Awesome Comments and Posts 1-14Nov 2014
The last two weeks have been pretty good ones around the EPF household!
Basketball season has started! I have my own season ticket this year to the men’s home games (in the past I’ve split one with other people) and so far Kyle has been able to tag along to games as well. We have some pretty amazing freshmen, though of course I try to not get too attached to those kinds of players. I resolved to make it to one football game this season as well, and it looks like it’s going to be the one against our Big (Basketball) Rival.
I gave my PF-for-grad students seminar this last Thursday. I think it went well, although it wasn’t as well-attended as the registration number had led me to think it would be. We recorded it so I should be able to do something with either the whole talk or clips of it. I’m eagerly anticipating the anonymous feedback from the attendees, though my friends who were there all told me it was a very good talk (and had some constructive criticism as well). I feel really good about the whole experience!
PhD Stipends has over 350 entries now! And there are some truly shockingly high stipends in there so you should definitely check it out. 🙂
My contract job is going much better this month. I noticed my assignment offers had been really slow toward the end of October so I became a squeaky wheel and asked for more. Whether it was that or just coincidence, I started getting a lot more offers in November and am well on my way to meeting my goal of earning $1,000 in contract work income, even if I take off Thanksgiving weekend.
Top Comment
nicoleandmaggie explained on Do You Practice What You Preach? how she determines whether to put money toward debt or investing: “There’s a hassle factor and a mental accounting factor on top of the optimization. And the difference in earnings between the two choices probably isn’t actually enough to worry about. Also, I think my risk factor is a bit different when it comes to losses/obligations (debts) and comparing different gains. So if a CD pays more than a debt, I will invest in the CD, but if we’re talking about an uncertain stock market, I may prioritize the debt, depending on the interest rate. Low interest debt for me is <3%, not <5%, which is why we pre-pay the mortgage instead of completely maxing out our retirement funds.”
Most Frequent Commenters
- Financial Samurai
- Liquid @ Freedom Thirty Five Blog
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- Emily @ Simple Cheap Mom
Excellent Posts from Other Bloggers
Kim from Eyes on the Dollar wonders about what the cost would be for her daughter to attend Stanford.
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Lance from Money Manifesto believes you can dispense with keeping a budget if you have these practices.
Stefanie from The Broke and Beautiful Life pushes herself to only attend events if she can get in for free.
Leah Manderson details at Making Sense of Sense how she maxed out her Roth IRA on a low salary – very impressive!
Filed under: weekly update · Tags: basketball, seminar
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Favorite Posts, Mentions, and Top Comments Week of 2 March 201412 Responses to "Awesome Comments and Posts 1-14Nov 2014"
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Thanks for mentioning my post this week Emily. I hope you’re enjoying basketball season 😀
It’s a little meh now with the non-conference home games, but it will get exciting soon enough with some away games that we’ll watch on TV!
Hey, there I am!
Another great week online. Thanks for links to a few stories I haven’t read yet!
Emily @ Simple Cheap Mom recently posted..5 Frugal Gifts on Cheap Mom’s Christmas Wish List
Thanks for all your great comments!
Ahh I do miss being close to basketball games.I can’t really appreciate your team, but I appreciate the spirit. Thanks for mentioning my post.
Kim@Eyesonthedollar recently posted..Health And Wealth Challenge: Week 2
It’s sad knowing I have a limited number of games I can attend in the grad student section. End of an era for me!
Ask and you shall receive. After FinCon I completely rethought my freelance strategy and asked for more. I can’t bust my butt forever making just enough to not even get by.
Stefanie @ The Broke and Beautiful Life recently posted..Inside The Artists Wallet: What Do You Do With a BA In Theatre?
I tell Kyle “You won’t get what you don’t ask for” all the time – I’m more assertive than he is. I hope your asking was highly successful!
Another great week for you Emily. Thanks for sharing some excellent posts from other bloggers. I love what Joe wrote—Retire by Forty. 😉
Jayson @ Monster Piggy Bank recently posted..Selection Process For Our New Home
Thank you! Joe’s post was a tough one to read but very instructive.
Sounds like good things ahead!
Do you think you’ll share your seminar video clips on the blog or your other site?
I just checked out the PhD stipends page – great idea! It is also very user friendly. Is this something you might monetize in the future?
If you sign up for EPF’s mailing list right quick you’ll get a clip of the talk in my November newsletter, which I’ll send out tomorrow or Wednesday. 🙂 I’m going to be protective of the full video for a while, because I might either like to give it live or in a webinar or sell it as-is. But I probably will put clips up somewhere eventually or give them away as sign-up bonuses.
Thanks and I appreciate the compliment! I’m not sure what monetization strategy would be effective for PhD Stipends. It’s not getting sustainable or high-volume traffic. I think ads would clutter up the clean design. For now, I’m happy for it to be a community service project that also serves as cross-promotion for out other websites.