Gentoo/Money

So, all of a sudden a conversation started up yesterday in the #gentoo-dev channel about bank accounts, retirement accounts, 401(k)’s, and just general finance. And you thought all we did was talk about portage, didn’t you?

Anyway, our two financial experts, Doug/Cardoe and John/AllanonJL were there to dispense their advice. Food for thought, really. There’s a side of me that thinks “Oh, I’ll be active and working for decades to come. I have so many dreams in the works.” Then, something happens to someone close to you and you’re reminded that all this could halt just like that.

And now that makes me think of what will happen to those I love in the unlikely event of a water landing. Their lives shouldn’t have to undergo any immediate financial changes. So I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the concept of finances and saving and investing. I’ve started (recently) taking steps: I’m signing up for the 401(k) plan at my new job; I’ve attached an Orange Savings to my account. I’ll get to putting to practise some of the advice I got last night in the channel: get a Roth retirement account; get higher yields on money in the bank already. Maybe someday I’ll even invest! Actually, I’m going to be vesting my stock options at my last job.

And the Gentoo connection to all this? (Courtesy of Mike/LoReZ, partly). Whatever information I have that is uniquely with me should not remain so. Copies of it should reside with at least one other person. Luckily, this is a very limited amount of stuff — it pertains to the Foundation and the legal aspects of setting it all up. All this justifies even more my desire to have Renat be up to date on the same information. I also will bring up that the foundation’s banking information also reside with at least one other person. The same is true for contacts etc we all have.

This may be a little depressing sounding, I suppose (though I’m not depressed, I’m just feeling practical/pragmatic).

I’m always open to hearing people’s thoughts on this subject, so lay it on me, people.