EPIC. PURGE.

30+ years of extant pay stubs, boxes of checks from banks that no longer exist, investment statements from companies that long ago dissolved, oversize document packets from multiple refinanced mortgages, receipts from the days when they included complete credit-card numbers, tax documents older that the magic save-for-seven-years rule, rolled-over insurance policies, vested and cashed-in company stock options, long-forgotten parking tickets, repair documents for cars that no doubt now rust in junkyards, and even three neatly folded and carefully notarized wills from before I decided to leave everything I own to the Melania Trump Be Best Foundation For Whatever The Hell Be Best Is Supposed To Mean.

I know lots of it is perfectly safe to be dumped in our recycle bin, but I decided I’d feel safer if all of it were destroyed, so every piece of paper and possibly compromising detail of my life is now locked in a secure container and headed off to be brutally shredded—all for the low, low price of $1 per pound.

I won’t even tell you that it weighed in at a whopping 77 pounds and force you to do the math in your head. But I’m definitely keeping the receipt for the next 30 years.

I’ve spent my evening epic-purging my clothes and shoes, and then—obvs—rainbow-organizing my First-World-obscene shoe collection ... all while rocking out to the Full Monty cast recording on repeat. As one does.

A brief docent-led tour:

Above: as top-down rainbowy as I could organize my running/athletic shoes, with rows of white and black on the bottom. All topped off with a size-large Jake the Drake Beanie Baby, which I bought as an investment in place of opening any IRAs or 401(k)s.

*taps head to show how good he is with money*

Also above: as top-town casual-to-formal as I could organize my Converse-genre sneaks, with my forlorn dress shoes on the bottom wishing in vain that I’ll someday have a reason to dress above my demimonde station. A disorganized basket of flip-flops sits to the left, along with an ugly antique ladder I’ve cleverly repurposed as a belt holder. My gym towels perch on top. Because I had no idea where else to put them.

This is my consumerist shame.

And so it's here:

the dawn of my eternal darkness ... the wrinkles in my time ... the hips that creak and the ears that hair and the jowls that droop and go dry ... the show tunes that go flat and the exclamation points that reproduce unchecked and the blush of eternal youth that circles precariously toward the drain ...

It's the month of my 50th birthday.

And here's what I want for my birthday present: Nothing. Less than nothing, actually; I'd really love to have some impartial eyes help me go through the mountains of stuff I have and decide what all I should give to someone who needs it more than I do.

But if you really want to buy something to commemorate my half century, please do this: Buy something for someone who really needs it.

We're all just one degree away from a kid who can't afford school lunches, a person who needs a mattress pad and fresh sheets to cover a bare mattress, or a family who needs a new refrigerator. So I ask for my 50th birthday that you look around you to find a person or a situation in need of financial help you can provide ... or maybe volunteer help you can offer like babysitting in an emergency or painting a room or taking an ill family member to the doctor ... or maybe professional help you can give pro bono like writing a resume and cover letter or fixing an unreliable car or helping a struggling family organize its finances and set up long-term investments.

You decide if it's something you should buy or do quietly or if perhaps you should discuss it in a way that might inspire other people to follow your lead. No matter what you decide, you'll be giving me and someone I don't even know a truly meaningful way to help me celebrate my 50th birthday. And that means more than I could ever thank you for.

#HowToTurn50

Earning interest

I just had my annual review with my financial advisor, and he’s mapped out a number of highly plausible scenarios where as long as I meet certain milestones regarding retirement and Social Security I’ll be able to live comfortably until I’m 92, which is awesome because 92 WHAT THE HELL 92 I DON’T WANT TO LIVE TO BE 92 ACK KILL ME NOW INSTEAD NOW NOW NOW!

Then I came home to Bitch Kitty shifting her feline wiles into ovpurrdrive trying to get me to come close to her and let my guard down under the pretense of getting to rub her irresistibly furry tummy and finally be her friend only so she could shatter my illusions of mammal-kingdom self-worth by abruptly hissing at me and ripping my veins out. Which would at least save me from living to be 92.

