$well

We sat down with Cub's financial advisor last night. Usually these things cause head-spinning and make me feel stupid, but I guess that's the difference between sitting down at 20, 25, and now at 30. Retirement means something at 30. (Discussing portfolios and IRAs made me wish it had meant something to me at 20 and 25, but as Jim put it yesterday, "You're well ahead of people in your age bracket who've given nary a thought to their futures." I'm not sure that a norm-referenced assessment of our financial health/attitude is the best way to approach this, but knowing that we don't suck the most, well, helps.)

My mom claims that when I was little, I thought money came out of machines. (Well, in a literal sense, it does, doesn't it?) Obviously I eventually figured out that first you need to strap some shoes on your feet and go out and earn it, but in a lot of ways, my money mind still functions at a very rudimentary level. 1) Bleep bleep bleep ... turn off alarm clock and go to work. 2) Get paid. 3) Pay taxes. 4) Put most of the rest in the bank. 5) Put some in pocket and go buy food because we need to eat or cute shoes because I want some.

Banks and I, we get along. It's concepts like mutual funds, money markets, CDs, TSAs, risk analysis, and 401Ks that take me a really long time to break down and digest. 1) Bleep bleep bleep ... turn off alarm clock and go to work. 2) Get paid. 3) Pay taxes. 4) Give my money to a guy in a suit so he can distribute x percent of it here, plant y percent of it there, put a little bit in stocks for sh!ts and giggles, and sit back and (hopefully) watch it grow into nice fat savings and/or retirement funds. You can't touch it till you need a hip replacement. And a mean troll of a recession could come and gobble up a lot of it with very little warning.

It's a nice feeling, though, the security that comes with knowing you're planning for something. ... God willing, we're gonna grow old together.

:)