The Hustle of Sistah Ant

So I went to CNN Money’s retirement calculator to see what I’m facing here, given my age and current salary, based on the assumption that I would stop working at age 65 and live for another twenty years.  Since I have no retirement assets yet, I told the calculator that I have $5.00 saved for retirement thus far (since it refused to give me results based on *zero*), and this is what the calculator said: (Click to see the full size…)

You wanna talk about scary?  THIS is scary.  That’s a lot of money!  Now I know I’m going to start a 401K next month, so I shouldn’t be as worried, and I know that at some point I want to start investing in stocks and contributing to a Roth, but right now, I don’t see myself putting anything close to the calculator’s recommended $10,500.00 towards these goals annually - I am still in tens of thousands of dollars in debt, not counting my future mortgage.  I don’t even know now why I looked at that doggone calculator.  It’s hemming up my "weekend is coming" buzz.  Now I know why a lot of mothers want their sons to become professional athletes… LOL.

Part of the reason it was important to me to hold on to my money throughout the week is that my family wants to take the kids to the beach one last time before summer’s really over.  We dodged Labor Day because of the traffic and crowds, and we hope to make it tomorrow… provided it doesn’t rain.

Here’s where I think my money will go.  If I do make it to the beach, I’ll see how close my estimate came.

Gas to get to Seaside Heights, back, and a fill up once I get home: $40

Getting onto the beach with one of those stupid how-can-you-charge-money-for-the-beach wristbands: $7 (unless the price went up this year)

Funnel cake and other junk food on the boardwalk or on the way home: $10

Batteries for my camera: $4

Something random: $20 

That’s roughly $80, but you know I’m going to try to do it for under $50, which means buying only as much gas as I need, finding batteries I probably already have in the house, not buying something random, and passing on some of that junk food, which is better for me anyway.  I guess I’ll see how much under budget I go (I’m usually under.) 

If I don’t go to the beach, I’ll probably chill at home all weekend.  Which should cost me about $0. Hee Hee.