I have one of those jobs where I'm either always at the computer or never at the computer. And when I'm at the computer, I can never focus. I zone out and get distracted by my thoughts. I spent all of last night and most of today at my computer, and so consequently, I've spent a lot of time thinking about anything and everything but work.
With hitting student loan repayment this month, I've been thinking a lot about money. I've spent a decent amount of time budgeting my monthly paychecks in order to 1.) put the maximum amount I can towards my loans 2.) put a decent chunk aside for the ski season 3.) put a small percent aside for my annual bills (I like to pay off all the bills I can annually instead of monthly) 4.) replenishing my savings account. I've always been taught to have enough money to live off for at least three months to a year, however, that's not realistic for me to do right now without some serious self-deprivation, like not hitting the slopes this year and I'm going to go insane if I don't. I still have a grand in the bank which is enough to keep me from feeling uneasy but I know I need to keep saving.
When I'm able to make more money, my main focus will be on retirement and then kids. Because I haven't put anything aside for retirement so far (I've heard its ideal to start with your first paycheck...but that obviously never happened with me), after I pay off my loans, 40% of what I earn should go to retirement, 20% to kids, 10% to emergencies, and I can live off the other 30%. That's really tight living, but my priorities are planning for the future and anything that may arise. It's possible. I get a lot of money sense from my parents. They came to the States as refugees in the 70's without anything in their pockets. Without assistance from the government, they've worked themselves up from nothing to owning everything we have. Not only that, but my parents have saved enough to retire on even after raising six kids on a combined income of $18,000 dollars a year. We know what it's like to get by with little.
I've heard the average cost of raising a child from conception to graduating high school in this country is $225,000, or the cost of a Ferrari. Jake and I are still on the fence of having kids. We've leaned towards not having kids most of our lives but I guess time kind of changes things sometimes. We've decided if we stay together, we'd ideally like to have the first one when I'm around 32. I had a biology teacher that told me the latest age to safely conceive a first child is 32 and to quit by 37. I don't know what exactly goes into this, and I've read that the latest age to safely conceive a first child is much later in a lot of sources, but I take his word for it. So whether we end up having kids or take a Ferrari instead, we've decided to start saving up for the possibility either way.
Who knows how things will turn out. I'm not a huge planner at this point in my life and I'm sort of just going with the flow and making decisions as they arise. With careful planning and some foresight, it doesn't matter where life will take us. We'll have financial security regardless.
1 comment:
Post a Comment