Finances

Friends, yesterday was an important day. Yesterday was the day I mailed a settlement check to my ex husband (certified mail!) and now I no longer owe him anything. To both celebrate and mourn the occasion, today I drove to the place where he proposed and threw my wedding ring into the ocean. And then I cried. A lot. Anyone who finds crying excessive has clearly never been through an unwanted divorce. Hopefully a mermaid will find and enjoy the ring while I continue moving through this. For what it's worth, I do think my mini ritual loosened up some psychic gunk or something. I feel much more free now which is both awesome and terrifying.

Old fashioned car with "Just Divorced" sign in the window and tin cans tied to the back.

Anyway. That milestone is not what I'm here to talk about. I'm here to talk about my finances, which have taken a bit of a beating in the past year and a half because of the aforementioned divorce. I read an article that has given me some much needed financial hope.

I spent a good portion of today on hold with various doctors. And while I was on hold I browsed the internet on my phone (don't you just love tehnology?). It was during my browsing that I saw this article by Kristin Wong on Get Rich Slowly titled "I'm 30! Am I Where I Should Be With My Finances?" This is exactly the question I've been asking myself lately...

Round sign with orange border that has the number 30 on it.

Except that I'm 31. Meh. Apparently Fidelity says you should have a year's salary saved by the time you're 35, which Ms. Wong takes to mean that by age 30 you should have about half a year's salary saved in your retirement account. Shockingly, I've actually achieved this goal. Possibly because my salary is pitiful enough that half a year's salary is not that much money. In any case I've actually got about half a year's salary socked away in a Roth IRA.

Lest you mistake me, this money did NOT come through having a high paying job or a trust fund (though if you'd like to offer me either I'd be happy to accept). My career trajectory has been more like the waggle dance of the honey bee than a beeline to financial security - see what I did there? Also, have I mentioned on here that I love bees? I digress. I am telling you this not to cleverly find a way to state my love for bees but to point out that Ms. Wong's goal is achievable for (at least some of) the not-rich. I feel a lot like this man, though you'd never catch me in his outfit:

Triumphant looking white man in a business suit standing on a pile of gold coins.

Back to the article. Ms. Wong also quotes the folks at Financial Samurai as saying you need a year's worth of expenses covered by the time you're 31. I'm unclear whether they mean in your retirement account or in an emergency fund? I'm assuming they mean in an emergency savings account. At present, I have no emergency fund because it was wiped out when my husband left without warning. Instead of moving out or getting a roommate like I should have, I spent a year stubbornly struggling to make ends meet before admitting that I needed to move out of the beautiful two-bedroom apartment I could not afford on my own. I'd finally started to build my emergency fund back up this summer but then my car broke down. Sigh. So I guess I fail on this count. Which explains why my day-to-day relationship with money feels a little like this:

Picture of a white woman with an empty wallet crying/yelling. 

At any rate, Ms. Wong's article was interesting to read and it got me thinking about my finances. I've decided my current financial goals are to pay off my debt, build up an emergency fund, and start saving more intentionally for retirement because I do actually want to retire some day.

Friends, what are your financial goals? Are you where you want to be? Are you lost and overwhelmed? What do you think of Ms. Wong's article? And, most importantly, which of the pictures below most accurately reflects your financial situation?

Man desperately clutching a cracked
piggy bank as a float while a
shark in a business suit swims up to eat him. 

Woman in a bathtub of money drinking a glass of red wine