friendly with money

every so often, 20SB does a blog carnival. what's a blog carnival? from what i can tell, it's just a bunch of people posting on a particular topic and putting all their links in a centralized location lol (kinda like the monthly femme writes posts). the difference though is that the carnival comes with prizes (ooh ahh). this particular carnival revolves around money... so if you'd known me for awhile, you'd know how hilarious this topic is for me. why? cause i'm OBSESSED with my money. did you see that new widget on the sidebar? have you seen my finance tool tweets? are you paying attention to me at all? :p

my mom mentioned the other day that she has no idea where i get it from. she's not good with money, and my dad doesn't really 'manage' as much as he seems to just collect receipts. i, on the other hand, have numerous spreadsheets and online resources to keep track of every penny. more and more these days i'm trying to curb my spending. so i was a bit surprised that my score on the schwab moneywise calculator was 57 out of 100. um... what? i totally took it a second time, which resulted in a 65, still "middle of the road". i know that's a good thing (especially when the average for 20somethings seems to be right around 70), but i'm still disappointed. i bet it's because i don't have a will or contribute to a 401k :p i'll worry about a will when i get married, and i refuse to contribute to a 401k that is entirely comprised of company stock. hate the company and would never voluntarily invest in it no matter the situation. granted, by the time i finally quit, i'll be fully vested but that's beside the point

of my closest friends, i am one of a few who is not working in my preferred field. and i am the only one who isn't job hunting for something better/closer to my dream. why? money. it's all about the money. i've complained on more than one occasion about my job, but it does have the benefit of netting me a pretty penny every paycheck. for the first time in my life, i'm actually making money. instead of blowing it like in the past, i've set up a few savings accounts. i'm even trying to help InSlut get his monies under control. it's a bit amusing that, with the exception of CF who was lucky enough to marry an accounting boy, the women i know handle all the money. we joke about putting the boys on budgets and giving them allowances for video games and such (because they're all gamers to some degree). plus, since we're so budget conscious, i know i don't have to worry when girls' weekend rolls around. we usually bring tons of snacks and sit around talking for three days straight. it's the best thing ever. the boys don't get it, but we don't care :) sometimes we'll go out to eat, but it's usually somewhere moderately priced and we don't go crazy with our orders. EH and HH stopped drinking for the most part so that's another expense we don't have to worry about. lol the last time we went to HH's, i probably spent more on tolls than i did on anything else that whole weekend

then i have N. he's also trying to get his finances in order, but somehow he keeps finding himself trying to stretch those last dollars until payday. i routinely harass him about his spending because i'm that kind of mother hen. every two months or so, we have these huge discussions about it. sometimes he'll even whip out his spreadsheet as proof, and i one up him because i'm a jerk. he's really gotten a ton better in the last couple years, but sometimes money just poofs out of his account... much like it's going to do for me this week. i just remembered i have a wax tomorrow, which i did not account for when i decided to go out drinking with N's coworkers last night. bye bye buffer money... at least we always make sure that we can cover rent, utilities and groceries. it's those trips to IKEA and pottery barn that we have to talk each other out of. anything else is no big deal. we both pace ourselves or try to at least. so when we decide we absolutely have to have three more bookcases, an armchair and cute lamps, the money will be there. it's patiently waiting to be spent, and we'll be more than happy to oblige :)

[Disclaimer: This post is part of the 20SB Blog Carnival: Friends & Money, sponsored by Charles Schwab. Prizes may be awarded to selected posts. The information and opinions expressed in this post do not reflect the views or opinions of Charles Schwab. Details on the event, eligibility, and a complete list of participating bloggers can be found here.]