15 February 2007 - 1:47 pm

So, there was the first ever brown bag lunch today here at work to discuss financial planning. Actually, it was more an overview, the basics you should know so that in the future you can see your options on how to buy a house, send kids to college and successfully retire.

What, they noticed some of us workers aren't in our twenties? I'm shocked.

Anyway, besides the standard, you should have money saved for emergencies, and it should equal 6 to 12 months of your monthly expenses, of which I don't even have 1 month's emergency fund saved up, once I get past that point, I think a) there is no way I will ever save enough to buy a house on my own and b) I need to start planning a retirement strategy, if I don't have any savings right now.

And the fact I only have 20 years to get enough money together to retire, or 25 years or 28 1/2 years, depending on when I retire, and I just get depressed. Wow. How the hell am I going to do this? On my present salary, and my current inability to save any money worth noting ($20 a month that I sock away hardly counts), do I even think that I can retire? And that extravagent lifestyle that I live: carpooling to work, walking home, eating salads for lunch and watching a video a night for entertainment, wow, I better cut down on those expenses in order to save. What expenses? The amount the advisor suggested was having $5 million saved to be able to retire. So the one thought that flashes to my mind as to how to get any handle on my improving my finances is this: maybe I should move back in with my parents, get a job there, save the prerequisite 6 to 12 months of expenses, save for a down payment, and buy a house, and maybe in Montana I can think about actually retiring on the 20 year schedule my age is counting down.

So that was lunch. Bummer.