A Crash Course (A 2026 Goals Check-in)
- Jess
- 3 days ago
- 8 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
Maybe goal check-ins will become a thing this year? Not sure yet. Here's one about the money one though.
(Sorry for the language, for those who are sensitive. There's not a lot, but there is some.)
I’m by no means an editing pro. I know writing this blog post is going to have a few mistakes. Grammar isn’t my biggest strength, and for a really long time I hated it almost as much as math — which is funny…because I love to write.
After college, I went to writing conference after writing conference and kept hearing the same thing about what I brought to workshop: I had terrible run-on sentences and I failed to use proper punctuation. I didn’t understand the difference between using a semicolon and a colon, or what an em dash was. It was also confusing to then hear that there were exceptions to a lot of those rules, but I had to know them first before I broke them. And at every conference, publishing professionals would sit at the table up front with a microphone and warn that if any writer wanted even a sliver of a chance of getting published, they needed to seriously improve in the one area of writing that made my head hurt and made me want to cry.
So, I decided I’d better figure out the grammar thing. Surely, there had to be someone out there who’d written about it in a way I could understand. Long story short, it turned out there were several, and I went from hating grammar to finding it interesting and a fun tool to better express what I wrote. That makes sense now, but before it didn’t—nor was I the only one. I knew several other grammar-hating writers who also struggled.
And I learned something possibly more important than how to write better: that if I tried hard enough, something I thought I was terrible at or hated could become something else entirely. It’s probably one of those hard-won lessons I’m the most grateful for because I think about it often whenever I think I’m just not good at something or “that’s just how it is for me.” I might not become a pro at whatever it is, but I can be proficient enough.
And that is exactly how I’m approaching finances.
I am not good with money, but I also know that I’m hell-bent on fucking changing that. I might not be working for a venture capital company or rolling in millions by the end of all this, but dammit, I’m going to have some solid plans and a significantly better understanding of it all.
I keep telling some of my friends from college that, believe it or not, I have improved — and I have. I’ve seen noticeable improvement in holding myself accountable as well as adopting some tricks to help keep the impulse shopping at bay, for the most part. Every now and then some stupid ad still gets me before I can fully think it through, but the self-accountability I’m trying to hold myself to painfully kicks in and reinforces a cycle of less spending rather than more.
I was taught how to balance a checkbook. That’s about all I remember from my teen years when it came to money, that and an assignment in economics that had us do a mock-up of an imaginary career and budget. So I don’t know about investing, stocks, different types of savings plans, CDs, the rules of thumb for what percentage I should set aside for...whatever, or any of the other aspects of how to manage money, let alone grow it.
Funnily enough, I usually handle the majority of the household finances in terms of making sure bills are paid, tracking what everything costs, and setting money aside for Christmas, birthdays, vacations, family fun, or any other needs. I’m familiar with some debt strategies and I love having a digital envelope system for saving. Chase gives up to five savings accounts (I think). But my brain needs more than that in terms of sorting, or even with my best efforts, I’ll lose track. So we have an Alliant Credit Union account since it allows up to 19 different savings accounts. That’s an absurd amount, and I’m not even close to using that many, but it keeps things simple and organized, and I like that. It works, but I could still do a better job tracking and monitoring them than what I’ve been doing so far.
I desperately want to change how I see and handle money for a lot of reasons. For one, I think self-reliance is important. I was raised to assume I’d be a stay-at-home mom/wife, but I’ve watched how many ways that can go horribly wrong. I’m sure there are more, but I’ve seen or heard about how health can take a partner out, death, divorce, loss of a job, incarceration, mental health issues, or probably another half-dozen things that I can’t think of right now can leave a non-working spouse in a really difficult situation. Some of those are more likely than others, and I don’t believe anyone plans or expects them — but they can happen, and usually not by choice. I’d rather be able to take care of things on my own if I had to than not. Yes, I have friends and family that would be there to help, but I’d rather avoid it, if possible, if it came to that.
I’m glad I have my degree for a lot of reasons, but in terms of looking at the job market, something is better than nothing — even if it’s been a while — and it still counts for something. Now that the holidays are over, I’m hoping by the end of the week to apply for one of the certification programs that Rice University offers (I’m crossing my fingers for the April through August option).
