Evolving Personal Finance » Archive
Moving Cross-Country with a Pod
In the last month, Kyle and I moved from a townhouse in Durham, NC to an apartment in Seattle, WA. While I initially had dreams of abandoning all our worldly possessions for this cross-country move, ultimately we decided to sell just our bulky furniture and move most of our stuff. We used UPack, a pod-based moving company, to move our things from Durham to Seattle, and took our car on a cross-country road trip to … Read entire article »
Filed under: housing, transitions
Hello from Seattle!
Sorry for the loooooong absence, friends! Managing EPF now falls under my ‘work’ time, and I had to cut way back on my work during July so that we could move from Durham to Seattle in time for Kyle to start work today. SO MUCH has happened in the past few weeks for us and I have many interesting PF topics to discuss in upcoming posts that relate to our move. For today, I’ll just give … Read entire article »
Filed under: transitions
June 2015 Money Puddle and Spending Report
This month was pretty weird for us personally because of Kyle’s agonizing decision, but fairly straightforward financially. We kept within our budgeted spending for our monthly categories, but then we had a bunch of irregular expenses as well. They didn’t add up to much until the very end of the month! I thought we were going to come in reasonably under budget, but… you’ll see. Money Puddle Our money puddle represents our gross income from May, less taxes, … Read entire article »
Filed under: month in review
An Agonizing Decision
As of May 31, Kyle had two very attractive job offers in front of him, both of which he had negotiated. While he had submitted a few more applications earlier in the month, as he hadn’t heard back from them yet it seemed that he would just be deciding between the postdoc and the real job at the start-up. Kyle asked to take another week to make his decision, which the postdoc advisor agreed to. This … Read entire article »
Filed under: career
The Reluctant Negotiator
One of the ways that Kyle and I have different personalities is that I am more assertive than he is. After reading personal finance blogs and preparing for my first real job for many years, the necessity of negotiating has been deeply ingrained in me. Particularly as a woman, I think that negotiation is my obligation, not an option. Kyle has not had similar exposure to this concept except largely through me, and that paired … Read entire article »
Filed under: career
The Tale of Two Job Offers
For the last several years, Kyle’s and my life plan has been for him to do a postdoc in his field and for me to be the ‘trailing spouse.’ We thought he would graduate and move to that position before I graduated, but it turned out that I defended only a couple months after he did, and he stuck around in his PhD advisor’s lab to finish up a couple papers as a short-term postdoc … Read entire article »
Filed under: career
Meal Planning Has Finally ‘Clicked’ for Us
Over the years, I have attempted to meal plan repeatedly, but I had no long-term success with it. Why meal planning didn’t work for us in the past: I overestimated our appetites, leading to overbuying groceries our meal plans would be disrupted by our irregular work schedules or social plans Kyle and I used to eat almost completely separate food I kept overlooking that Kyle needs to eat more than I do we batch cooked consistently, which has a lot of the same benefits … Read entire article »
Filed under: food
May 2015 Money Puddle and Spending Report
May was a very crazy month for us, actually – both financially and just for our life! 1) We walked in our graduation ceremony, so we had family come to town for the weekend. The associated costs included our regalia and extra food (though our family partially reimbursed us). 2) We attended a wedding in Kansas over Memorial Day weekend. It was a very fun but very un-frugal weekend. 3) Kyle applied for, interviewed for, and received offers for … Read entire article »
Filed under: month in review
How My PhD Prepared Me for Entrepreneurship
Today I’m launching the first post in each of two new series over on Grad Student Finances. The first post in the side job series is from a student who worked part-time for an investor relations firm. The first post in the reader posts series is on why one grad student is motivated to save aggressively. I didn’t quite know it at the time, but last fall, just after my PhD defense, I started a business teaching … Read entire article »
Filed under: grad school, self-employment
Mini-Vacation Financials: Wedding in Kansas
Over Memorial Day Weekend, Kyle and I attended a wedding in Kansas City, Kansas. It was a very fun wedding and get-away weekend for us (just after our 5th wedding anniversary!), though we were not frugal about the trip. It’s amazing for me to contrast how little effort we put into taking this trip frugally in comparison to when we went to Chicago for another wedding three years ago. We definitely could have been more … Read entire article »
Filed under: travel
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