Posted on: June 19, 2009 by Matt
At the beginning of the week my company had a bit of an unexpected shake up and now it looks like I may be heading to Denver for a week and a half or so to help out. I’m not too sure yet how the trip will potentially effect my posting but I am hopeful I will find time to write still. In all honesty I am a bit more concerned about having to be a way from my family for the next week and a half. Oh well – we will see how it all shakes out and I will be sure to post the final results.
As for some good reading this week here is what I came up with for stuff I liked:
Posted on: June 9, 2009 by Matt
A couple of carnivals mention My Financial Recovery this week, head on over and check them out at:
Posted on: June 5, 2009 by Matt
Another week has come and gone and I am very much looking forward to the weekend. It has been a pretty busy week on all fronts. My personal highlights include opening (and making an initial deposit to) an HSA as well as planning to get my emergency fund reestablished. Overall I would have to say that this week I have felt more productive than usual. I have also been making it a point to wake up a bit earlier and get over to the gym for a workout each morning as well. I have noticed that getting an early morning workout in really helps my energy level throughout the day and my ability to foucs at work improves along with it.
So let’s get right down to business here and start listing out some of the posts that I enjoyed this week:
Posted on: May 29, 2009 by Matt
I hopped on the financial genie granting wishes band wagon yesterday and started to look around more this morning and the idea appears to have spread around a number of other PF Blogs. It appears that Your Money Relationship hit a home run with this idea and I thought I would dedicate this week’s link round-up to the concept. So far I have seen the financial genie stop by at (in no particular order):
I had a lot of fun reading through all the different wishes people would have made. I also was reminded that a lot of us that like to read or write about personal finance have made some pretty big mistakes ourselves. In a way the pain from the past has fueled a passion for a lot of us – even the “legends” like Trent over at The Simple Dollar and Dave Ramsey have been through the ringer and share their experience to try and help others from making the same mistakes – a truly admirable undertaking. So enjoy the reading and have fun learning from our mistakes – it is a lot easier than making them yourself!
Posted on: May 28, 2009 by Matt
While stumbling around some of my favorite reads I happened upon a post over at Budgets Are Sexy asking What Would You Do With 3 Financial Do-Overs? which it turns out was an extension from a post over at Your Money Relationship. I know I can not change the past and I am in the midst of dealing with yet another collection agency but if the money genie did happen to stop by my house for a visit I would probably take him or her up on the offer.
After giving it a little thought I think that given the opportunity I would probably wish to:
- Have paid for college without loans: Well since it is a wish then when not go all the way? I suppose I would be happy with not having defaulted on student loans in the past as well though. If the genie was unable to get me through college debt free then maybe it could save me from myself right?
- Learned about personal finance earlier in life: I really had no clue when I left home for college at all. I could not budget or even balance a checkbook and I had no idea how credit worked. It was not until I read Dave Ramsey’s The Total Money Make Over that I got the basics for the first time and that was about 4 years after graduating from college. I think that knowledge of all personal financial essentials probably would have saved me a few headaches in the past.
- Saved more: Only recently have I really started to enjoy saving money. I like to see balances go up for what I have in the bank and debt balances go down. If I had put 10% of what I have earned through my life in the bank and left it there I would probably be sitting pretty happy right now. I can still start doing this but I thought I might as well fill out my third wish.
Really the only thing that I wish I had done differently in my financial past was the way I failed to manage my student loans after college. The rest was a learning experience and while it may have been difficult at the time, I survived. The student loan issue is really the only lingering big financial mistake that I have to deal with and it will pass someday as well. All said – I think that a wish of making it through college without student loan debt would put me in a much different situation today and it is probably the one aspect of my life that I would change if I could.
However – I do keep in mind that by changing the paths I have gone done in life I may not have ended up where I am at today! I have a family that loves me, a place to live, a car to drive and food on the table. If changing my past meant changing my current family situation for any reason I would have to decline the money genie’s generous offer. The people I live with mean more to me than any sum of money – if I had to go through what I have gone through to get where I am today then I would not change a single step along the way.
