Fun Facts

This post is another post that is really just me talking to myself, trying to convince me to do something. The title may be false representation of what will actually be in the body of this post. Don't say I didn't (say I didn't) warn you.

Sometimes my journey to pay off my student loans gets very boring. Spending money on entertainment is so much more fun than spending it on student loans!!

But it's worth it!

Because I'm a finance nerd, sometimes I run calculations just for the heck of it. Today I calculated that every dollar I save now will be worth about 15 in 40 years. That means that if it is saved in a Roth IRA or a Roth 401(k), based on my income now, saving $1.00 will allow me to retire about 55 minutes earlier than if I hadn't saved that dollar. So, to round it off for simplicity's sake, each dollar saved while I'm 25 will allow me to retire one hour earlier. In other words, if I save $5500 (max contribution to a Roth IRA for one year), I can retire about 15 months sooner than if I spend that money! If that doesn't convince me to save, I don't know what will.

There are a lot of assumptions that go into a calculation like that, and 40 years is a long time in which no one can predict what will happen. But it's cool information nonetheless.

So, when I stay in on a Friday night and play $15 buy-in Poker with the work bros, even if I lose it, i'm still a whole day's worth of work ahead of where I would be if I had gone out to dinner and a movie. Probably better off altogether if I had stayed home to read a book or study for the CFP, but that's neither here nor there.

It's probably pathetic that I would count down to retirement in this way. Especially when I hope that I will become a full time wife and mother in which case I will never retire. But I help my clients with retirement planning; I think it's only natural that I plan my own. And I'm still not sure how to reconcile the two worlds in which I live inside my head. More on that later, I suppose.

St. John Bosco, pray for us!