Cherish Your Job!

If you're like me, you should cherish your job.  Embrace it; give it a great big hug!  Because for someone as unfocused as me, a job gives much appreciated structure to an otherwise unplanned, chaotic life.

I could never be like Mr. Money Mustache, and retire comfortably at age 30.  First of all, I'm in my late 50's now.  And before you suggest it, NO, this isn't sour grapes.  I know my strengths and weaknesses, and if at a young age I had been financially independent, I probably would have ruined my life with a downward spiral of self-indulgent vices.  I really like MMM's website, ( http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/ ), and try to read it daily.  You should too.  But he is a remarkably self-disciplined fellow who is putting his time to good use.  My free time tends to be spent daydreaming at best, or reinforcing bad habits at worse. 

So I think it helps me as a person to have some form of discipline applied to me from an external source.  In my particular case, financial independence isn't one of  the prime goals of life, and in fact may not even be all that beneficial.

Now that doesn't mean I necessarily LIKE my job, but rather, like flossing or maintaining my car, I see it as something I have to do to stay healthy and prosperous.

A recent blog post that sums up kinda how I feel towards my job is here: http://livingafi.com/2015/02/17/i-could-quit/ .  Now with two young children I'm not in a position to quit working, at least not in the near term, but I have the same attitude towards my job the author has, namely, I can take it or leave it.  It would be nice to hang in there a few more years, particularly since I'm not completely vested in the retirement plan yet, (which is actually a matching 401K contribution), but if let go or I have a "take this job and shove it" moment, I have enough money to survive while looking for other ways to make a living.

While we're on the subject of personal finance blogs ...... I STRONGLY encourage y'all to visit http://rockstarfinance.com/ , a site put out by the wonderful J. Money, of http://www.budgetsaresexy.com/ fame.  What you will find at RockStarFinance is a collection of personal finance posts from all sorts of different blogs. Some examples of cool sites I was introduced to there:

http://yesiamcheap.com/

http://www.ineedmoneyasap.com/

http://lenpenzo.com/blog/

http://www.moneyaftergraduation.com/

http://richhabits.net/copy-what-its-like-to-fail-35000-times/   (A great article.  Read it!!)

etc., etc., etc. .....

If you go to RockStarFinance, be sure to check out the Net Worth Tracker.  We are on there!  Can you spot us?