Man, sometimes I just do the dumbest things on a quiet, rainy Saturday afternoon. Like spending three solid hours trying to figure out if an old, dusty star chart from five years ago had any bearing on my bank account. Seriously, I went down the rabbit hole. It all started because I finally got around to cleaning out that huge cardboard box of cables, receipts, and random junk I’d been hauling around since I moved three times ago.
I stumbled on this ridiculous receipt from a terrible side job I had way back in early 2018. February 12th, to be exact. I was selling cheap personalized mugs outside a tiny convention center, freezing my butt off and barely making minimum wage. That whole month was a chaotic blur of just trying to scrape cash together for the deposit on a new apartment.
It brought back this weird memory of my buddy, Tina. Tina was super into zodiac stuff, like obsessed. She used to spam my inbox with these long, dramatic monthly forecasts she got from some obscure website. I specifically remembered her sending me the Virgo one for that February, right when I was agonizing over whether to throw some money at a stupid, brand-new crypto coin I’d just heard about.
The moment that memory hit, I couldn’t stop. I had to know what that stupid forecast said, and then I had to check it against the absolute proof—my old financial statements. This whole project quickly became a deep dive into my archival digital mess. And let me tell you, my digital life is a total junkyard. It’s what you’d call a full-on hot mess, using three different tools to do one job. Complete chaos.
The Great Email Archeological Dig: Finding the Forecast
First, I had to dig into my ancient Gmail account—the one I only use for spam sign-ups and old receipts. Took me 20 minutes just to remember the password and get past the two-factor authentication because I changed my phone three times since then. What a nightmare.
- I typed in the keywords: “Tina Virgo Feb 2018.”
- BAM. There it was. The subject line was something completely unhinged, exactly like the ones she used to send: “MAJOR FINANCIAL SHIFT ALERT! READ THIS NOW! VIRGO MONTHLY!”
- I opened the email and quickly scrolled through the text. The horoscope itself was classic vague, dramatic stuff. It essentially said: “Beware a sudden, unnecessary loss during the first half of the month tied to a relationship, but a small, careful risk taken after the 20th will bear unexpected, small, sweet fruit.”
I read it twice, laughing a little bit at how intense it sounded. Now, to the important part: the cold, hard numbers.
Retrieving the Actual Numbers: My Financial Hot Mess
Finding the horoscope was the easy part. My actual financial records from that month? That’s where the real wrestling match started. I don’t use fancy, integrated finance software. In 2018, my system was just a mix of broken, inconsistent methods. It was a system built entirely on technical debt, basically.
- I logged into three different bank apps. One bank for my rent and bills, one for my savings, and one tiny online bank where I kept my side-hustle cash. Three different systems to check one month’s activity. Drives me crazy thinking about it.
- I downloaded the PDF statements for all three. They never match up neatly, and I had to spend another 30 minutes aligning the dates.
- I pulled up my old, clunky Excel file, the one I swore I’d keep updated but completely abandoned two months later. I had a few entries in there that didn’t match the bank statements, which made the whole thing a guessing game.
I spent another hour stitching the numbers together to see what my net movement—my actual gain or loss—was between February 1st and February 28th, 2018. It felt exactly like trying to get three different development teams to agree on an API format. Pure, frustrating chaos.
The Tally, the Truth, and the Vague Confirmation
Okay, so here is the final score. Did the stars predict my financial life?
What the horoscope predicted: Unexpected cost tied to a relationship early on. Small risk pays off late in the month.
What actually happened:
- The Unexpected Cost (Early Feb): I didn’t lose a relationship or a partner, but I did pay a massive, stupid fine to my old landlord because I had completely forgotten to change the utility accounts over when I moved a few months earlier. It was a horrible, stupid $400 mistake. So, unexpected cost? Check. But for the most boring, most human, idiotic reason possible. Not the stars, just my poor memory.
- The Risk/Small Win (After Feb 20th): The forecast said a risk taken would pay off. I remembered I had finally decided to buy $500 worth of that ridiculous crypto coin because Tina was hyping it so badly. I actually bought it on February 22nd.
- The Aftermath: I was super impatient. I held onto that coin for exactly seven weeks because I started panicking. I sold it in early April for $375. That’s not a small win, that’s a 25% loss.
My Conclusion on Stargazing Finance
The whole stupid exercise proved something I already knew, but it was still wild to see it laid out like this. When you are desperately looking for confirmation, you will always find it. The horoscope was so vague, yet my brain immediately retroactively connected the vague predictions to the concrete events. “Unexpected cost”? Sure, my bad memory cost me $400. Not the stars. I just needed to find something that fit.
I realized the real “financial forecast” I needed to check and fix wasn’t one from a website. It was my own behavior. My finance system was a total shambles, relying on three banks and a half-done spreadsheet. That’s the technical debt I should be worried about paying down, not whether a planet is moving into retrograde.
But here’s the absolute punchline to this whole mess: That stupid crypto coin that cost me money? Tina, the friend who sent me the forecast, kept hers. She sold hers six months later for a massive profit. She was right about the investment and I was just an impatient idiot who panicked and sold early. So maybe the stars were right, and I was just a terrible follower. See? Even when you try to debunk it, the uncertainty hangs around. Anyway, I think I’ll check my May 2019 forecast next weekend. Stay organized, people, unlike your favorite blogger here.
