Financial Sense

Jim and I were very brave a few months ago, and went to see our financial advisor. Don't get me wrong - we like her a lot. It's just so embarrassing to sit and admit to someone that you've run up your credit card balance, even if it's for something solid like doing home renovations. It feels a lot like going to confession, actually. Purgation. Anyway, we did it and now I'm very glad.

She never tells us anything that sounds like rocket science - she always just seems to get us to think straight about it all. We've now cleared our credit card and have consolidated it all into a consumer loan that we're paying off at a reasonable pace. I've started my RRSP again after a few years' hiatus. We're saving for a car. I got myself a CAA membership, so I don't have to pay for any more tow-trucks should the need arise. We still have the same debt, but now there are plans in the works and I feel like a huge load has been lifted from my shoulders. I am financially hopeful.

And the strange thing is that now we occasionally have a little extra money to spend, through unexpected windfalls. It's like the story someone told me once about the librarian who took up feng shui. She put a small fountain in the corner of her office, because running water in that corner was supposed to attract money. At some point soon after, she had so much grant money to spend on the library system (and so much extra work to go along with it) that she had to turn the fountain off! We aren't rolling in it anything like that, but now I can buy the occasional small treat with real money, with absolutely no guilt! It's all good.

On a vaguely-related but fictional note, Jim dreamt last night that I won $30 million in the lottery, and that we decided to buy and renovate every old house in the neighbourhood. It's too funny. Man, that would be fun. I would say to my personal assistant, "Marco, go and order me a 3 1/2 foot clawfoot tub for this space, even if you have to get it from Chicago. Nothing else will do." "Very good, madam," Marco would say. Just like a Wodehouse novel.