Money makes the world go round.

I spend a ridiculous amount of time pondering over my financial status. This is especially amusing if you consider that my net worth is most likely still negative as of yet. Most all of the time I spend is work time though. Doing my ridiculous amounts of research and reading is what keeps me sane during the boring days.

Where I stand:

Assets: $13,190.57
Old Local Bank Savings Account (with entirely pathetic APY): $3,019.12
Old Local Bank Checking Account: $1,463.45
2005 Saturn Ion (just transferred into my name last Friday! Value determined based on blue book private party listing.): $10,025

plus: I know that I have a bunch of savings bonds stashed in my parents safe deposit box (thank you Grandpa). Father told me an approximate amount in there and I can't remember what it was. It might have been 6,000. But it seems like that is an awful lot so I'm confused. That could actually push me into the black however so it's a pretty big plus.

Liabilities: $13,455.47
Student Loans (plus interest, ew): $8,464
Car Loan (interest free thanks to the bank of Uncle Dave): $4,900
Credit Card (The sole purpose of having this is to try and build credit. I only have a $200 limit [yay no credit history] so I try to keep the balance around $100. It is set to automatically pay on the due date. Wait just one minute! I went on chase.com to look up my exact balance and they’ve increased my limit. $700 now. Suppose I’m going to have to charge more then. Oh it’s a rewards card too, that’s why I choose it knowing that I’d have a really low limit and high APR, but I’ve ‘earned’ like $5.): $90.97

Ok, so really not that bad. If I could figure out how much I have in bonds I’d most likely be in the black.

Upcoming additions:

SEP:Very soon I should receive my first statement about my SEP (Simplified Employment Pension). The HSO automatically contributes 5% of my Gross Pay into a nice little Retirement Fund for me. In theory this should be $108.33 monthly. Then also in theory it should start to earn a little bit on its own. It should be very exciting.

Roth IRA: When I asked the (and now my I suppose) Financial Advisor about my own retirement contributions as per the company 403b he informed me that given my age and income a Roth IRA is a better option. Having researched it to death I agree. Additionally I determined that I can also use it to save for a house. Sweet deal. So I need to start me up one of those. I've just gotten stalled about either calling him about it or just doing it online.

High Yield Online Savings: Why keep my dollars somewhere with a trivial APY when I can get %5.05. So I'm going to open up a savings account with E*Trade (https://us.etrade.com/e/t/home/completesavings?_skinnertab=bank) that will give me that much nicer rate. The primary use of that account will be Emergency Fund maybe a Vacation Fund. And also most likely house the semi-liquid funds that I might need for some day to day activities but there they'll earn a bit more.

High Yield Online Checking: Again, why not get some interest where you keep your cash. So I found what looks like a pretty sweet deal at Charles Schwab (http://www.schwab.com/public/schwab/banking_lending/checking?cmsid=P-990750&lvl1=banking_lending&lvl2=checking&refid=P-1008151&refpid=P-999724). 4% APY and it still functions like a regular checking account with paper checks and a debit card. Useful being as some of the alternatives are paperless so no safety net of real checks. And if I wanted I could set up my Roth IRA there instead. Also if I decide to go freeform with my investing I’d have an account there that can do such things. I just hope that they’ll approve me for both the savings and the checking accounts. I don’t know if they pull a credit report or anything or not.

Thought! I could actually set up two Roth IRA’s (maybe) then one could be for retirement and the other savings for a house. Hmm….I shall need to entertain this thought more.

O well that’s really all that I’m thinking on that plane for right now. It all seems so small and trivial for me to be worrying about it as much as I do.

Next step: implementing those upcoming additions I talked about. I’m so much better at just looking at things than actually doing them.

Screen envy.

So after having written the first post I figured that the second post should be good too.

But then I couldn’t settle on any topic to write on. Nuts. So now you are just going to get a whatever’s on my mind now type deal.

First, how do I get people to read this thing? In one way it’s odd to have people reading things I write. But realistically speaking the only reason to write this is to have other people read it. So far I told little one about it. I kind of doubt she’s read my post yet.

Ok so I just took an extended break from writing. You see I am at work so really when I do these kind of things during work it’s a stop and go. But this was a very long stop. Someone gave a significant donation (actually I think it was a they died and left us a bunch situation) and so it was determined that some of that money would go to update our computers. I was actually lucky enough that the ridiculous old computer at my desk was replaced in like September because it is the hub of the box office and so quite important. But only the computer was replaced. So the monitor was dreadful. It actually had a LOTR logo burnt into the lower right corner. Which amused me given my own affinity for all things LOTR, but it was actually from the person like 2 people before me. And the thing was a giant flickering monolith that I always felt like I was sitting nearly on top of. Today the new monitors came in.

