I am a lot like Kerri Strug.

Remember the 1996 Olympic Games, when gymnast Kerri had to perform a second vault on an injured ankle in order to clinch the U.S. gold? Remember the drama–how she limped to the end of the runway? How she nailed the vault, landing neatly on both feet for one nanosecond before collapsing in pain? Remember how her coach Béla Károlyi carried her onto the podium to receive her gold medal? It was thrilling! Riveting! Patriotic!

…Kind of like my ascent to personal finance supremacy. (You may have noticed that throughout this series, I have made many bombastic comparisons. i.e., I’m the Rosie the Riveter of personal finance; I’m the Daniel “Rudy” Ruettiger of personal finance; I’m the Unsinkable Molly Brown of personal finance. What can I say? I just love a good historical/pop culture reference.)

Six weeks after I began following the plan outlined in Ramit Sethi’s peerless book I Will Teach You to Be Rich, I feel…well, I feel a lot like I’ve fallen in love. I feel happier, giddier, lighter of step. I also feel somewhat smug. This is because I can now go about my business with a daily worry load that is 82% lighter, because I now have full control over my finances. I know what accounts my money goes to and what bills are being automatically paid. I know that my money’s growing in my high-interest online savings account, my Roth IRA, and my investments. I know I’m not paying unnecessary fees–and, best of all, I know that any leftover cash is mine to spend as I please.

(And, boy, do I have plans for that fun money! Namely, this, this, or this.)

But–lest you think this is the end of the road–I do not wish to mislead. Though the best part about Ramit’s approach to personal finance is that it requires very little tinkering after the initial six-week period, it’s not completely hands-off. I’ll still monitor my checking account to prevent overdrafting, take a look at my credit card statement to ensure all charges are accurate, adjust my contributions to my 401(k), etc. But the effort this will require is minimal–and infinitely more bearable now that the foundations for fiscal peace of mind are all in place.

So, the stage is set. The audience waits with bated breath for the rise of the curtain. The instruments of my future wealth are finely tuned. As I look bemusedly back at my monetarily ignorant past, and ahead to a secure yet unknowable future, I recall the words of the great Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore: “And now, Harry, let us step out into the night and pursue that flighty temptress, adventure.”

Ramit Sethi would kill me if he knew how my own dithering and futzing are preventing me from taking the first-place trophy in the Personal Finance Derby.

That’s me in the back, not taking the lead.

Sethi, author of I Will Teach You to Be Rich, which I have for the past 5 weeks taken as my money-management manifesto, rightly points out that nothing should stand in the way of young people’s accumulation of wealth right this minute. As Sethi puts it so convincingly, “…there’s not going to be a magic day when you win a million dollars or ‘have enough time’ to figure out your finances. You said that three years ago! Managing your money has to be a priority if you ever want to be in a better situation than you are today.”

But, Ramit, I must pause here and plead my case. I’m going to an OUT-OF-TOWN WEDDING this weekend and I had planned to make the necessary preparations last weekend but then there was a HURRICANE and the ENTIRE NEW YORK CITY PUBLIC TRANSIT SYSTEM WAS SHUT DOWN, so I couldn’t leave my borough, which resulted in my scrambling this week to buy shoes, handbag, etc., all while balancing a jam-packed work/social/class schedule. (I’m currently taking a class in improv comedy.)

My cousin and his fiancée. They look so happy, how could you NOT drop everything else in your life in anticipation of their nuptials?!

So, Ramit, can I please get a mulligan this week? I know I just took one in Week 4, but it’s SUMMER and the past month has been an endless string of celebrations and hurrying to wring the season of every last drop of frivolity. Plus–and I know this will come as a shock–I’m human, and I sometimes put things off. But if you’ll give me a free pass this week, I promise I’ll even read Chapter 6 (The Myth of Financial Expertise) on the bus ride to Boston.

OK? Great. Here comes the bride! (And her soon-to-be cousin-in-law, aka me, aka the future Unsinkable Molly Brown* of her era.)

