 or so I paid to my last remaining credit card. Once the credit card company receives it, sometime next week - my total debt will be $2190.

I considered paying a little more than that but, given the fact that once the check is deposited I will have only about $110 to last me till next Thursday, I figured I would hold back a little bit. Within the next 8-9 days, as I wait again to get paid from my day job and the night and weekend job I will be doing a number of things:

  1. Driving about 2 hours or so on Friday night (after the 2nd job) to see my girlfriend
  2. Driving another 2 hours or so early Saturday morning to go to arguably the best amusement park in the world (assuming you hate Giant Rodents as I do)
  3. While at said amusement park; fighting the urge to pay for any additional 'amusements' such as water and food and instead pack lunch and water - the admission was already pre-paid at a $25% discount (thank you very much)
  4. driving back 2 hours and possibly working the 2nd job again on Sunday
  5. Having a going-away party/lunch for a really good friend at my day job who just put in her 2-week notice at my day job so she can become a stay at home Mom (and to avoid the overwhelming stress)

The last point brings to mind a conversation I had with my friend the soon-to-be stay at home mom, let's call her 'Judith'. 'Judith' myself and another friend 'Julie' were discussing finances. Me and Julie in particular were mentioning how & why we eat a packed lunch (myself a very non-extravagant packed lunch) everyday. We were trying to explain to Judith that the horrid lunchtime cuisine is simply an ends to a means in order to obtain our financial goals.

Judith then squarely explained to us that financial goals - 'Saving' in particular - is a pointless pursuit because there will always be something that 'comes up'. I won't go into her whole argument but she ended her argument by stating half-jokingly, half-seriously that her Plan B (or possibly Plan A) for retirement is to have her few-month old son become a professional basketball player, like 'King James' OR become a professional football player like the 'Fridge' - she would then live happily ever after once her son achieves greatness around 18 or 20...much to my horror, as once again this is a really good friend of mine and that happens to be, in my opinion, at best one of the riskiest retirement plans I've ever heard of. Have I mentioned I don't like risk ?!

She challenged me how much saving a paltry amount over a long-term would do - I (mistakenly) guesstimated that saving $100 a week or $400 a month at a rate of 5% interest would make someone pushing 30 like myself a millionaire by 65. I was off by about three percentage points - per this bankrate.com calculator click here

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