I sincerely hope you enjoyed yesterday’s April Fool’s Day prank, and that if you did fall for it, you’re not pissed at me! Yesterday’s post was a heart-wrenching goodbye that was 99.9999% true. That’s the key to a good April Fool’s joke: plausibility. Everything in yesterday’s post was true… except for the conclusion that I’ll stop writing.
Because honestly, I’m not smart enough to know when to quit. Lucky for you, I suppose 😉
Plus, I have some truly HOT news to share in this month’s Net Worth Update, so it’s no time to quit writing now!
Change: $1,427 or 3.87 %
Booyah, buckaroos! Look at that little line on the end of the graph there, trying to shoot straight up toward the sky! Do you know what that means? I worked a ton of hours in March and didn’t buy much. But, it gets even more exciting because…
I opened a retirement account last night! Okay, that was supposed to be a lot more dramatic than it looks typed out. Only big money-nerd types like me will be wetting their pants at that statement. But I’m ready to declare it a big F’n deal, myself. I’ve been stating my desire to open a Roth IRA since the earliest posts on this blog and, three years later, I’ve finally done it.
And, because I did it before April 15th, I opened the account for 2009, which means I can still contribute up to $5,000 for 2010 this year (on top of the $3,000 I opened the account with last night). Those of you curious-cat types will be interested to know that after years of research and careful consideration, I decided to open my Roth IRA with Vanguard. Low expense ratios and tasty tasty index funds? Yes please!
Things are not perfect (see yesterday’s post re: work/life balance), but they are starting to come together. I still have to rebuild my emergency fund following my last car repair. I also give some consideration to how aggressive I want to be with my retirement fund now that I’ve passed the first hurdle (the $3,000 minimum to buy into the index fund I wanted).
But I crossed a major checkpoint last night, so for a few days, I’m just going to bask in that.
If you have any questions about my net worth or how it is calculated, feel free to ask them in the comments. Also, if you’d like to see how I stack up against other personal finance bloggers, be sure to check out The Wealthy Blogger List. (Spoiler alert: the name of my site is highly accurate.)