One reason to start this blog is to keep me going as I finish hacking away at the student loan debt (how I acquired it and what I've been doing about it will be the subject of a future post.) But another one is to have a space to think through issues relating to making a more conscious turn towards the future: that is to say, emergency funds, savings funds, retirement funds. These things kind of freak me out.
Until a couple of weeks ago, I'd lived my whole adult life without getting into catastrophic debt, but also without any kind of financial margin or plan that looked beyond the next paycheck. From 22 to 34, I lived in the aforementioned giant expensive city; first I was a freelancer, then I was a grad student. Even the year that I made a grand total of $12,000, I did all right. I lived in cheap neighborhoods, with roommates, took public transportation, rarely ate out. But one thing I never did was establish any kind of permanent savings account. I didn't work for anyone that had a 401(k); I never set up an IRA; I always had a regular savings account, but routinely drained it to pay for either normal living expenses (when I was between jobs) or travel.
You know how some women have the biological clock kick in around my age? They must have a baby right now or they'll die? Yeah, I had one of those moments two weeks ago, except in my case it was about how I had to have an IRA, right this second.
Really, it felt like a switch flipped in my brain. One minute I kind of vaguely knew that at some point in the future, after I paid off the student loan and built up an emergency fund, I should start a retirement account. And the next minute I was frantically researching Roth vs. traditional, and how do you open the damn things anyway? Suddenly I just could not get enough, and I spent countless hours clicking around the various websites you get when you google "paying down student loans vs. retirement savings" and other search strings to that effect.
Reader, I drained my emergency savings funds again. But this time instead of going to Europe, or paying my rent after a down month, I put $2000 in a Vanguard target retirement fund. (Roth, in case you were wondering. It seems like a way better deal.)
It kind of makes me laugh, because hello, I'm 35, I have no job currently lined up for after July 2015, I don't really know what I want to do with my career or what city I'm going to end up in...but hey, I guess I have a little something put by. A very little something. But maybe it'll grow.
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