Once Upon a Time...

... there was a little fairy princess named Madame X. Okay, she wasn't really a fairy princess, but she lived a long time ago and far away. And okay, I'm only talking about 16 years ago and a few hundred miles, but sometimes I look back at my younger self and feel as though she is some strange creature out of a story!

I was going through some old notebooks again, and found a page of financial notes, the beginnings of which seem to date to 1992. I was living with my parents at the time, and looking for my first apartment of my own in Boston. Here's what I wrote:

----- rent $850 tops if no T pass
540 exp or 510 if no T pass
$800 if T pass needed

also account for utilities
if included
figure $600 expenses + RENT

GOAL: 7/17/92
bank balance ~4250
by 6/1/93
target bank balance $11,500
if no bonus
$14,000
if bonus
~ adjust for 401k?

ALSO:
DONATE $100/yr to charity.

actual 6/1/93 approx $4,000!
6/95 approx $6,000
3/96 $13,000+
-- apt. down payment

7/97 $8,800

10/97 pd off $3,000 student loan

10/97 appr. $5500 savings + [$2000 CD]

On another page of the notebook, I'd written this:

4-15-94
Bank Balance-- checking 4971.90
savings 2650.00
total $7521.90

401k + pensi0n -- ?

Goal: $10,000 in savings by next April

April 95-- have about 6000 checking and savings comb.

3/96-- $13,000-$14,000

7/97- $8800

Obviously I am now a lot better at keeping financial records and at setting realistic goals! But still, it's neat to look back and see that even then, I was managing to slightly increase my net worth. I can't believe I set myself a budget of $850 maximum for an apartment, though: my salary at the time was about $19,000, though at about that time in 1992 I may have just gotten a promotion that brought it up to $30,000. Either way, the apartment I ended up renting only cost me $600 a month and I still found it tough to save.

It's also interesting to think about how much my life changed within the first 6 or 7 years after getting out of college. I went from being someone who was unemployed with a couple thousand dollars of credit card debt to someone who was making $19k and had a few thousand dollars in the bank, to someone who was living in NYC, making over $30k and had a few thousand dollars plus some unknown amount in a 401k, to someone who was making about $45,000, had $8,800 in the bank, co-owned her first home, and had paid off her student loans a few years early.

Add another 10 years to the calendar, and I'd become someone who was making just under 6 figures, owned her own condo, had traveled to 7 or 8 more countries, spoke two more languages, had loved and lost and loved again, and had a variety of bank accounts and investments generating a net worth of around $350,000.

It does kind of sound like a fairy tale, doesn't it?

Welcome Newsweek Readers!

Welcome to everyone who found this site through Eve Conant's Newsweek article "A Penny Saved is a Penny Spent," about why the 30-something generation has trouble being frugal. Thank you to Eve for mentioning me!

If you're here for the first time, here's a quick introduction:

My name is Madame X and I'm obsessed with money... but not in a yucky super-materialistic kind of way! This is the personal finance blog where you're as likely to read about a dominatrix as a dividend; where salaries, spreadsheets, studio apartments, and salad dressing coexist with coupons, karaoke, career advice, and condoms. I quote James Brown songs as often as possible. And no post is ever off-topic.

I still can't believe over 400,000 people have visited this site, but here's what a few of them have said about it:
"a wicked sense of humor"-- Business Week
"Madame X is a bad sista"-- SingleMa
"one of the ur-texts of this genre"-- Bluebird
"you must be psychotic"-- Anonymous
"Will you marry me (If you're hot)?" -- Anonymous

Check out the "Rules" and "Favorite Posts" in the right-hand sidebar for more highlights. If you'd like to keep track of my posts in a reader such as Bloglines or MyYahoo, you can subscribe to my feed.

I have a great time writing this blog and I hope you enjoy reading it. Thanks for stopping by!

Read My Interview at Geezeo

If you're bothered by the complete lack of introspection and personal stories on this blog, mosey on over to Geezeo, where I tell the world how I really feel!
Geezeo is a web-based personal finance manager where you can track all your accounts, manage your budget, and interact with other users who are doing the same. On the Geezeo blog, my pal Katie is posting a multi-part interview with me, starting today! Check it out...

Welcome, clickers!

I've been Clicked over at MSNBC.com... so if you're visiting this site for the first time, here's a little introduction:

My name is Madame X and I'm obsessed with money... but not in a yucky super-materialistic kind of way! This is the personal finance blog where you're as likely to read about a dominatrix as a dividend; where salaries, spreadsheets, studio apartments, and salad dressing coexist with coupons, karaoke, career advice, and condoms. I quote James Brown songs as often as possible. And no post is ever off-topic.

