Let’s not sugarcoat this. The pandemic pushed me back onto Facebook. Said another way, I logged onto Facebook on purpose. Repeatedly. In an effort to not totally regret my pandemic-induced poor decision making, I also started hanging out in more personal finance groups. I don’t regret that particular decision. In fact, there’s plenty of knowledge … [Read more…]
To say that this hasn’t been the spring we imagined is an understatement. Our usual free and frugal fun adventures are comprised of library visits, playground adventures, and children’s museum explorations. So when the pandemic and subsequent lockdown more or less shook the Etch-a-Sketch of options clean, we had to rethink what free and frugal … [Read more…]
To say it’s been quite the year is an understatement. And we’re not quite halfway done! I recently heard someone joke that all of us got our 2015 five-year plans wrong. Isn’t that the truth? I don’t think any of us are strangers to curve balls, but what happens when the whole season is cancelled? … [Read more…]
When the pandemic hit, we stopped vacation planning, but we already had our air travel booked for this summer. That meant that I was going to try to do the unthinkable: get my money back from an airline. I honestly never expected that it would happen. But this past week, we got our moolah back! … [Read more…]
How fast can I spend $1200? How fast can we spend $2400? In my mind, I can spend that money in a blink. (In a past life, I probably could have, too, on shoes alone!) But it turns out that we have only spent a fraction of our stimulus check so far. Personal finance is … [Read more…]
If you’re not a stranger to the blog, you probably already know this about me. When I’m stressed, I shop. The same is true for just about any other emotion, too. There’s a lot of talk about the endorphin rush and all the other science-y explanations for why people impulse shop. And those things are … [Read more…]
I haven’t done one of these saved and earned recaps in a while. Why? Because I somehow seem to be one of the only people in the universe whose spending isn’t dramatically less during COVID. Why is staying home so expensive? OK. It could have something to do with the fact that just this morning … [Read more…]
I’m not going to lie. I’m not even sure when I lost sight of my goals this quarter, but I do know that by the time March 31 rolled around, those goals were the last thing on my mind. The fact that I was truly worried about trying to get more sleep and save money … [Read more…]