*Remember Molly Brown, the character played by Kathy Bates in Titanic? The loud, brash-but-endearing one who was the object of sneers from the other first-class passengers because she possessed “new” money, as opposed to a giant inheritance? That’s going to be me. And you better believe that I’ll lend Jack Dawson a tux when the times comes.

…with barely a speck of athletic ability (true), but now my prowess in matters financial makes up for all that.

I think Coach Devine says it best…

No one, and I mean NO ONE, comes into our house and pushes us around! Not the brick-and-mortar banks who try to nickel-and-dime us with fees! Not the credit card companies who charge ludicrous interest rates on our balances (which we shouldn’t be carrying, anyway)! And, most especially, not our own bad habits, like when we convince ourselves that we don’t earn enough money to invest (with a discount brokerage you can open a Roth IRA with just $50!) .

I’m in the fourth quarter (aka Week 5) of the 6-week plan to financial literacy outlined by Ramit Sethi in I Will Teach You to Be Rich. The clock is running low, but Team Erin is ahead by 28. And I’m about to sack the quarterback, in a manner of speaking.

This week, per Ramit’s pep talk, I created an Automatic Money Flow that will manage my money for me. All my accounts are linked, so that my 401(k) contribution is taken out of my paycheck before I ever see it. Then my paycheck is direct-deposited into my brick-and-mortar checking account. From there, I’ve set up automatic transfers: my checking account funds my Roth IRA and my high-interest online savings account and pays my credit card bill. I use my credit card to pay my utilities bill. What’s left is free for me to spend as I please. As Ramit puts it, “Once it’s set up, this system is so hands-off that if you got eaten alive by a Komodo dragon, your money system would continue transferring money from account to account by default, a ghostlike reminder of your financial prescience. Haunting, but cool.”

Not as thrilling as being carried off the field after recording the first and only stat of my college football career—but so EASY PEASY that it makes me wonder why someone hasn’t written an inspirational personal finance film based on my life.

(For those who are interested, Notre Dame’s first game of the season, vs. South Florida, is next Saturday at 3:30 p.m. GO IRISH!)

According to Catholic tradition, sometime between A.D. 98 and A.D. 117, St. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, was ordered by Roman Emperor Trajan to suffer a gruesome death among the wild beasts in the Roman Coliseum. It is said that the letters Ignatius wrote before his demise are “redolent with the spirit of Christian charity, apostolic zeal, and pastoral solicitude.”

Totally gratuitous photo of my friends and me at the actual Coliseum.

A more recent blogging tradition tells the tale of Erin, Assistant Editor of Workman, who in the year A.D. 2011 embarked on a similarly harrowing personal journey of self-mortification–but this was mortification of the wallet, not the flesh. Comparatively gruesome (but with a happier ending), Erin of Workman’s journey reached its apex in the creation of a conscious spending plan as advocated by personal finance guru Ramit Sethi, who is much nicer than Emperor Trajan, and also better looking. It is said that Sethi’s book I Will Teach You to Be Rich is “smart, bold, and practical. I Will Teach You to Be Rich is packed with tips that actually work” (J.D. Roth, editor, GetRichSlowly.org). Now those are virtues I can relate to.

Like Moses bringing forth water from a rock, I wrought my conscious spending plan (CSP) from years of neglect and worry over the state of my financial affairs. But when I hit Week 4 of Sethi’s 6-week plan, I couldn’t evade it any longer. I was about to step into the lion’s den–the jungle I had so weepingly anticipated in Week 1′s post.

Despite Ramit’s repeated assurances that a CSP is not a budget, I knew that devising one meant I would have to face the reality of the “spending” money I fritter away on little things like a sandwich here and there, and big things like a Banana Republic factory store shopping spree here and there. And I did face the reality, and though I was not happy to do so, I discovered some important things: 1) I CAN save money for my retirement, long-term, and short-term accounts, even under the yoke of New York City rent, and 2) my dad, as I shared in Week 2′s post, is freakishly on point about many matters of money management, having utilized Ramit’s envelope system long before Ramit made it explode in popularity. (That was hyperbole. But, seriously, try the envelope thing. It’s an extremely literal and simple way to delegate your spending money. It’s on page 115.)

