Aug 29 2008
I was thinking of a different IRA, actually.
I got a raise today! My very first raise that did not come about as a result of an increase in the minimum wage! Hurray!
My health insurance is up and running wonderfully. My dental insurance was billed on my pay stub so I’m assuming that it’s working as well (I loathe the dentist, but loathe green teeth all the more). And tonight, I filled out the paperwork for the simple IRA plan offered by my company.
Having been a witness to the kind of financial struggles that other people have gone through when they reached retirement age, I figure I’d better get a head start on myself so as to prevent any complications later in life (though I think I’m still in something of that teenaged mindset that life ends at thirty). So 5% of my earnings are getting put away, and the company is tossing in another 3% out of the goodness of their hearts (thank you, progressive labor movements of yesteryear!).
Growing up you so often hear about the many awful and disturbingly simple ways that people die young, I think it inadvertently impressed on me the mindset that the odds of my survival to old age are roughly that of successfully navigating an asteroid field (720 to 1, I believe). Still, it felt odd picking beneficiaries. My boyfriend, obviously, because I’m going to marry him (and yes, ye naysayers, I can indeed remove him later if needs be). And then I sat and thought for a minute. And then I added my best friend as well. These two people know me better than anyone else in the world. They are my family.
When I called my best friend to get her social security number, she said, “I suppose if I pick you off now there won’t be much money in that thing.”
“No,” I said. “Better wait fifty years.”
“Fifty!” she yelled. “But I’m poor NOW!”