Now I have an Acer 22” widescreen LCD. It is so incredibly gorgeous. I think I might be in love. I like to look at it and just drool. So pretty.

…..

I was going to say other things. But I can’t remember them anymore.

I’ll just continue to stare at the monitor. Yea I’m a geek. I’m ok with it.

……

So today is actually my last day of work before the holiday. We get Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off already. And I decided to actually use some of my comp time and extend the vacation to nearly a week. It will be phenomenal.

I’m not very good at not working. Even when I was interning I barely took any days off. So in all reality I don’t know that I’ve had this long of a vacation from anything since last March when I did the spring break awesomeness. Yup, I just looked at my calendar. I’ve had like 2 four day weekends and a few 3 day weekends. But that’s it.

It’s entirely possible that unless I manage to somehow mellow out or find someone capable of forcing me into it that I might work myself to death. Crazy.

And it’s not like I even have much work to be doing these days. I just never give myself much of a real break.

Actually the whole not having much to do has been driving me completely mad lately. I’m quite good at doing a million things all the time. I was very good at school. High School and College. Last year at school being in all the ensembles plus random other things…it was just perfect. So now that I’m graduated and in the ‘real world’ it’s a completely change.

All I have to do everyday is go into the same old boring job. Then I come home and do heaven only knows what. Mostly just read or knit or some other craft and watch way too much TV.

So this issue is actually one of primary reasons for bloging. I need to make goals and find what to do with myself so that I don’t go crazy. And this will be like a way to track it and hopefully keep going with things.

For starters I’m going to make myself a nice good list of New Years Resolutions. I don’t know that I’ve ever really made, let alone kept, New Years resolutions before. It just wasn’t something I did. But this year I think it’ll be very good.

*sidenote: ok so one of the craziest board members just walked in. He’s a younger middle aged successful business professional. But the ridiculous part is that he is always so happy. He literally came in and walked over to give me a high-five. Weird, but so amusing. Maybe I ought to blog about crazy board members sometime. We’ve enough of them here. End sidenote*

Wow I’ve gotten off topic. O well, welcome to my world really.

I was saying that this is my last day before vacation. WOOHOO.

Although when I was home over Thanksgiving I actually got ridiculously bored and started going like really depressed. It was bad. Life has really taken an upswing since then though. I think things should be fine. Plus I have a somewhat monumental task of cleaning out my room. So hopefully everything will be a good break. And I <3>

This is difficult. I always want to say so many things. And all the ideas come at the same time. Plus I’m just horrible at expressing myself really.

…….

*Spends the last hour of work staring at the pretty monitor*

Every new beginning.

"The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose.... The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of time....But it was a beginning."

I wanted to try to come up with a really profound and deep meaningful first entry. I wanted to talk about the concept of infinity and its place in my title. As a starting place I looked up the word “infinity”.

in·fin·i·ty (ĭn-fĭn'ĭ-tē) n.

1. The quality or condition of being infinite.

Now didn’t we all learn way back in elementary school that you are not allowed to define a word with the same word? And ok, so maybe infinity and infinite are not quite the same. But really come on. So I looked up “infinite”

in·fi·nite (in-fuh-nit) n.

6. Something that is infinite.

Ha! That is definitely cheating. That’s not my point though. I was actually intrigued by the fact that the poor job of defining the term can actually be seen in a different light as a striking example. Because to me infinity is not like some giant endless hole. It’s not how one looks off to the horizon and things seem to grow smaller and smaller going on forever. To me infinity is the idea of everything being connected and existing as one continual sweep. I like to think of infinity as a ring. If you follow the path of the ring what you get is infinity. The path has no bounds, it never ends. So then if you can hypothetically change that ring to become something that is not just two dimensional but instead stretches in the same fashion as that path in all directions forever, you get infinity.

Some of the other definitions actually did a much better job. “Infinity: 3. Unbounded space, time, or quantity.” “Infinite: 1. Having no boundaries or limits.”

Wait a minute then. Who’s bright idea was it to go and try a “flying leap” to this crazy entirely limitless scary dimension? I like things with nice rules and restrictions. Where everything can have its proper place and I know exactly what to do. The paths are straight and narrow and I love them. I’m good at them, spectacular in fact.

But in the end life is not like that. Life is infinite. And that is what this blog is going to be about for me. This is me trying to deal with my existence. Me finding a way through the chaos and learning to fly.

Everything, after all, has to start somewhere.