In line with my new tradition of paying myself first, my next big vacation may be less Coliseum and more this…

But I think I can deal with that. There, the only animals are on the casino floor.

It’s hard to believe I’ve already reached Week 4 of the six-week plan to financial independence laid out in Ramit Sethi’s I Will Teach You to Be Rich. This week, I was supposed to create a conscious spending plan. Ha. That’s what Alanis Morissette would call “ironic,” because the past week’s circumstances have resulted in my being nothing short of frivolous with my accumulating wealth. Basically, the beginning of August has been an Olympic triathlon of birthdays.

Let’s review the many happy reasons for my falling off the wagon, financially-speaking:

Saturday: Happy birthday to my (little) sister Kasey! (24 already!?)

Monday: My birthday! (Ahem. A lady never reveals her age.)

Tuesday: Feliz cumpleaños to my lovely friend Jen! (Also 24!)

Wednesday:  Happy birthday to funny man Grant! (The big three-oh!)

Add to the festivities a friend’s going-away party and my dad’s birthday this Friday, and you have a two-week span that’s long on celebration and short on time for the serious consideration of monetary matters. I’ll get back into the swing of things next week, so be sure to check back! And happy birthday to all the August babies! (Including Workman’s own Generation T(eacher), Megan Nicolay!)

I never thought it would be so simple and so painless to set up systems that enable me to automatically save and grow my money. Honestly, had I known that such an anxiety-free existence was within my reach, I could have gone from this…

…to this…

…much earlier in life!

(What can I say? I look good in a knit beanie.)

But here I am, halfway through the six-week plan to financial literacy outlined in Ramit Sethi’s superbly useful book I Will Teach You to Be Rich. If you’ll recall, as I anticipated beginning the program, I was quite downcast. But as I’ve completed each week’s tasks, my whole outlook has changed. In week 1, I—who had been living within my means but jeopardizing my chances of getting good interest rates on future loans—bellied up to the bar and signed up for my first credit card (with the help of a friendly representative at my neighborhood bank). In week 2, I opened a high-interest savings account at an online bank, where I’ll be earning a dramatic .50-.95% more than I would if my money were sitting in a brick-and-mortar bank. And now, in Week 3 (Get Ready to Invest), I’ve upped my automatic contributions to my 401(k) in order to take advantage of my employer match—and I opened a Roth IRA and began funding it.

You may be reading this and assuming that I’m a kazillionaire. I regret to inform you that I am not. And I think it will take a few weeks for me to adjust my contributions to my savings account and investments—now that I’ve increased those contributions, my take-home pay will be lower, and I’ll need to strike a balance between saving and investing aggressively while still covering my living expenses and having fun. But now that I’ve actually taken steps toward financial literacy, finding that balance will be a whole lot easier. And I just can’t overstate how relieved I feel to have actually taken those steps. For years, I worried about money, but felt so unequipped to manage my own money properly that I was paralyzed by the attempt. And look at me now! Tossing the terms investments and Roth IRA casually about, as if I had a poufy combover on my forehead and a reality show wherein cutthroat businesspeople compete to be my apprentice.

Well, Trump, you’re officially on notice. This girl is set on a path to overtake you in the arena of financial domination—and I’ve got much better taste.

Last week I introduced my plan to become financially literate (and financially zen) by following the 6-week program outlined in Ramit Sethi’s hip book I Will Teach You to Be Rich. In my introductory post, I wrote of the preemptive agony I felt at the prospect of having to learn how to invest and how to create a conscious spending plan. In a nod to pop culture, I even said that I expected the experience to be about as fun as Harry Potter’s final battle with Lord Voldemort.

