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10 Money Moves We’re Making This Summer
School’s out for summer! To-do lists are shorter. Days are longer. And I’m actually sticking to my word and not teaching summer school. While that certainly makes room for relaxation, summer is also the perfect time for us to make some new money moves. Here’s our plan:
Why I Prefer Extra Income to Emergency Funds
The calendar invite notification chirped. There it sat in my mailbox. A 9:00 am meeting appointment for three days from now with my boss. No subject. No agenda. No explanation. Despite having just completed my summative evaluation where I earned the highest rankings, I automatically assumed I was about to be fired or transferred or … [Read more…]
Should I Feel Guilty for Accepting Hand-Me-Downs?
It started with a box of Weebles. A coworker of mine loaded up a small Amazon box with a few dozen pear-shaped plastic creatures. My name was scrawled on the box in permanent marker. At first I thought it was to keep Weeble thieves away. What I realize now, though, was that it was a … [Read more…]
What is Frugality? No, Really.
As of late, frugality has come under fire. I should know. I took one of the shots. Recently, though, I have also seen other personal finance writers throw some jabs at frugality. They pulled no punches. A lot of it was ugly, and it was downright incorrect in some instances, which leads me to wonder … [Read more…]
Let’s Talk Money, Baby: Fitting Baby into Our Budget
Kids are expensive. I’m going down swinging. But how expensive they are does have some variability. In fact, when it comes to caring for an infant, we have found that we can fit him into our regular budget. This excludes the cost of childcare, of course. Hence why I’m still swinging. But looking back on … [Read more…]
Will A Little Bit Always Matter A Lot?
Less may be more in a lot of respects, but when it comes to personal finance, more is definitely better. Ideas should be scalable. Why double when you can 10X? In a world so focused on growing gaps, increasing income, and building entrepreneurial empires, it makes sense to focus on more. Still, after reaching some … [Read more…]
Finding $500: What to do with Extra Income
What would you do if you found an extra $500 in your budget? I mean, after you dry your tears of joy and dance around the kitchen (quietly, though, there’s a baby). After my salary was slaughtered this year thanks to an unpaid maternity leave and a bizarrely written contract that landed me with a … [Read more…]
Four Lessons from My Mom’s Checkbook
For as long as I can remember, my mom has carried around a checkbook. While some might interpret it as an indicator of her age or of someone who needs to learn a thing or two about modern money, that checkbook has so much to teach. And not just about how many times you can … [Read more…]
Four Things I Wish I Knew About Financial Progress
We chat about money. We track our spending. We even make a laughably simple budget every month. (Hello, “Make a Copy” in Google Sheets.) My husband and I have also crushed some major milestones. Some that I’ve celebrated here and others that I haven’t talked about yet. We’ve paid over $80K towards our debt in … [Read more…]