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Nov. 17th, 2006 07:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickToday we revisit posts from earlier in the year.
No, no. Remember The Case of the Mislaid CDs? Back in May, I went on about 'em? If you're drawing a blank, look here and here for an overview and some fun math detective work.
Today, brother-the-younger reports the following:
To those who may have an interest (so to speak), I received a check today from the Commonwealth of PA for unclaimed property proceeds. It has been divided appropriately and checks and supporting documentation were mailed today.
Huzzah! That's just in time for the holiday shopping season! Assuming that the post office is working in a reasonably orderly fashion, that money should arrive in my hot little hands just in time for me to blow the entire wad in an orgy of Black Friday Spending. I feel so very, very American.
(The preceding was a literary technique known as satire. I do not normally spend fifty dollars on Christmas, let alone twelve hundred. That's not to say I'm a humbug. I like xmas. I just don't think it needs to *cost* so fucking much. The sad and boring truth is that the money is going to plunk itself down into my Roth IRA at the dawn of the new year so that I don't have to eat Chicken Liver Kitty Chow in my sunset years. Unfortunately, while prudent and thrifty and shit, that sort of behavior makes for very boring livejournaling, can't be used to comment upon the crass overcommercialization of our culture, and does NOT provide such a cute and handy lead-in to the other thing I'm going to talk about here. *sigh* Probably I shouldn't reveal quite so much of what is behind the curtain...)
While driving home from work today, I noticed a billboard. The billboard had a web address on it. Since I don't get television, I don't find out about advertising campaigns the way most people do... but this looked interesting. Apparently, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and The Advertising Council feel that the 40 million Americans age 25 to 34 need to take control of their personal finances. People in this age group (and that includes a fair amount of the readership, here) are not financially clueful.
They should want to be financially clueful. Finance clue is good for you. Not only that, but finance clue is vital to having a not-penurious old age. It's important for saving to buy a house. It's important if you want to be comfortable, upper-middle class, well-off, or just plain rich.
How is your financial health?
Start with a score of 0.
Add a point
-- If you participate in a work-related retirement program (401K or similar)
-- If you have a savings account or money-market account (not just your checking account, but somewhere else that you put money "for later")
-- If you pay off your credit card bills in full each month
-- If you have "emergency" money set aside for household emergencies like the car needing a new transmission or the water heater going kaput or tree roots in your sewer line
-- If you have retirement savings (like an IRA) over and above any work-related retirement stuff
-- if you know what interest rate your savings or money market account is getting
-- if you have followed a budget for over a year
-- if you regularly (every paycheck) set money aside for savings
-- if you saved up for your last "big" purchase before you bought it ("big" is over two hundred dollars.)
-- if you know how much money (to the nearest thousand) is in your IRA
-- if you can name the current chairman of the Federal Reserve
-- if you know the interest rate on your mortgage. If you have not got a mortgage and own your home free and clear, award yourself two points.
-- if your car is paid for
-- if you know how much money you spent on groceries the last time you shopped
-- if you know what your entertainment costs run a month (Internet is part of entertainment unless you work at home.)
-- if you know what your gross income was last year on your taxes (to the nearest thousand)
There are seventeen possible points. If you are over twenty-five AND scored fewer than ten, you might want to work on your financial clue a little. (This is not an official metric. It's just a back-of-the-envelope calculation that I made up. It has no actual validity but it is probably not harmful or cancer-causing.)
No, no. Remember The Case of the Mislaid CDs? Back in May, I went on about 'em? If you're drawing a blank, look here and here for an overview and some fun math detective work.
Today, brother-the-younger reports the following:
To those who may have an interest (so to speak), I received a check today from the Commonwealth of PA for unclaimed property proceeds. It has been divided appropriately and checks and supporting documentation were mailed today.
Huzzah! That's just in time for the holiday shopping season! Assuming that the post office is working in a reasonably orderly fashion, that money should arrive in my hot little hands just in time for me to blow the entire wad in an orgy of Black Friday Spending. I feel so very, very American.
(The preceding was a literary technique known as satire. I do not normally spend fifty dollars on Christmas, let alone twelve hundred. That's not to say I'm a humbug. I like xmas. I just don't think it needs to *cost* so fucking much. The sad and boring truth is that the money is going to plunk itself down into my Roth IRA at the dawn of the new year so that I don't have to eat Chicken Liver Kitty Chow in my sunset years. Unfortunately, while prudent and thrifty and shit, that sort of behavior makes for very boring livejournaling, can't be used to comment upon the crass overcommercialization of our culture, and does NOT provide such a cute and handy lead-in to the other thing I'm going to talk about here. *sigh* Probably I shouldn't reveal quite so much of what is behind the curtain...)
While driving home from work today, I noticed a billboard. The billboard had a web address on it. Since I don't get television, I don't find out about advertising campaigns the way most people do... but this looked interesting. Apparently, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and The Advertising Council feel that the 40 million Americans age 25 to 34 need to take control of their personal finances. People in this age group (and that includes a fair amount of the readership, here) are not financially clueful.
They should want to be financially clueful. Finance clue is good for you. Not only that, but finance clue is vital to having a not-penurious old age. It's important for saving to buy a house. It's important if you want to be comfortable, upper-middle class, well-off, or just plain rich.
How is your financial health?
Start with a score of 0.
Add a point
-- If you participate in a work-related retirement program (401K or similar)
-- If you have a savings account or money-market account (not just your checking account, but somewhere else that you put money "for later")
-- If you pay off your credit card bills in full each month
-- If you have "emergency" money set aside for household emergencies like the car needing a new transmission or the water heater going kaput or tree roots in your sewer line
-- If you have retirement savings (like an IRA) over and above any work-related retirement stuff
-- if you know what interest rate your savings or money market account is getting
-- if you have followed a budget for over a year
-- if you regularly (every paycheck) set money aside for savings
-- if you saved up for your last "big" purchase before you bought it ("big" is over two hundred dollars.)
-- if you know how much money (to the nearest thousand) is in your IRA
-- if you can name the current chairman of the Federal Reserve
-- if you know the interest rate on your mortgage. If you have not got a mortgage and own your home free and clear, award yourself two points.
-- if your car is paid for
-- if you know how much money you spent on groceries the last time you shopped
-- if you know what your entertainment costs run a month (Internet is part of entertainment unless you work at home.)
-- if you know what your gross income was last year on your taxes (to the nearest thousand)
There are seventeen possible points. If you are over twenty-five AND scored fewer than ten, you might want to work on your financial clue a little. (This is not an official metric. It's just a back-of-the-envelope calculation that I made up. It has no actual validity but it is probably not harmful or cancer-causing.)
