Ewwwwww. I've just been having a terrible time this month with my net worth. I dropped $1500 on a personal purchase, the markets have been pulling back a bit, AND I've taken a decent number of days off at work that I really could have picked up. I need a face punch.
Okay, the $1500 purchase is of something that I will certainly get a LOT of joy out of in the future. I think it's worth the price in the long run, despite being expensive. So in a way, I don't consider this 'frivolous' or 'wasteful'. And with all the hard work I put into saving, surely an occasional purchase like this isn't a terrible thing?
The markets are just that. The market. Nothing you can really do about a slight downturn. In fact, I used it as a buying opportunity today. By the end of the market day today, I'll have $2,000 more in shares of VEXAX. Pulled out of my cash reserves for this purchase, so that's a good thing then!
As for the days off. Well... I've been working really really hard for the past two, almost three years at my company. I pick up shifts as much as possible to make up for the days I request off for my vacations and try to max my hours as much as possible. (I'm an hourly employee) Is it terrible to scale back a little bit after a few years of working hard like this? I'm not retiring, but I don't want to burn out either. Now when I request days off, I tend to keep the days off, not pick up others to make up for the missed ones like I did before. I've decided that in a few more years, I may scale back a bit more and start leaving work early when I can and don't really feel up to staying. (One of the perks of my job that I've yet to actually utilize). A few years after that I have plans to maybe even go part time.... and then eventually, retire altogether. I did it this way to maximize the value of time. Work really hard in the beginning when the money invested to start matters the most and will compound more than the future dollars put in due to being in there longer. Then gradually scaling back to retirement. This way, I slowly reward myself a little more each year and get more and more freedom each year until fully retired. This also allows me to ease into retirement instead of the sudden shock of it all at once.
Gah... I'm rambling. Anyway, it's all kinda stupid really. All of this thought over seeing this DRAMATIC CHANGE IN MY GRAPH! (joking) SEE THE LINE? IT STOPPED MOVING UP! D=