But even after completing the program and trying to enter the workforce when the job market sucks (why do I have the worst timing?), there’s still the other stuff I want to learn more about. There is also the realization that I’m jumping into all of this a little late, but I’m also sure later is better than never. So, I did what a lot of people are doing lately.
I asked ChatGPT for help.
What books would Chat recommend to me to help build a good, solid foundation for understanding finances and money? It happily listed several that fit what I was looking for: engaging, easy to understand, and able to hold my attention (I’d asked for book suggestions in the past, so it had an idea based on my reading history of what to base its suggestions on).
It gave me a “mini crash course” of sorts and listed the following for me (parentheses are either how Chat described them or summaries of the notes it gave on each):
The Psychology of Money — Morgan Housel (mindset reset first)
I will Teach You to be Rich — Ramit Sethi (It has a cheesy title, but Chat insisted it was very good for learning financial systems and how they work. systems + real-world financial tools)
The Simple Path to Wealth — JL Collins (investing confidence + long-term strategy)
Personal Finance for Dummies — Eric Tyson (Despite my cringing at having bought this, it looks straight forward and a good reference type book. fill in the gaps + reference)
Your Money or Your Life — Vicki Robin (on debt, loans and credit)
I’m about halfway through the first book and I’m really enjoying it. For starters, Housel uses a lot of psychological principles and ideas in his book, but he doesn’t get lost in jargon, making it easier for the average reader to absorb without feeling like they're taking a psych class. I also like his storytelling approach. A lot of what he says I don’t think is new, but how he shares it makes it feel like it is, or at least allows it to be looked at from a sharper angle.
A good example of what I mean by this is him talking about how it’s not money that makes people happy. Citing studies, Housel wrote, “But if there’s a common denominator in happiness—a universal fuel of joy—it’s that people want to control their lives.”
Housel spends the short chapter diving into that idea. Work used to be something we left at the office, but over time it’s slowly followed us home. Work has shifted from less physical to more mental labor, and this switch, he explains, has meant we can’t just leave work at the office as our minds will often keep working on problems after we’ve “clocked out” for the day. In a lot of ways, modern society and work have cut into the control we want over our time and energy.
For the most part, I largely agree with him. But I'd add that I think two things are important: mental flexibility and knowing what falls under the need/want/would be nice categories in life.
But mental flexibility, in my opinion, plays a huge role in being happy. I think those who can adjust expectations of what they want out of life are also more likely to pivot when bad things happen and still find ways to be happy, or at least find it again faster when things ease up. The other part, the need/want/would be nice lists…that I've been thinking more about. I feel like I know pretty well already, but I still try to sit down and consciously rank them, because sometimes things could shift. Taking stock and asking, would I rather travel more or have a big house? I'd happily live in one of those tiny homes if it meant more travel. Slower internet but more land, or fast internet but an HOA? Priorities shifting is normal. I'm not a believer in “having it all.” That sounds like a lot of anxiety to me. Goals and dreams are great, but I think everyone having something they're content with is completely fine. I want the peace of having whatever “enough” is for myself—another thing Housel writes about.
But as for being happy in a modern society, Housel explores what the solutions could be. He also questions what freedom and its relationship with money really is. It’s one of my favorite chapters, but really there are several, with some being much harder reads to get through than others as I’ve also made some of the mistakes he describes. But it’s been useful and I definitely recommend it so far.
I don’t know what I’m doing. But I figure these are some places to start, even if I’m fumbling along. And I guess that’s an update on one of my goals from the new year. There’s been progress. Slow progress — but progress all the same.
Bonus: I had four whole paragraphs written where I tied in a 90’s Brad Pitt movie (it at least made writing about finances more bearable for me by doing that) but I had to cut them because it just didn't flow. However, I'm in the camp of people who like the film, so here's two clips that still feel fitting from Meet Joe Black (The first is Death being very confused about why he's linked to taxes while Bill basically defends his legacy, and the second is Bill's Birthday Speech):
And for some of the other goals:
The Hume Pod is AWESOME. I'm probably going to write about it later after it gathers a bit more data. It's been really cool.
Other 2026 Updates: Who hid the matches from me?
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