It doesn’t take more than a few clicks to find someone on social media shouting about how personal finance should be taught in schools. Usually, it’s people made cranky by tax time. While that’s definitely a discussion that’s bigger than this post, I did get the chance to squeeze in a lesson on financial independence … [Read more…]
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…]
This past weekend, I attended the 2019 Cents Positive retreat in Chicago. I started the weekend wondering what the retreat would be like (thanks to the #centspositive Twitter hashtag, I had a hunch it would be amazing!), and I am ending my weekend hoping that I can make this money retreat a yearly tradition. Here’s … [Read more…]
Not every money win has to a huge one to matter. Last month, I focused a sizable win. We have enough in savings to wipe out our mortgage. That’s H-U-G-E. But this month? I’m actually equally excited by something that only adds up to maybe $20 or $30 a month. I am officially Diet Coke … [Read more…]
I found financial freedom in a chocolate bar. Of course I did. It’s not like it was an ingredient or anything. It’s more like it was a lingering effect (which is a vast improvement over the “what have I done!?” feeling). I’ve been waiting my whole life for chocolate to be a metaphor, and it … [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…]
I am terrible at setting goals. I also don’t really share numbers here. At least not in any streamlined way. If you read my posts about unexpected expenses and the $24k in debt we killed last year, you’ll get a fairly decent picture of my income and my spending. But let’s leave a little mystery … [Read more…]
At the start of the year, I wrote two different posts about debt repayment. First, I talked about how we paid $18,000 towards our mortgage. Then, I copped to the fact that we actually paid $24k towards debt, because Mr. P still had a car loan until one final click paid it off in full. … [Read more…]
I hate our mortgage. And I probably always will. The fact that we own so little of our home yet foot all the repair bills was maddeningly frustrating last week when our furnace started acting up to the tune of $600. But after clicking through Tim Urban’s “The Tail End”, I realize that maybe I’ve … [Read more…]
It’s not good to keep secrets in the blogging world. I know that. And it’s not so much a secret, so much as it isn’t really my story to tell. But we have more debt than I’ve previously mentioned. Well, had. More precisely, Mr. P had more debt. I wrote a post about how we … [Read more…]