Weekly Update 12

This week we’ve been recovering from our trip to TN last weekend and looking forward to our 5-year college reunion next weekend!

On Tuesday night we saw Bring It On at our local theater as part of their Broadway musicals series!  I thought it was great!  The plotlines and characters were completely different from the movie and I thought it was quite funny (especially the characters of Bridget and Skylar).  Kyle was not quite as enthused as I was.  The gender ratio of audience was skewed even more than usual toward women.

our friend ogling "The Pile" - French fries covered in cheese and who knows what else

On Friday night we went out to celebrate a friend’s birthday and were able to catch up with some friends for several hours over dinner.  We learned that one of them keeps pet spiders in his house – all over his house.  And he names them and claims they are his friends.  This information was presented slowly and in a less weird way than it sounds just coming out with it – we had a good laugh.  At the end of our time (we actually kind of got cut off) we were discussing whether early-season Barney from “How I Met Your Mother” or Joey from “Friends” (different woman every night, no interest in LTRs) could exist in real life or if virtually everyone eventually becomes unsatisfied with sleeping around and wants to be in a romantic relationship.  Even at our relatively young age I don’t know anyone who is (openly) such a playboy so I sort of doubt it’s common.  Kyle (who also doesn’t know anyone like this) is more willing to believe they exist.  What do you think?

Work-wise, I didn’t get that much done this week because my department hosted a couple day-long conferences and I attended a bunch of talks.  Some of them were career-related so I’m all jazzed about networking now.  Kyle had a paper published this week!  And he received an email from the father of a child suffering from the disease he published about thanking him for his work.  That hasn’t happened to us before and it made the research seem a lot more real.

Posts I Liked

Young Professional Finances revealed her first name!  Check out her blog to discover it!

Grad Budget put up a net worth graph with various life events labeled on it.  I would love to make a graph like this – perhaps I will regularly track our net worth after all.

Crystal at Budgeting in the Fun Stuff has decided to buy a second home!  She and her husband picked out a lot and a floor plan and have put down money so it is official.

The Happy Homeowner has some straight talk for people living beyond their means and financial bloggers who make excuses for their off-plan spending.

Andrea from So Over Debt posted at Daily Money Shot the three ways her parents raised her to be a financial disaster.  My parents also raised me to be a financial disaster, and they are kind of disaster-y themselves!  While I made it out okay, I definitely want to do better by my children.

Mentions

What’s the Point of Calculating Net Worth? was mentioned by Cult of Money and SB @ Finance Product Reviews.

Five Money-Saving Moves from Our Wedding was mentioned by Leigh @ Leigh’s Financial Journey.

Carnivals

The Slippery Slope of Separate Money was featured in the Carnival of Financial Camaraderie #30.

Top Comment

The Slippery Slope of Separate Money received a few comments that delineated how the commenter and his/her spouse decided what to pay for with joint money and what to pay for with separate money, but I would still like to read some additional data!  Please share!  Several commenters on that post said they weren’t in a joint-money relationship but were very interested in the details.  One such commenter was Jessica from Life in Transition, who came to a wonderful insight when elaborating on her comment, saying “I’ve noticed that couples from other countries aren’t as concerned about “fairness” in a relationship in regards… I would conjecture that our individualism and desire to be self-sufficient, which aren’t bad ideals, could cause problems for married couples in regard to finances, since we aren’t use to being interdependent.”  Wonderful observation and I totally agree that the ideals of marriage and community often create a tension with (most of) our ingrained American individualistic streaks.

Most Frequent Commenters

1. Leigh @ Leigh’s Financial Journey
2. Jessica @ Life in Transition
3. Frugal Portland
4. Jason @ Work Save Live
5. Well Heeled Blog
6. Heather

Top Referring Blogs

1. Well Heeled Blog
2. Leigh’s Financial Journey
3. Young Professional Finances
4. Bog of Debt
5. When Life Gives You Lemons