I opened a Vanguard account almost five years ago.
Somehow, I managed to land $0.07 in the settlement money market fund.
I still don’t know how I did it, and just the other week, it disappeared.
April Fools!
It is April 1st, but that’s actually the god’s honest truth. My initial instinct was to figure out how and why the handful of pennies appeared. But then it sort of became One of Those Things.
Maybe it was a harbinger of fortune yet to come. A prelude, a portage, a presage. Whatever it was, it’s gone. And hopefully, my Roth is seven cents richer.
In the spirit of that mystery that I can’t be bothered to solve, I thought I’d share some other money truths that seem like jokes in the personal finance community.
Our grocery purchases smack of convenience.
I don’t make my own bread often. I don’t make my own yogurt ever. Occasionally, I buy latte concentrate. We’ve even purchased pre-made baby food. Despite all of this, we manage to keep our grocery budget between $200-$250 a month. I also try to keep us eating healthfully more often than not. But I figure all the preservatives in store-bought bread just ensure that we’ll get the most bang for our pension-buck. Because that’s how they work, right?
RELATED POST: How We Hit Our $200 Grocery Budget
We pay for labor sometimes.
Just last week, we had our contractor install a storm door for us. ABSURD. I know. But here’s the thing. The door has been in our garage for an entire season, and I really want to be able to pull in a cross breeze now that the weather is getting nice. I know I’ll be looking at a $50 bill (I didn’t even get a quote! ABSURD-ER!) or more, but it’ll help us cut down on our energy bill and it’ll go a lot smoother than the back screen door we installed ourselves. We don’t outsource all of our work (we do much of it ourselves!), but I’m not actually afraid to pay someone to do work. Especially when it saves time and my marriage.
Investing still feels like gambling.
I know it’s not the same as pulling a handle on a slot machine. It’s actually a lot less fun. Vanguard could learn a thing or two about user interface from a little time inside Aria or Cesear’s.
I understand the principles of investing. I get that it isn’t gambling. But it feels like a gamble to me. That doesn’t mean we aren’t investing. We are, and we are investing quite a bit (for us anyway). No matter how long I’ve been moving money into our Roths or my 403b, I still hold my breath just a bit every time I click.
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My partner isn’t a money nerd.
I try to respect my husband and my baby’s privacy for the most part. That’s why when I tell stories on this blog, I always use the pronoun I. Their stories aren’t really mine to tell, at least not in any significant way.
But I will tell you this.
My husband couldn’t care less about money. He was perfectly happy spending all of his paychecks because that’s how he grew up. (Full disclosure: I was really happy doing the same.) He doesn’t geek out with me over spreadsheets, and he’s definitely only hanging out at FinCon for the pool and the Vanguard cookies.
He also landed us a $75 credit on our Boost Mobile bill. And he hasn’t done anything with it. In months. They won’t let him use it toward our auto-pay set up, so…he just gave up.
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Occasionally, I lose sleep over this. Just the other night, I woke him up at 2 AM to ask him if he thought he should stop by the brick-and-mortar shop to get an answer. I do know that I will ultimately end up tracking down this money. It’s at least partially mine in the eyes of the law right?! Unless we go by Maritime Salvage, then once I get my hands on it, it’s MINE!
But I’ve also come to terms with the fact that having two people who are obsessive about money isn’t actually going to help our finances any. In fact, it might hurt them. Because for someone who isn’t all that interested in money, my husband’s pretty good with it.
Final Thoughts on April Fools’ Money Truths
There’s no one single way to do money well. I’m mostly at peace that we are on the slower path to FI. That doesn’t mean I don’t still have a lot to learn, and that also doesn’t mean that my current choices are going to be the choices I make forever.
But for now, we’ll keep investing, plugging away at our mortgage, and trying to live a little more purposefully. Even if that does mean buying a loaf of bread from time to time.
So Tell Me…Do you have any money truths that seem like jokes?
Shaun
Great Post Penny 🙂
We also pay for labour sometimes.
We recently bought a wall unit from Ikea. 4.8m (16ft) long.
Made up of 4 units each 4 ft long. Bolted to the wall. No legs.
Had to be really securely fixed. and look like one continuous unit. Level
The unit cost $700 (Australian)
$100 to get all the components from the warehouse and delivered.
$200 to Install.
Three People showed up.
They spent 2.5 hours putting the units together, bolting the units to the wall, instsalling shelves, doors, drawers, self closers, soft closers, etc. That’s 7.5 man hours. A full days work for 1 person. Or probably 4 full days for me, going to the hardware store for new tools probably worth $200. and a ruined relationship with my partner.
And it would have looked terrible
and fallen off the wall and broken a vase and 3 plates, at least.
$200 seemed a lot. Now it seems like the best bargain ever!
Shaun
Penny
Thanks, Shaun! Glad I’m not the only person who knows it’s OK to outsource from time to time!
Leigh
Investing really does feel like gambling! Thanks for talking about that – I feel like no one does really. Our net worth really just feels like a random number because of that.
Seonwoo
For me it’s not so much gambling as money itself just doesn’t feel real anymore. I get paid via direct deposit. I pay my bills electronically. I buy things by swiping plastic.
Money is merely some bits on a server somewhere.
Penny
Ha. That’s a wild feeling, isn’t it? Where is my money? WHAT is my money?
Leigh
Oh I totally have that feeling too! I don’t really carry cash anymore.
Revanche @ A Gai Shan Life
PiC is totally not a money nerd either. He has learned a ton from me since we got together though, and he pulls his weight on the income and side income fronts in addition to not spending all the monies so I don’t need him to be (except for when I think about the possibility of me dying prematurely and him not having me around to handle the money anymore – because THAT’S what’s going to be the real problem, right?)
I left my Roth IRA invested in treasury funds for a literally stupid long time. It earned NOTHING when you calculate inflation. It went backwards. I finally switched it to more VTSAX this year and it’s earned more in 3 months than it’s earned in seven years. Not a joke.
Mrs. Sweetspot
On outsourcing labor: I’ll be paying for getting my hair cut tomorrow… it’s a $10 dollar Thursday deal, and I can certainly afford it, but after cutting it myself for over 2 years it very much feels like cheating on the frugal tribe. But I’m not very good at it, so it’s 10 bucks well spent.
On food: we figured out it costs us about 37 cents to make a loaf of bread. The day old discount Walmart bread is 50% bigger and costs 30 cents… I’ve kind of given up on making bread.