Savings Accounts, Roth IRAs, Growing Up, Oh My!

So I think I'm finally starting to grow up a little bit, and although it's going to be beneficial to my future, I'm not quite sure how it happened. One day I was trying to figure out how to buy all of the seasons of Aqua Teen Hunger Force on DVD and still have money for beer, and the next I'm talking about opening a 5.05% savings account with HSBC and discussing the tax benefits of starting a Roth IRA versus a traditional one.

Wow. Life comes at you fast.

Moreover, I've been contemplating saving for a house. It's one of the reasons I started the high-yield savings account. I even impressed my boss with my savings-savvy.

And it only took me twenty-five years to get this far. I'm what psychologists like to call a "late bloomer". It usually happens with kids who have affluent parents. They continue to leech off of their parents until either A) the parents cut them off or B) they wake up and realize, "Hey, I'm a f**king loser!"

Option B) very rarely happens.

It wasn't the case with me. I leeched off myself for far too long, ignoring that there is such a thing as a future and that I should be planning for it.

So I think I'm slowly freeing myself from the state of arrested development I've been in my entire life, and I'm happy. I used to be very anti-establishment, like, Hey, leave all the money-saving to bankers on Wall Street. Just give me METAL!

Now, I've realized just how dumb it was to just blow all of my money because I wanted to enjoy it.

And, to be honest, understanding markets and percentages and stuff really isn't that bad. In fact, I'm kind of enjoying this new knowledge.