I’ve got a better plan for my money. I’ll hire Vanguard Personal Financial Services. In fact, I’ve already had a one hour talk with someone at Vanguard. I explained my problem: that I needed money from my Vanguard funds to help me pay my bills every month. I forgot to tell him that I have money in my savings account for emergencies, in particular, if the funds go down a lot. That way, I won’t have to sell a fund when the price is down and lose money.
But I really need to work on a budget. So I’m keeping track of every cent I spend. It’s tiresome and easy to forget to record expenditures in my budget book, but I really need to see where my money goes. For example, we own two summer houses in Prince Edward Island, Canada. In order to have a phone and electricity in the summer, I have to partially pay for them all winter. Can I afford it? I’d better. As it is the expenses for our vacations are split between me and my son and daughter. I’m hoping my financial plan will relieve me of worrying about these bills.