School’s Out
At long last, final week is over and I’m returning to the world of blogging. My mood is summed up perfectly in the title of a particularly overplayed Alice Cooper song. And no, it’s not “I’m Eighteen”. That would be weird.
In my absence (I wish I could say it was time spent studying, but there was also a lot of TV-watching and general laziness in there, too), a lot has happened that deserves reporting here. The short list:
- I received a sizable tax return.
- I used said tax return to start a Roth IRA.
- I watched as a minor financial meltdown took a bite out of my brand new IRA only days after I started it.
- I organized my filing cabinet for ease of access during next year’s tax preparation.
- I started reading, and have nearly finished, another personal finance book, which I may or may not review here in the near future.
- Inspired by said book, I set up a fully automated online banking system to make sure that, even if I get lazy about being money-conscious (because, as I’ve proven with repeated absences on this blog, I tend to get lazy about everything from time to time), my money will keep saving itself.
- Also following the reading of said book, I started an account with Mint.com, which is very sleek and amazingly smart, and very easy to use, but inferior to my former budgeting system in many ways (upcoming blog topic?).
Anyway. This post was more for myself than for anyone else…I need to get back in the habit of writing in general, as well as writing on the blog that I pay money to maintain (ironic for someone who writes about trying to save, isn’t it?), and I was hoping that this practical use of a lunch break at work should be a good start.
So, in short, I’m back!*
*until I disappear again.