I don't know what it was; but on Thursday I decided to start an IRA. My job's never going to be totally stable; I'm never going to be at a point where I'm saying 'Yeah, I have a stable job and 6 months of expenses in the bank, now's a good time to start an IRA." I'm always going to be wondering if I'll be working next month. If I wait till I'm in a stable position, I'll be waiting forever. If I wait until I have 6 months of expenses saved up, I'll be waiting forever. I've got 3 months of expenses, plus whatever I save between now and the middle of January. (I started my Roth with the minimum- and I'm not going to add to it till I get to a more stable position. But having it started makes me feel pretty good.) That'll have to do. I think it'll make me more motivated- to know that I HAVE to have a job by April or my money's going to start running out. You can bet that by the middle of March, I'll have done everything in my power to get something. Even if it's temp work, even if it's food service- I'll have found something. I've already started working on my portfolio and my demo reel, and bought supplies so I can start making DVDs of my work. I've nearly finished designing my business cards; I'll send them out to be printed on Monday.

Thanks for the comments, guys- I'm in a bit of a weird situation because what I'm doing now is contract work. So it's not like if I found another job between now and January, I'd be able to give my 2 weeks notice and take it-- I HAVE to stay where I am and finish out the season. And most jobs in this field are so short-term (usually lasting between 3 weeks and 3 months) that if I found another job, I wouldn't be able to tell them "yeah, I can start in the middle of January". If someone's trying to fill a position, they're trying to fill it _yesterday_.

Well, we'll see if this turns out to be a good or bad thing. I may be posting here in March, whining, "Why did I start an IRA??? If I hadn't done that, I'd have money now!!"... Or, it might turn out the opposite way... and in 40 years I might be saying "good thing I started that IRA when I did!" I guess I'll just have to wait and see. But right now, it's making me feel more like a financially responsible adult, and that can only be a good thing.