The Bills Keep Rollin’ In
Posted on August 27, 2008 4 Comments
Riding home from work on the train, simultaneously wolfing down a burrito fresco from Taco Bell, finishing up my work and blogging, and suddenly half the burrito is in my dry-clean-only, multitasking lap. Great. I am currently in the midst of a vacation hangover of the “Did I pay my credit card/student loan/phone bill?” variety. The bliss that results from a week outdoors is gone, the tan has faded and reality sets in. This is my life.
I’ve been ignoring my financial life for a full few weeks, freely spending on vacation-related purchases and generally trying to avoid my mailbox/inbox at all costs. But now that I’m back, I have no more excuses. I went through all my mail on Friday and realized that I was severely behind on a few doctor’s bills. Luckily, I set up all the rest of my bills to pay automatically when we were gone, but seeing the dent in my wallet from the trip as I was visiting all my cards’ Web sites was a wince-worthy experience. You know how when you were little, you watched scary movies with one eye shut and only focused on the bottom corner of the screen? (OK, I still do that.) Well, that was how I felt looking at my “current activity” statements!
I’ve been ignoring a host of other things too, my inbox isn’t the only one. I promised my mom I’d do some research on the benefits of an IRA vs. putting some more money into her 401K and I also need to research how to consolidate Sallie Mae loans for a cousin who got some bad information from her family’s banker. I’m hoping to be able to write about both of those.
Plus, I’m so far behind on the news! I haven’t posted good articles in forever, nor have I been following my beloved newsprint/newsmagazines/financial web sites. I can only imagine what’s taken place in the financial world in the last few weeks: the housing market, gas prices, financial scandals and important statistics about Americans and the economy, I’m sure!
So the point of today’s article is this: you can’t ignore personal finance for long without feeling totally behind. Nor should you try! It’s easy to get caught up in life’s bliss or the daily grind (pick your poision), but two reliable facts are that the bills keep coming in, and your financial life never stops.
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4 Responses to “The Bills Keep Rollin’ In”
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August 27th, 2008 @ 2:55 pm
Something I’ve read on productivity sites like Lifehacker and Zen Habits, which is really hard for me to do–when you get back from vacation, start over from zero. Don’t try to catch up on 600 blog posts. Don’t try to skim back newspapers. Just start from where you are, and pretend those weeks never happened. If something is important enough to still be news, you’ll hear about it. Otherwise, you don’t need it.
It’s SOOOOOO hard to do, but it does make coming back and feeling in control a little easier.
August 29th, 2008 @ 12:12 am
I hear repeatedly to max out a Roth IRA every year (the limit for 2008 I think is $5000), and fill in with the 401k until it equals 10-15% of your income.
You want to do the Roth b/c it’s 100% tax free at retirement time. I don’t think the Traditional IRA has any advantages over a regular 401k.
Good luck catching up! I frequently feel like I need a vacation from my vacation. lol
August 29th, 2008 @ 3:23 pm
Yes unfortunately the bills to keep coming in but the good thing about the information that you’ve missed out on is it won’t go away and if it was really that critical or urgent someone will make sure you know. I’m sure a lot of your readers have been in that situation where you have to get caught up financially after a vacation… sounds like you just have a few things that got delayed and a bit of spending to get caught up on.
Good luck getting caught up – don’t worry about the financial world the big things make headlines and the small stuff probably isn’t that critical. Just imagine the world took a vacation with you and there wasn’t too much happening.
August 29th, 2008 @ 8:38 pm
Totally, i’m with Little Miss Moneybags all the way on that one. i get crazy anxiety when i try and go back from the start of my disappearance
it’s def. hard to do, so i usually just skim everything and then start fresh when i’m ready to roll…what it makes it worse is my ADD! sometimes i just think “oh well, it’s not like i’m gonna remember it anyways”! haha…