Weekly Update 47

eating fondueWe spent our entire month’s eating out budget in one fell swoop this week!  We went out for restaurant week to a place that’s been on our minds but out of our price range since we moved here (The Melting Pot).  Our meal took 2.5 hours and we had wonderful service.  I even ate a bit of dessert!  It was fun to have such an interactive meal.

 

scraping iceWe had another interesting end of the week here because Durham got a bit of snow and ice!  Kyle and I took off from work a bit early on Friday because we didn’t want to slip on our long walk to our parking lot and found our car almost completely iced up.  It took us about 20 minutes to get inside and chip away at it with our ice scraper.  There was seriously an ice scraping party going on in our parking lot – everyone was helping each other out and such.  We hardly ever get snow here so it was nice to break up the routine. 🙂

 

On Saturday we had our basketball group over to watch our team play – and thankfully it went much better than the game on Wednesday!  It was our first gathering at our house of the season, because this game was broadcast on CBS instead of on ESPN.  We hope to do this a few more times before the end of the regular season.

 

 

Posts I Liked

 

David from Money Under 30 answer a reader question about investing money for a short-term goal.

 

G.E. from 20 Something Finance detailed a new federal student loan repayment program called Pay as You Earn.

 

Edward Antrobus has decided that a $1k emergency fund while they’re paying off debt is just too small.

 

Lance from Money Life and More explains the options for splitting expenses with housemates.

 

Suba from Wealth Informatics debunks nine reasons for not making more money.

 

 

Mentions

 

Jake from iHeartBudgets listed How Sharing a Car Has Helped Our Joint Finances in his weekly good reads.

 

Miss T. from Prairie Eco Thrifter included How Sharing a Car Has Helped Our Joint Finances in her Friday links.

 

nicoleandmaggie listed Frugal Practices I’ve Grown to Love in their link love.

 

Clarissa from Clarissa’s Blog responded to Frugal Practices I’ve Grown to Love in a post on hating the word “frugal.”

 

 

Carnivals

 

Egg on My Face: Grad Students and Payroll Taxes was featured in the Carnival of MoneyPros, the Tax Carnival #111, and the Financial Carnival for Young Adults.

 

Blog Statistics Update December 2012 – January 2013 was featured in the Yakezie Carnival.

 

How Sharing a Car Has Helped Our Joint Finances was featured in the Festival of Frugality #372.

 

Top Comments

 

We had so many wonderful comments this week that I couldn’t choose just one!

 

Ross from Cash Rebel emphasized saving early and often for retirement in Upcoming Transition and a Potential Financial Overhaul: “It’s awesome that you are able to start saving for retirement in grad school… Now I see how valuable it is to invest even a little bit as soon as you can.”

 

Eliza from Happy Simple Living makes a great point in Frugal Practices I’ve Grown to Love that “living within one’s means can be deeply satisfying and even fun!”

 

 

Most Frequent Commenters

 

I think this was our highest week yet both for number of comments and number of commenters – thanks everyone!

 

  1. Edward Antrobus
  2. Heather
  3. Ross @ Cash Rebel
  4. Grayson @ Debt Roundup
  5. Emily too
  6. Kim @ Eyes on the Dollar

 

 

Top Blogs Referring to EPF

 

  1. Making Sense of Cents
  2. Clarissa’s Blog
  3. nicoleandmaggie
  4. Punch Debt in the Face
  5. Money Under 30 

 

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12 Responses to "Weekly Update 47"

  1. Leigh says:

    I’m not sure if your local fondue place has a happy hour, but the one near me does and it gives you $4 off a chocolate fondue. So sometimes we make dinner and then just go there for dessert, which makes it only $12+tax, which isn’t too bad. I’ve never actually been there for dinner though I’m sure it would be delicious!
    Leigh recently posted..2013 Investing Plan

    1. Emily says:

      I don’t think we’d go back, actually – not in the near future. It was a great meal and we enjoyed it but we’ll probably continue to check out other restaurants if we want to spend a bit of money.

  2. Thanks for the mention. It’s been really warm recently. As in, I wore a t-shirt walking to the library this afternoon. Why couldn’t I have had these temperatures last winter when I was working outside!
    Edward Antrobus recently posted..Is $1000 a Large Enough Emergency Fund?

    1. Emily says:

      It’s been kind of back and forth here – 30F then 60F then back.

  3. We got quite the snow dump here too. It is taking forever to get it all shoveled.
    Miss T @ Prairie Eco-Thrifter recently posted..Friday Links – Week Three of Chaos

    1. Emily says:

      We don’t have a snow shovel, but Kyle literally chipped ice off our front step with an ice scraper!

  4. I snagged melting pot deal via one of the deal sites (Groupon maybe?) a few months ago. It included salad, cheese fondue, entree and 2 glasses of wine (for two people) for like $50. I thought it was a great deal considering how expensive it is to go there.
    KK @ Student Debt Survivor recently posted..My Finances, His Finances, Our Finances?

    1. Emily says:

      That does sound like a good deal! Too bad Restaurant Week prices can’t be combined with other discounts.

  5. […] with some friends, got a lot accomplished at work, started watching basketball socially again, went out for Restaurant Week, had a picnic, and had the excitement of two snowfalls.  We went over our grocery budget again […]

  6. […] EvolvingPF mentioned my post Four Ways to Split Expenses at Home. […]

  7. […] tickets for our ski daytrip, buying a mini cheesecake from our friend’s new baking business, and dining out for Restaurant Week.  All of those were one-off events, too, not part of weekly […]

  8. […] PF mentioned me in Weekly Update 47 & Weekly Update […]

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