Credit Card Brains

Riding home from work on the train, simultaneously wolfing down a burrito fresco from Taco Bell, finishing up my work and blogging, and suddenly half the burrito is in my dry-clean-only, multitasking lap. Great. I am currently in the midst of a vacation hangover of the “Did I pay my credit card/student loan/phone bill?” variety. The bliss that results from a week outdoors is gone, the tan has faded and reality sets in. This is my life.

I’ve been ignoring my financial life for a full few weeks, freely spending on vacation-related purchases and generally trying to avoid my mailbox/inbox at all costs. But now that I’m back, I have no more excuses. I went through all my mail on Friday and realized that I was severely behind on a few doctor’s bills. Luckily, I set up all the rest of my bills to pay automatically when we were gone, but seeing the dent in my wallet from the trip as I was visiting all my cards’ Web sites was a wince-worthy experience. You know how when you were little, you watched scary movies with one eye shut and only focused on the bottom corner of the screen? (OK, I still do that.) Well, that was how I felt looking at my “current activity” statements!

I’ve been ignoring a host of other things too, my inbox isn’t the only one. I promised my mom I’d do some research on the benefits of an IRA vs. putting some more money into her 401K and I also need to research how to consolidate Sallie Mae loans for a cousin who got some bad information from her family’s banker. I’m hoping to be able to write about both of those.

Plus, I’m so far behind on the news! I haven’t posted good articles in forever, nor have I been following my beloved newsprint/newsmagazines/financial web sites. I can only imagine what’s taken place in the financial world in the last few weeks: the housing market, gas prices, financial scandals and important statistics about Americans and the economy, I’m sure!

So the point of today’s article is this: you can’t ignore personal finance for long without feeling totally behind. Nor should you try! It’s easy to get caught up in life’s bliss or the daily grind (pick your poision), but two reliable facts are that the bills keep coming in, and your financial life never stops.