Evolving Personal Finance » month in review

March 2015 Money Puddle and Spending Report

March 2015 Money Puddle and Spending Report

Hi y’all… Sorry for the dearth of posts and responding to comments recently. My schedule has been just as tight as earlier this spring. Between work, my commute, occasional socializing with my fellow fellows, and trying to maintain my relationship with Kyle long-distance, I have very little free time. The free time I do have has been going toward booking and advertising my personal finance for grad students seminars, working on the Grad Student Finances … Read entire article »

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February 2015 Money Puddle and Spending Report

February 2015 Money Puddle and Spending Report

Finally FINALLY FINALLY we are in the black for this month! What a difference having two incomes makes! I had half a month of income from my fellowship (1/6 of the total for the 3-month period since I started on January 20) and all of my December contract work income, which was my highest ever at $1,208 for the month. Kyle had his normal postdoc income.   While our spending was higher than was typical for us … Read entire article »

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January 2015 Money Puddle and Spending Report

January was another blockbuster month for spending. I think we’ve set a new record for high spending month after month! I hope it is the last one for some time, though.   I’ve already addressed one of the big spending areas – new clothes! I bought a bunch of pieces for a new business casual wardrobe for my fellowship, and Kyle also bought two new pairs of jeans and spent what he called an Emily-level of money on them rather than getting them from Target (those kept wearing it super fast).   We also repaired and re-registered my car. I will probably write a whole post on becoming a two-car family (again), so for now I’ll just say that we spent about $1,000 on an initial repair and then another $200 when another warning … Read entire article »

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December 2014 Money Puddle and Spending Report

December 2014 Money Puddle and Spending Report

December is always a crazy month between gifts, travel, and socializing, and this year was no exception. We spent two full weeks in California with Kyle’s parents in December, which obviously threw off our food and transportation spending quite a bit. Right before the end of our visit, we both got sick – me with a stomach bug and Kyle with a head cold. My stomach bug caused us to do some ‘emergency’ spending that … Read entire article »

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November 2014 Money Puddle and Spending Report

November 2014 Money Puddle and Spending Report

This was an INCREDIBLE month in terms of spending. I think it might be our highest spending month ever (post-wedding/honeymoon), or at least in the last couple years.   The big big spending outlay was that we finally bought a DSLR. We have desired this type of camera for a couple years and started saving for it 16 months ago. We no longer have targeted savings accounts, but the last balance on our camera account was more … Read entire article »

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October 2014 Money Puddle and Spending Report

October 2014 Money Puddle and Spending Report

This was our first month under our new money management system! We needed to change things up because with only one regular income plus some side hustles for the fall, we no longer have the luxury of saving into our targeted savings accounts. I consolidated most of our savings accounts in October and stopped our automatic transfers.   I have to admit that figuring out how much money we spent was a bit more difficult that what … Read entire article »

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September 2014 Month in Review: Money

September 2014 Month in Review: Money

Please sign up for EPF’s new newsletter at the top of the right sidebar. I’ll email you about once per month about behind-the-scenes stuff. The purpose is to better connect with you! 🙂   This is going to be my last spending report in this format because we have revamped our money management system starting in October. So look out for some changes in my next spending update!   Even though our budget for this month was funded with … Read entire article »

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August 2014 Month in Review: Money

August 2014 Month in Review: Money

Our income this month was Kyle’s new postdoc pay plus my normal stipend paycheck. Even with the higher income from July (Kyle’s first month as a postdoc), we kept our budget the same and it will be the same for next month (funded by our pay this month). We won’t really adjust our budget or money management system until October’s budget, the first with our lower income.   A few other loose ends: We corrected our mistake from … Read entire article »

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Blog Statistics Update July – August 2014

Blog Statistics Update July – August 2014

This period represents EPF’s return to LIFE (and mine, too!).  Really just about the last week of this period.  So of course I didn’t put up as many posts or received as many comments as before my hiatus, but that’s fine.  Things are coming back full force!   I also bought my flight to FinCon14 this month!  I also booked a room at the Marriott at the conference rate (I thought they were all booked up so … Read entire article »

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July 2014 Month in Review: Money

July 2014 Month in Review: Money

I’m still in the throes of dissertating/preparing for my defense, so I don’t have too much to report this month.  Our spending is still pretty loose.  We’ll definitely have to tighten things up in a couple months when I’m without an income!   Kyle and I made a really dumb money mistake this month.  It definitely stems from our roles being out of whack since I’ve been working so much lately.  We enjoy having our credit cards … Read entire article »

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