Ok, ok, so I’m not really introducing him, as he’s been a fixture in several posts already. But I thought I’d share a tale on how I met the one person that would change my life, and my view on personal finance, for the better.
I’ll never forget the day I met BF. July 13th, 2006. He probably doesn’t remember that date, but I do. We were both participating in a well-known summer medical program at a well-known university in the Northeast. We had already been there for three weeks and had two separate interactions, none of which were favorable, but as they say, the third time’s a charm.
We ended up introducing ourselves and I found out that we lived about 15 minutes from each other. I actually had family that lived in his apartment building so I knew exactly where he lived. He was kind of familiar with the area in which I lived because he worked in the neighborhood next to mine. For the duration of lunch, we were in our own world just chatting it up about whatever, when he finally smiled. And the words “You have a really pretty smile” just leaped out of my mouth. Please note that I am denying that I ever said those words. What I’m saying is that my brain temporarily lost control of my mouth and luckily something coherent slipped out. To this day, I am eternally grateful to my brain for that one moment.
We’ve now been together for over 3 years. And in all those years, I can say, that Money has never been an issue for us. That isn’t to say that we are BALLING OUT OF CONTROL, or anything like that. We just both had similar views on the value of Money and what our financial goals were. I can singularly attribute this to our similar upbringing. We both came from first generation households (parents emigrated to the US, the children are US citizens). We watched as both of our parents struggled with making ends meet but still providing us with the bare necessities and more. Both of our parents also encouraged us to start working at a very young age, so we both learned how to manage money early on. Because of that, we were both financially independent to a certain extent at those ages as we began to not rely on our parents for necessities. So we pretty much see eye-to-eye on how to handle money.
From watching our parents, we both knew that we one day wanted to be wealthy. Not just rich for two seconds, but the hard-working, blood-sweat-and-tears, I-finally-made-it-type-of-wealthy. Our adventure with Money truly began when we discussed how we would embark on that goal. First off, we are becoming master savers. I knew that I never wanted to rent. As he was currently renting, he understood that if we were going to live together, we would have to buy some property. With where we want to live we’re going to need to save a pretty penny to make that happen (about 60K between the two of us). I’m not phased since I live at home and save anyway. When he graduates in June, he’ll also move back home and he’ll be saving a lot too.
We also started to learn about the stock market together. Good thing we were both punks until March 2009 and got in pretty close to the market bottom. Our portfolios look nothing alike, but we trade strategies and bounce ideas off of each other in order to make good decisions about our positions. Lastly, I’ve talked his ear off about Retirement Funds. I have and love my Roth IRA. Wish I could also have had a 401K but my company is not trying to hear that right now, so I’ll just have fun with my Roth until then. I can’t wait for him to be set up with a 401K and a Roth once he starts working. Oh don’t worry, he knows that I will be ALL OVER that once he gets that first check.
So that’s BF in a personal finance nutshell. Aside from this post, he also getting a category! Now, he can’t say that I don’t love him. Because what’s love if it isn’t a post on your PF blog combined with your own Category?
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