i am a financial giant.

in honor of tax season, here's a brief review of my most awesome financial strategy for 2006:

good financial idea: put money aside for retirement.
bad financial idea: vaguely intend to put money into mutual fund without actually understanding what a mutual fund is.

good financial idea: stop previous strategy of putting cash into safety deposit box in case of millenium or computer hackers a la certain movie with soundtrack that mb likes very much.
bad financial idea: continually forget to cash checks from insurance company despite their ongoing reminder letters.

good financial idea: decide to e-file taxes early so i can get my refund quickly.
bad financial idea: decide to use h&r block's long form online helper for $45 instead of the easy form helper for $5, resulting in more headaches and questions i didn't understand than i had when i did my taxes without any helper.

good financial idea: move money from savings account into retirement fund that involves some combination of indexes and bonds and things.
bad financial idea: try to move said money using the assistance of anyone at citibank on the south side of chicago, because that involves being shuttled from teller to semi-fancy desk bank person to somewhat fancier office desk bank person before being told that i need to make an appointment with some special person whose only office is in a citibank branch under a highway on-ramp populated by middle aged men trying to sell socks at red lights.

good financial idea: ignore advice of south side citibank and go to downtown citibank, where not only do the desk and office bank people not need to be involved, but the greeter bank person in the front by the atms goes and gets a little green stamper to fill out my forms. a premade stamp - no desks or appointments or road socks required.
bad financial idea: decide that since i am downtown anyway, the right thing to do since i have spent this time and bus fare is to go shoe shopping.

good financial idea: exercise restraint with shoe shopping, only making a bee-line for the shoes i saw on sale while in minneapolis this weekend, and walking away when told the sale shoes were sold out.
bad financial idea: on walking away, promptly fall in love with new, more expensive shoes on the table next door, and decide i must have them.

good financial idea: find out at the cash register that the new shoes are actually $20 less than listed, so it was like buying sale shoes even if i would have been willing to pay full price.

...and so, you can clearly see that since all of my financial moves balanced each other out until the shoes were conveniently on sale. now i am net one move ahead; therefore, i am a financial genius. i can only imagine suze orman is on her way to my apartment now dying to admire my stylish new kenneth coles and ask how do i do it.