I still can't believe 40,000 people have visited this site, but here's what a few of them have said about it:
"a wicked sense of humor"-- Business Week
"Madame X is a bad sista"-- SingleMom
"one of the ur-texts of this genre"-- Bluebird
"you must be psychotic"-- Anonymous
"Wait... that's not toast on your crown?"-- Caitlin


I have a great time writing this blog and I hope you enjoy reading it. Thanks for stopping by!

How I Did It

A commenter asked how I have managed to save the money I have. Here are a couple of short answers:

• I started contributing to a 401k as soon as I could, and have always contributed the maximum level. I've also opened Roth IRAs.
  
• During maybe half of the years I've been working, part of my compensation has been in a bonus, anywhere from $1000 to $25,000 a year, (which was sometimes as much as half my total yearly earnings paid in one lump sum). I've always tried to put most of it straight into savings.
• With my first big bonuses going to the downpayment, I bought a home with a partner at a fairly young age (mid-20s). It was right before real estate prices started going through the roof-- the best timing I've ever had. When I moved out and was bought out, my share of the equity was $50,000, (a return on investment of about 500%!) which went straight into savings and investments. (Of course I should have put it straight into another apartment...)
• As for where I live now, I was lucky enough to find a cheap but very small apartment that most people might not be willing to live in just because of the size, though it's actually rather cute and gets great light.
• And basically, I've just kept my lifestyle in line. From when I first started working, I tried to keep my spending lower than my earnings. It was hard at first, but as my income has grown through a few job changes, I've kept my level of spending roughly the same. And if I earned a lot more, I would still probably live in a similar way. I don't feel deprived-- of course there are things I would like to have someday that I don't have now, and I can have my envious moments when I see how other people live, but for the most part, I feel like my life is pretty good.

So, some of it is due to luck, some due to strategy, or just common sense. Of my net worth, about 53% is my retirement savings in a 401k and Roth IRAs, 21% is the real estate windfall (if you don't count the interest it's earned), and the remaining 26% is savings from bonuses, regular earnings, investment gains and interest.

What kind of spoon were you born with?

In other words, were you born on third base or did you really hit a home run?
Another personal finance blogger posted a response to a reader who asked if he'd gotten money from his parents or other gifts/inheritance.
This reminded me of an issue that I'd been planning to write about, as part of the larger topics of class and class mobility, and family attitudes towards money. If we're all going to be musing about money, we should acknowledge that there's more to it than how much we make and how much we have or owe. We may live in the land of "equal opportunity", but as this New York Times series of articles and many other sources have pointed out, some of us have an easier time taking advantage of these opportunities. This can mean anything from being born with a huge trust fund, to having parents pay for part of college, to starting one's adult life with a houseful of wedding gifts, and anything in between. On the other hand, some people are held back by having to provide financial support to parents, having to work instead of getting a summer internship, having to attend an overcrowded public school...

So I'll provide a bit more background about how I got to where I am today, and I hope other bloggers will do the same.

My family is middle-class to upper-middle class, depending on how you define it. My father was making about $50,000 in the mid-1980s, (when I was filling out college financial aid forms!) and probably never made more than about $75,000 a year. He was in the 2nd generation of his family to be college educated-- most of them were teachers, a couple were lawyers, and several went to Ivy League schools. My mother graduated from high school but was in the first generation of her family to do so. (Her grandmother was illiterate.)
I went to public schools in a fairly upscale suburb where I always felt that I did not have a lot of things that other kids had--clothes, cars, video games, toys, Disney Land, etc. We never took vacations, though I sometimes went to day camp, and was often taken to concerts, the ballet, and museums. When I was around 10, I had an allowance of 25 cents a week, plus an extra 25 cents that was added to a fund my father kept track of, which I was only allowed to spend on books.
My first real job, other than raking leaves and babysitting, was the summer after I graduated from high school, working in a clothing store.
I went to an Ivy League college, which my father mostly paid for. I had about $10,000 in student loans when I graduated. I worked (waitressing) throughout the school year (except for freshman year) and during summers. A year after graduating, I was unemployed for 2 months, during which time my father lent me some money to help pay my student loans. I also ran up a couple thousand dollars in credit card debt at that time, and lived with my parents for about a year and a half. After I found a job, I paid him back, and eventually moved into my own apartment and have been financially independent ever since. I have never received a gift worth more than $300 from anyone.
My parents are now separated-- I sometimes have to lend/give money to my mother but not in huge amounts.
That's basically it-- I may not have been born with a silver spoon in my mouth, but I know I at least had a spoon! I'm grateful for what I've been given and proud of what I've built up from there.