Today I got a chance to sit back and read one (from last month). I read through a page of information of what you can do to manage your finances. Finance-wise I feel I'm a pretty conservative person. I'm not an impulse-buyer. 99% of the things you can find in my closet were bought on sale, snatched at a clothing swap, gifted by an older sister, or bought off the rack at a discount or thrift store. Basically, we like to save money. But reading through this article (the all-too-confusing words "S&P Index 500" were used), I realized there's a lot about money I don't know.
So I said, out loud, "You know, I think I would really like to learn about investments and IRAs and the stock market. I bet there's a lot we could be doing with our money."
Harry, who had been astutely mixing yeast and warm water for homemade pizza tonight (droooooooooooooooooool) paused, and marched over to our book shelf and pulled this little beauty off of it and handed it to me. I kind of love it and hate it when he makes me put my money where my mouth is (finance pun not intended).
He read this book in a finance class last year (which he loved. How this is possible for anyone, I will never know). He said that anything and everything I ever wanted to know about money is in this book. His teacher praised it as one of the best written on the subject.
I thumbed through the first two pages and saw the dedication. And I had to laugh.
I decided it's sort of a sign. That Harry's wife (...me, for you slow ones) needs to read this.
Will I get all the way through it? I don't know. Probably not... but I really am curious enough to look through it.
Since the (f)unemployment is still abounding over here, I've realized I'm not that great at managing free time. I'm fairly productive, but I've watched more reruns of NBC shows in the last week than I'd care to admit. Harry, brilliant as always, suggested I make a schedule for myself. You know, something like
8:00 am-9:05 am: Eat breakfast and surf internet
9:05 am- 9:45 am: Exercise
9:45 am-10:45 am: Look for a job
10:45 am- 12:00 pm: Think up awesome recipes to make Harry for dinner
12:00 pm- 12:55 pm: Clean out bathroom drawers
12:55- 1:45 pm: Organize pantry
(Whoops. I honestly forgot to put "shower" in there. Do you see what having no schedule is doing to me?!)
Anyway. Hopefully penciling in time to read this book will contribute to my overall productivity... and just maybe I'll do something useful with our $$$.
2 comments:
We're savers, too, but what I've really enjoyed doing is tracking all our expenses. It's just on an excel spreadsheet--nothing fancy, but I feel more control of our money. Also, Dr. Israelsen (taught Family Finance at BYU) told us about the Homestead Fund accounts. It's not as fancy/for serious investors like Vanguard, but it also doesn't require a large monthly investment--as long as you have a monthly direct deposit from your bank. We put in $20 a month for our Roth IRA and this year we saw a great return. It's not very much, but it's a start. (sorry this is so long--it's a favorite hobby of mine.)
Alicia! Thank you for all the tips. That's the kind of stuff I like to know about. I love your blog by the way. It's so fun to read!
Post a Comment