I’ve attained new heights of absent mindedness.

Today I was working on the dreaded FAFSA, the federal form you have to fill out to qualify for financial aid. It’s not that tough to get through, if you’ve got your taxes done, so I was breezing through it when I came to the part where they ask you what the net value of your investments are. That’s not a tough one for us, not much. An IRA that I’ve had around forever, haven’t contributed to for years and has grown nicely over time. It’s a mix of Putnam funds. I asked Beck if we had anything else that she could think of, and she said that there was her Putnam stuff. “No honey that’s the same, remember that we put it in my name for a tax advantage.”

“No, I think I have something too, look it up in Quicken.”

I looked, and it’s there, but I was holding my statement and looking at what Quicken said, and they’re different. Close, but different. I stood there with a stupid expression, looking at the screen, looking at the paper, trying to make the numbers makes sense. Beck came into the room and start digging through the files and pulls out a different statement. It matches Quicken. I stared at the two pieces of paper when it dawned on me. There are two accounts! We have twice as much money saved as I thought we did!

Don’t get me wrong, It’s not a huge amount by any stretch, not even enough for a year of college, but it’s still twice as much as I thought I had. Twice as much as the number that I fit into the slot in my head as I’m grinding out the impossible equation of having two kids in college and escaping or getting exiled from the corporate world. I’ve been operating under this false assumption for years.

WooooooHooooo!

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