I also just like saying "avuncular"

My little (well, little 6'75") nephew leaves for college tomorrow. And while I feel I have not yet completed my sacred avuncular duty to fully corrupt him before he heads out into the world, I have done something much more useful for him: a 529 college savings plan.

529 plans are investment accounts designed to provide tax-free -- TAX-FREE! -- interest when the dividends are used to pay for qualifying educational expenses including tuition, fees, books and even room and board. There are hundreds of 529 plan options, all administered by the states -- so there are varying regulations regarding everything from investment allocations and reallocations to qualified plan administers to offset eligibility for financial aid. But 529s are ultimately a smart way to invest in and save for the education of any child in your extended family.

My financial adviser didn't tell me about 529s until my nephew was four, but I immediately opened an account for him and started auto-depositing $25 a month into it. Then I waited until my niece was four to open one for her just to keep things even. Then a different financial adviser told me to merge the two accounts into one to possibly help the pool of money accumulate more interest, so now my niece and nephew are obligated to have a grueling dance-off to see how to divide the combined earnings.

But look how much I've saved for them over the last 14 years. And I still have seven more years of deposits to make until my niece graduates from college.

I don't mean to sound like an infomercial, but if you have kids of almost any age in your extended family, talk to a financial adviser and start throwing a few bucks a month into a 529 plan that's right for your financial situation. You may not be able to send the kids to college corrupted by every tasteless joke you've ever heard, but you can potentially give them a financial cushion for their real education.

Excavating my room

The girl on the Lincoln Logs container looks like she's wrapped her hair on a toilet-paper tube and perched it on her head as though that were an acceptable way to spend all eternity building houses that I'm sorry but Lincoln never would have fit in. That's Jake the Drake -- my eponymous investment Beanie Baby -- in the center. I'm holding on to him for a few more years until his value tops $10K and then I'm gonna exit the accord and unload him. Buy low, sell high! I have no recollection of the book on the right but I'm sure it made me gay. Thank goodness I had those manly Lincoln Logs as an antidote.

Why are his trousers vermilion?

After work tonight I made a trip to my packed-to-the-rafters-with-everything-and-I-mean-everything-I-owned-in-Chicago-when-I-moved-home-two-and-a-half-years-ago storage locker with the faint hope of opening a handful of 30+ boxes and stumbling on four long-buried things: my passport, my running medals, my running bibs and some sort of documentation that shows the cost basis for some meager investments I made 30 years ago with a man who's no longer alive at a company that no longer exists.

Do NOT get me started on the cost basis documentation ... or the fact that it doesn't automatically follow your investments on their inevitable journeys through endless cycles of portfolio selloffs and acquisitions and companies that cease to exist. DO. NOT.

But! Look at everything I DID find:

• My passport!
• My running medals! Which may or may not be jumbled up with a few random disco-ball necklaces!
• My running bibs!
• Plus! Clockwise from the top:
• Cards Against Humanity!
• A little figurine I bought in Barcelona 15 years ago of a folklorical boy squatting over a tiny, fresh pile of childish bad taste! Because why not!
• A $25 IHOP gift card!
• The abovementioned bibs and medals and disco balls and passport and let's get back to the fun stuff
• Long-forgotten-but-still-very-gay Broadway CDs!
• A dented York Peppermint Patty!
• BONUS! A pair of so-gay-they-make-their-own-obscure-Sondheim-references vermilion jeans that can't possibly have ever fit over my hips because right now they look like they won't even fit over what's left of my pride

There's also a massive unopened box sitting right next to me AS WE SPEAK labeled "summer clothes and shoes" that holds the promise of overflowing with something magical and/or even-more-pride-crushing since it was packed and sealed over two years and two waist sizes ago. I'd tell you I won't open it until later when it's not late and I'm not tired but we all know I'll be ripping into it before I even finish writing this po

Passive aggressive

The first horseman of the apocalypse has stomped its fearsome hooves and bellowed its ominous whinny; my investment guy just recommended that I downgrade my investment strategy from aggressive to moderate. Which is what people do to lessen the short-term risk of their financial holdings when they're about to become old and retire and die die die like a dead person who's died.

If you need me, I'll be standing here with one foot in this grave.