8 a.m. — Homemade coffee in hand, I walk to my shuttle stop. I live in San Francisco and am currently freelancing for a big tech company in the South Bay as a marketing project manager. The commuter shuttles have Wi-Fi, which means my commute time counts toward my work day, which is a big reason I took the job. I will be the first to say that this job is cushy. At my previous jobs, I often had long hours and was paid much, much less. I'm grateful to be freelancing, especially because of the work-life balance this particular gig affords me. While on the shuttle, I place a trade on Schwab.com, taking the $5,000 I deposited from savings last week and turning it into about 130 ETF stocks. Forgive me if that terminology is wrong. I'm very, very new to this. This is the final step I needed to take to get my account set up so that I can "forget about it" until next year. I feel proud of myself but also slightly terrified I may have chosen the wrong thing. Yay, adulthood!