Chocolate or vanilla? Cake or ice cream? Beach or mountains? Either/or questions might have their place when it comes to icebreakers or dating profiles, but they have also become incredibly pervasive in personal finance. Pay down debt or invest? Grow your income or cut expenses? Donate time or donate money? Focus on little leaks or … [Read more…]
Blame it all on my roots. This doesn’t have anything to do with boots, black-tie affairs, or Garth Brooks. It has everything to do with how I was raised, and I am not sure I have let everyone in on it. In fact, I know I haven’t. If I had, you might think about those … [Read more…]
850. Eight hundred fifty perfect points. It happened for the first time a few months ago: My FICO score hit the fabled 850 mark. It was, in a word, perfection. It also gave me the opportunity to think about how I got a perfect credit score. How I Landed a Perfect Credit Score I shop. … [Read more…]
Drumroll, please! Alright, alright. I don’t really need a drumroll since the title is one giant spoiler alert. Since you already know that we put over $30,000 towards our debt in 2017, let’s take a look at how two millennial teachers raising a newborn did it.
There are two camps in personal finance: those who pay their mortgages early and those who don’t. We are in the first camp. Rather, we were. When we found out I was expecting, we took the interwebs’ advice and stopped making extra payments toward our mortgage, funneling the money into a Baby Fund instead. Now … [Read more…]
This blog post is part of the Suicide Prevention Awareness Month blog tour in partnership with Debt Drop. If you are feeling suicidal, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 or text HOME to 741741. You are not your money or your debt. No matter how many figures show up on your bank … [Read more…]
We’re just past the halfway point in the month, so I wanted to do a quick check in on my September goals. Why? Because, to be quite honest, I’ve been so tired and busy and deliriously happy that I keep giving myself free passes. It’s one thing to let things slide a little bit to … [Read more…]
I talk a lot about money. In fact, I’ve written about it 262 times over the past two years. While I’ve learned a lot, I’m no money expert. I’m also not an expert blogger, so you won’t see anything in this anniversary post related to blogging income (spoiler: it’s in the negatives) or vanity metrics … [Read more…]
There’s no shortage of people doling out advice on the interwebs. In fact, there’s no shortage of advice on this very blog. While I’m long been a proponent of the fact that there’s nothing one-size-fits-all about personal finance, this is the first time I’m going to say something so explicitly. I hope you ignore me—and … [Read more…]
When I first heard the term FIRE, I bristled. The more people I connected with in the FIRE community, the more I dug my heels in. In fact, when Ms. Our Next Life ran her Next Life series, “not for me” was the entire premise of my post (erm, spoiler alert?). And that seems to … [Read more…]