Officially Middle Age, Now What?
It’s my birthday today: the “big” 35. (Yes, CleverDude, I am “old”) Last year my mother called me for my birthday to call me middle-aged, and I informed her she was a year early. This year, I am dreading the ring of the phone, because now it’s “official.” I am now middle-aged. I didn’t expect to live past age 30 when I was my son’s age.
Looking back, I’ve been a bit of a wild child. I shudder to think of how much money I have spent over the years on alcohol, cigarettes, and assorted junk that has long been thrown out. I have a grand total of $391 in my retirement account right now … and can probably tick off the months I spent more than that on just smokes and beer. I’d have to take my shoes off and use my toes to do that. And that’s just the ones I remember. Yup, I done “stupid with zeroes” even though I never made that much at any one time.
Sooo … what is next for me? Other than attaining “debt free but the mortgage” status? And finally getting some kind of college degree so I don’t need to spend the rest of my life working for minimum wage or close to it?
It’s time for me to hit the books again: I need to learn about investing the smart way. I’m about fifteen years behind where I need to be simply because I couldn’t imagine myself this “old” back when investing could have done me the most good. It’s time to learn the rules so I can play catch-up in the fall.
Now, here’s the problem: most PF bloggers who write about investing use too much technical jargon. When Pinyo over at Moolonomy starts in on his investment analyses, it sails way over my head and my eyes glaze over. I might as well be back in physics class for the lecture on planetary rotation for all I understand of it. (For the record, I was quite happy with getting a C in that class.) I don’t need “Investing For Dummies,” I need “Investing for Complete and Utter Idiots.” I think I have about five brain cells left to absorb this with, after years of drinking and organic chem class….
So I am adding a new category to the blog: Investing. But don’t expect anything intellectual or savvy or even the average level of complexity, because I just don’t have enough functioning brain cells left for that. This will just be the simple and basic investing concepts that I am able to grasp.
Oh, and I added a picture of my face to my about page … Hope I don’t scare too many of y’all off with that!