Well, during Week 2 (Beat the Banks), I found that optimizing my bank accounts is not all doom and gloom after all. In fact, the simple step of taking action—last week signing up for a credit card, and this week opening a high-interest online savings account—has made me feel powerful…unstoppable…INVINCIBLE. I’m basically the Rosie the Riveter of personal finance.

Her bulging biceps are almost as big as the nest egg I’m about to grow.

Not even a monstrous insect on the lam could stop me from completing my Week 2 task. That’s right: Last night, as I was sitting on the sofa, laptop at the ready, I caught sight of some movement out of the corner of my eye. I whipped my head around to take a look, already feeling a sense of dread wash over me. There it was: an insect the size of Moby Dick, lumbering calmly across my living room floor. It had wings. And I was the only one home. This is an example of what I like to call Erin’s Law: Giant bionic roaches and other fearsome creatures will only invade one’s home when all of one’s roommates are out, leaving one alone and defenseless in the face of the beast.

(Disclaimer: I’m not normally so skittish about bugs. A ‘fraidy cat I am not. But when they look like they could topple furniture, I think that is cause for alarm.)

Luckily, I was able to keep the beast at bay (by standing 10 feet away and trash-talking it aggressively) long enough for my roommates to come home and help me vanquish it (Jen trapped it under a bowl, slid a magazine between the bowl and the floor, and calmly carried it outside. Alive.) After it was safely out of sight, I could get back to business: the business of earning more money.

In I Will Teach You to Be Rich, Ramit advocates online banks like ING Direct and Emigrant Direct. These banks have eliminated overhead—meaning they have no branches, no tellers, and spend very little money on marketing. They pass this savings on to their customers in the form of lower fees (or no fees at all) and higher interest rates. Take ING, for example. When I compared ING’s Orange Savings Account with the savings accounts offered by my neighborhood bank, I found that the neighborhood bank offers an interest rate of between .01% and .50%. At the end of a year, the amount of money you’d earn at that rate is squat compared to ING’s average 1.00% rate. The best part about ING is that their account is simple and straightforward. Even their account disclosures (which are normally so long and tedious, you’d rather do anything—even clean the frathouse bathroom after an all-night rager—then read them) are written in plain English. Everything is explained up front.

Besides ING and Emigrant, HSBC also offers a great account with a high interest rate. The way I see it, you just can’t go wrong with one of these babies. And I would know, for I am Erin, Woman of Action and Purpose (well, maybe not when it comes to bugs).

It’s no secret that I love Tina Fey. My favorite chapter in her book Bossypants was devoted entirely to her father, Don. She writes, “My dad has visited me at work over the years, and I’ve noticed that powerful men react to him in a weird way. They ‘stand down.’ The first time Lorne Michaels met my dad, he said afterward, ‘Your father is impressive.’”

That’s Don Fey.

Well, Lorne, I think it’s high time you met my dad, Bruce. (This is all going to tie into credit cards, I promise.)

That’s Bruce in the center. He kindled that fire.

Because of his natural tendency to be boss, Bruce sometimes does dad-ly things. For instance: One evening in high school, a young man (now a good friend) came to pick me up for a date. (We were going to see Finding Nemo.) I made sure to still be upstairs when this young man arrived, so that I could make a grand entrance. Well, years later I found out that before I got downstairs, my dad actually pulled this young man aside and interrogated him à la dads on sitcoms: He made my date confirm that he would have me home by 10. He may have actually uttered the words, “What are your intentions regarding my daughter?”

So you understand that my dad is just looking out for my best interest when he says, “Credit card companies are out to get you. They’re just looking to get your money.” Naturally, my dad is right. In fact, credit card companies are so notorious for nickle-and-dimeing their customers that the federal government has stepped in on numerous occasions, enacting laws to reign in the companies’ evil ways.

Nevertheless, if you want to save lots of money over the long term, you need good credit. I learned this as I embarked upon Week 1 (Optimize Your Credit Cards) of the 6-week program to financial literacy outlined in Ramit Sethi’s I Will Teach You to Be Rich.

