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Home > Memory Lane Part I

Memory Lane Part I

September 8th, 2013 at 07:08 pm

I've got a large pile of old bank statements that I can purge. I decided to enter a lot of the data into Quicken. I went back and forth a bit, but if I get it entered electronically I could keep the data without taking up so much space. I'd probably be pretty cool with just shredding it, but thought my future self might appreciate preserving some of this information. But then again, it seems like kind of a waste of time to re-create old data. I am not much of a "looking back" type person to begin with.

I have been using Quicken since 1/1/06 (at least, that is how much data I entered when I started), and I married in 2000, so it's the 2000-2005 time period I am going through. (Before that, the "broke college years" are probably pretty boring - not much there). I am sure it would have made a lot more sense to enter more of this in 2006, but I had no idea how useful I would find Quicken. & I admit I can probably go through it much faster right now with the ease I feel with the program, after using it for several years.

There are a lot of holes so these will be pretty incomplete financial records, but at least I can keep what I can. I might find other pieces eventually.

In the end, I am so glad I decided to do this. I have had a delightful trip down memory lane...

Some of the delightful memories:

I did a fair amount of traveling in college (driving) and post-college (by air). So, I Was seeing all those travel expenses and reliving those memories. I then noticed a lot of flower purchases. I was remembering how on more than one occasion some friend (or a friend of a friend) would have well-off parents who would open their home to a pile of young people for a small vacation. At least we were polite and always thanked them by sending them flowers afterwards. Was just something I hadn't thought about in a long time. (In fact, took me a while to remember why I seemed to be always buying flowers).

{I didn't particularly spend any real money on any of these trips. For example, my friend and I went to NY and Boston simply because we found $150 Roundtrip airfare - we stayed with friends when we got there. Just a lot of stuff like that. When we went to Utah I apparently spent like $30 to go skiing, and that was about it. We had been invited by some friend's parents}.

Another pleasant memory: My car broke down in the middle of nowhere when we were driving between homes (our newer home was being built, we had gone up to check its progress and/or sign some paperwork).

Doesn't sound so pleasant? AAA towed us to some awful shop that wanted to charge us a fortune and keep the car for an entire week. ??? It was just the alternator. The tow truck driver said "Psssst" and offered to fix it for free. We didn't have much to lose at that point. So, I saw the charge for Kragen, for the new alternator, and immediately knew what that was. I remember he had a family and we gave him whatever cash we had (which probably was not a lot OR didn't feel like enough given the hassle he saved us). But when I thought back on the experience I had an entirely different perspective. He was probably happy to just make a few extra bucks. Whether we gave him $20 or $60, I am sure it was appreciated. Oh, and it took HIM about 10 minutes to fix it and he did a good job - never had another alternator problem since.

As I went down memory lane during the times we were "deprived" and saving most our income (literally 50% - 80% of it saved) all I had was happy memories. & I realized what made the memories special was all the people. I have had amazing friends, we have amazing families, and I have had the luck to come across these kind of good samaritans at times...

Beyond that, I got a sense of my very simple budget system and I did not remember anything with rose colored glasses. If anything, we did better than I remembered. So that I don't write a huge novel I will do a separate post on "simple" budgeting.

1 Responses to “Memory Lane Part I”

  1. LuckyRobin Says:
    1378681680

    It's funny how much you can remember from a few numbers and a line item. It's kind of cool. I wonder what memories it would bring up for me if I found my old budget notebooks?

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