Adulting

I have spent a lot of my adult life avoiding adulting. Seriously. I worked and paid bills, but I was always very spontaneous. I never considered the future let alone plan for it. I very much lived one day at a time. Was it a smart thing to do? NO. I spent a lot of time stressing over money and things. I'm sure I also paid way more than I needed to over the years because I let things slide. Late charges and past due fees were the norm for me.

10 years ago, when we moved to Waimanalo, I started to get my act together. I worked out a budget. Paid bills on time. Even managed to save a little money. Then we bought the house on Paleka road and thing went to shit again. I then spent the next 6 years trying hard to adult correctly and just not having the resources to do it. In my defense, I really, really tried, but it was a huge struggle every step of the way. Then we moved here. I have done more adulting since we moved then I ever have in my life. We have been able to do many, many adult things. Buy new furniture. Actually, decorate a room or two. Make serious decisions about what we want to do with our money. And the truth of the matter is that it feels really good. It feels good to have money in the bank. It feels awesome to have all the bills paid and money in the bank. It feels incredible to actually be able to think about things like vacations and saving accounts. Seriously. It really feels good. I made a plan last night to get $10,000 put away as an emergency fund. I should be able to get that put away within the year, maybe sooner. Then I'm starting a vacation fund. I want to travel to Europe and Australia. Now that Charlie can get a passport, we are going to do that. But we are going to do it the adult way; save the money before we go. You have no idea how exciting it is to feel like you finally have a handle on life. You have no idea. I have set up recurring payments for the mortgage and am paying $83.90 extra every month. I read somewhere that you can cut 7 years off your mortgage by making 1 extra payment a year. $83.90 a month is more than 1 payment a year. Yeah!!! A couple of weeks ago we bought a new car. The payments don't start until October, but I set up the payments to start next week. We will be paying 1/2 the payment every 2 weeks plus an additional $22 a payment. That equates to an extra payment every year plus an extra payment in additional money. That will have us paying off the car 10 months early and saving us over $1,000 in interest. Woo hoo. It really is so much easier to be an adult when there is money to work with.

I can honestly say that moving from Hawaii was one of the smartest things we ever did. I now feel like I am finally a true adult.