“Our largest purchases are almost always made on credit,” Ramit writes, “and people with good credit save tens of thousands of dollars on their purchases. Credit has a far greater impact on your finances than saving a few dollars a day on a cup of coffee.”

But, Ramit, can it be? Is this really true?

Yes, he says: “If you have good credit, it makes you less risky to lenders, meaning they can offer a better interest rate on loans.” And though I’m not looking to pay for a wedding or buy a house anytime soon, I know that, someday, I might do both. And you say all I have to do to save thousands of dollars in future interest is pay my bill on time each month, not carry a balance, and get my APR lowered and all fees waived? No problem. After all: I’ve never had a credit card.

Believe it, folks. I have managed to live out three post-graduate years without the aid of a credit card. As far as living within my means goes, I’ve made Bruce proud. However, such a scenario does not bode well for aforementioned hypothetical Big Expenses. Of course, perhaps this hypothetical Mr. Right and I will decide to elope. And perhaps we’ll raise our family in a (fabulous, sprawling) rent-controlled New York City apartment, instead of in a house with a mortgage. Regardless: There will still be costs. Furniture. Vacations. Baby strollers. We might need that loan. And in order to get it, I’m going to need that credit.

Which is why I headed to my bank, where Ramit told me I’d find the simplest credit cards for beginners like me. I signed up. I plan to make my dad even prouder: I’m gonna pay that bill in full every month with my future Tahitian vacation in mind. Here’s to you, Dad.

It would seem that, when it comes to personal finance, I have an appetite for (self-)destruction. Three years after college graduation, my levels of anxiety about money are so high that I wake up sweating clammily in my air-conditioned room. Every suggestion made casually by a friend—from the most innocuous (“Let’s grab a drink”) to the more obviously costly (“We should all go to Atlantic City for the weekend!”)—sets off a chain reaction of panic, as my brain struggles to ascertain whether my completely unmanaged budget allows such an indulgence. To dispense with hyperbole: I don’t live beyond my means, per se—I consciously try to limit splurges like dinner out, $12 martinis, and $85 theater tickets to a show that’s basically an extravagant, multilevel, live-action game of Clue played in a restored mansion (be still my theater-geek heart!). But neither do I have a real sense of exactly where my money’s going, and how I can save enough to eliminate worry about the future while still living comfortably in an urban area teeming with tasty, trendy temptations.

In fact, the prospect of delving into the jungle of my finances is so odious that I intend to keep a picture of a certain dashing someone in front of me at all times, in order to remind myself of the finer things in life (and while that thing may now be Rachel Weisz’s, it is still fine).

The name’s Bond. Savings Bond.

Luckily, I’ve turned to another dashing someone for help in this agonizing endeavor. His name is Ramit Sethi, and he is the author of the approachably genius, relentlessly practical, and very funny personal finance guide for twenty- and thirtysomethings I Will Teach You to Be Rich. After many false starts, I have finally succumbed to the call of this neon tome and decided to embark upon Ramit’s 6-week plan to financial literacy. Not that I’m happy about it, mind you. There are many, many things I’d rather do than think about money. Among them: Wax my kitchen floor. Ballroom dance with an emphysemic octogenarian. Cover myself with honey and roll around in a nest of fire ants.

You get the idea.

Quite honestly, I fully expect this experience to be about as fun as Harry’s final battle with Lord Voldemort. I’m right-brained—an English major (creative writing minor) by education, an assistant editor by trade. In the back of my mind, I know what actions I should be taking financially—regularly sending money to savings and retirement accounts, for example, and creating a budget so that I’m not frittering my money away on fun stuff. But savings accounts have pretty low interest rates—should I also be investing? I’ve heard that I should have a Roth IRA even though I’ve got a 401(K)—is that true? And what about the stock market—should I even go near it?? Nononononono cerebral meltdown aaaaAAAHHHhhhh….!

