Grad Student Life: I got overwhelmed.

One thing that has happened to me with increasing regularity while in graduate school is that for certain chunks of time I've just had to buckle down and work hard and long hours for several weeks.  This results in serious slacking in other areas of life...(like cleaning, and cooking, and socializing, and exercising, and everything healthy.)  Or maybe this is just me and I haven't figured out how to balance life yet.

However, there have been a few things on my mind besides research:

• Coursera (www.coursera.org) is an incredible idea; it allows people to take classes (given by several respected universities) for free.  As someone who thinks educations is important, I've been curious about this new technology and they offered an Intro to Finance class so I enrolled.  I'm really enjoying the experience!
• I'm in charge of bringing in speakers for a seminar course this year.  While this is an incredible opportunity, it has also been time consuming to get started.
• I think I could defend by the end of 2013.  (There.  I said it.  Now I have to make it happen.)  This is earlier than I had planned/expected, but it would also give me the best chance to travel for several months before starting my next position (from what I've seen, hiring often happens along the academic year so I could be starting a real position in fall of 2014).
• I bought tickets to see family over the winter holidays.  I will not be buying anymore tickets to travel anywhere for the foreseeable future.  Hopefully that means I can actually save some more money.

Current Financial Goals

One of the things I've found since I've started to pay attention to my finances, is that my financial goals are regularly shifting.  How I think about my finances and of what importance goals are have been slowly moving around.  This makes reaching those goals a bit tough as they are moving targets.  Here are my present goals:

CASH

Cash Emergency Fund:
I live in an earthquake area.  I think it's important to have cash (and water!) on hand just in case...

SAVINGS LINKED TO CHECKING

Slush Fund:
The goal is to have one full month's worth of expenses.  I know many people set aside some money every month for upcoming and irregular expenses such as car insurance.  None of my irregular expenses are more than a typical months worth of expenses.  In addition, I like to have a full month of savings easily accessible to my checking account such that I can pay the bills if something happens to my paycheck (there were 5 months straight that my university messed up my paycheck...I may have become paranoid) so I aim to have a months worth of salary in my slush fund.

Do you share laundry duty?

It's a similar question to "do you share finances" if you ask me.  There are actually a surprising number of analogies along these lines too.

• Laundry is a chore that everyone has to perform (or to coerce someone else into performing.) So is balancing a "check book" or whatever method you use to make sure everything gets paid on time.  They both need to get done, and regularly.
• If you don't get it done, it leaves you in a fairly unfortunate position which most of us would prefer to avoid.  Waking up with nothing clean to wear is a very similar feeling to waking up without enough money to pay the bills (or whatever rock bottom is).  This can lead us into all sorts of audacious behavior whether it be buying new socks on the way to work or taking out pay-day loans.
• Left neglected, it piles up until it feels too overwhelming to tackle.  Honestly, the thing I love most about apartment living is that there are usually several washing machines available at the same time.  Talk about a time saver!  Too bad that the only clean up tool for your financial situation is patience and hard work.

Learning about personal finance

What I knew before I started reading blogs and immersing myself in the world of personal finance:

• Pay off your credit card in full every month
• Saving for retirement should start as early as possible
• Spend less than you earn
• Debt is bad.

What I've learned since:

• The whole concept of an emergency fund
• Living paycheck-to-paycheck isn't necessary
• Idea of paying yourself first (automatic deposits to savings)
• Tracking spending is eye opening
• Not everyone has to work their whole lives until retirement (ie concept of financial independence and/or early retirement)
• How to build a budget that works for me!
• Stop Wasting Time!  Start working towards your goal now!
• Have a buffer!

What I still need to learn:

• Investing
• Retirement accounts
• Rental properties?
• Monthly income streams
• EVERYTHING related to personal finance post building an emergency fund!

While I don't think I was completely ignorant in the ways of personal finance, I most certainly was not on top of it!  I didn't think it was an issue until my paycheck had a few issues and the university was transferring money in and out of my account irregularly in order to "fix" the issues.  It took them four months to get it all straightened out and during that time I was a financial mess and worried.  Luckily this event spurred me to action, and I've been learning ever since. 

The reason I started this blog was to track my evolution through personal finance from basically zero until I reach financial independence.  I find the process of learning interesting: at one point you look at knowledge and say that it's too hard for you to ever understand, and later on you look at it and it seems like it couldn't be more obvious.  You can't teach from the perspective that it's obvious.  You must struggle through material to truly understand it.

So, dear readers, as I feel I've finally mastered budgeting, saving, and emergency funds, what exactly is my next step?

Striving Towards Goals (Why I Save)

Presentation went well!  *Big sigh of relief* And now back to life...

The one thing about grad school is that it certainly pushes you to work harder than you ever thought you could.  I think I dreamed about my presentation the little bit of time I actually closed my eyes last night.  I have been working through what I wanted to say all day as I was finishing the slides.  I was hoping that I would be able to just go home and crash after the talk.  Unfortunately, it seems that I've ingested just a little bit too much caffeine in the last 24 hours for that to happen...

So instead I'm sitting comfortably curled up and watching TV via hulu and enjoying it.  I have mentioned before that my internet access and my climbing membership are two things I pay for because I really value them, even if I don't need them.  While I think it is important to be realistic about what our needs truly are and fulfill them first, it's also okay to spend a little bit of the money you have earned.