Luckily, Ramit realizes that many of us (me!) get overwhelmed thinking we (me!) need to manage our (my!) money perfectly, which leads us to do nothing at all. So he proposes an 85% solution, encouraging us to act and get it 85% right rather than do nothing at all. “Think about it,” Ramit writes, “85% of the way is far better than 0 percent. Once your money system is good enough—or 85% of the way there—you can get on with your life and go do the things you really want to do.” I think this guy just read my mind. Plus, I appreciate his tough-love approach—he doesn’t hesitate to call us out on our tendency to blame other people and circumstances for our fiscal ignorance. Ramit feels like the real thing.

But the bottom line is: I’ll be 26 soon. It’s more than time to get a handle on this stuff. So join me as I take on this Herculean challenge. Week 1′s post on optimizing your credit cards goes up tomorrow. (And I promise you, it’s not nearly as mind-numbingly boring as you might think.)

“After reading this book,” Ramit writes, “you’ll be better prepared to manage your finances than 99 percent of other people in their twenties and early thirties. You’ll know what accounts to open up, ways not to pay your bank extra fees, how to invest, how to think about money, and how to see through a lot of the hype that you see on TV and in magazines every day.”

Sounds like a recipe for exactly what I’m looking for—peace of mind. Ramit, teach me to be rich. If all goes as planned, at the end of these six weeks, I expect to find myself living in Paradise City.

The holidays are in full swing, but if you’re anything like me you’re probably still struggling to figure out what to get many of the people on your list. Well look no further, because Workman employees have very helpfully told me what they’re getting for their loved ones, and when I put it all together I got (drum-roll please) the 2010 Workman Holiday Gift Guide Extravaganzaaaa!

That’s right—it’s the ultimate gift-giving resource, divided into three easy parts. This morning’s installation is all about gifts for Kids and Kids-at-Heart. So go ahead: Consult the list to find the perfect gift for even your hardest-to-shop-for friends and relatives. Then stay tuned for part two, The Grown-Ups’ Table, and part three, Might-as-Well-Be-Family Friends, coming up later today and tomorrow morning.  Plus, if you’ve got any suggestions for other holiday present-shoppers, leave them in the comments!

For Kids and Kids-at-Heart:

• “I am giving my 1-year-old son Henry Indestructibles: Jungle Rumble! because in the past month he has become a messenger of mayhem. He especially loves ripping up paper, so I’m going to thwart him with this title. Winner: Mama!” —Camille
• “I’m giving Potato Chip Science to my cousins, because they learn best when they are hands-on!” —Cristina
• “My niece is getting Amazing Cows, because she swears by Sandra Boynton, and swears when she doesn’t get Sandra Boynton books.” —Randall
• “My 7-year-old daughter is obsessing over TV ads for the latest toy craze, “Teacup Piggies.” Santa can give her the trashy toy; I’m putting the Pocket Pigs calendar under the tree so she can have real-live cuteness long after the batteries die (and count for herself how many days it is until her birthday!).” —Page
• “My brother gets the Who Farted? Calendar. Yes, he’s in his late 50s, but he’s a pediatrician, so he said he’d put it in his examination room at the hospital and it would really break the ice with new patients.” —Beth
• “I’m giving Doodle: A Chalkboard Calendar to my daughter, to tell her how much I appreciate her goofy creativity. And I Will Teach You to Be Rich goes to my son, who’s just out of college and in a job that pays less than publishing … I’m a Ramit Sethi convert, and I think my son will worry about money less if he automates it more.” —Suzie
• “My youngest sister’s getting a copy of The Girls’ Guide to Rocking, because not much rocks harder than a girl drummer. My other sister will love playing all the ridiculous games in The Games Bible with her new college friends.” —Avery
• “I’ll give Generation T and Generation T: Beyond Fashion to my creative niece, who aspires to be a fashion designer. And thought I’d package it with a few blank T-shirts to get her started!” —Kathy
• “I’m giving Beautiful Oops! (not just for kids!) to an aged hippie grandmother friend who relentlessly “embraces” creativity wherever and however she finds it. Which is everywhere.

Keep your eye on this space for Part 2: The Grown-Ups’ Table, coming this afternoon!