Emily, Author at Evolving Personal Finance - Page 16 of 69

What Triggers Frugality: Net Worth or Income?

November 24th, 2014 | 38 Comments

My mindset toward frugality has changed quite a bit even during the few short years I’ve been blogging. While I’ve never felt poor, Kyle and I used to be very careful with our money. I mean, we would still do a lot of things like travel domestically and pay for entertainment, but we would be very deliberate and tight in how we went about it. We traveled to Chicago to attend a wedding, for instance, but road-tripped … Read entire article »

Filed under: frugality, funemployment, income, net worth, targeted savings

How to Invest without a Financial Advisor

November 20th, 2014 | 15 Comments

I’m going to send out a short clip from the personal finance for grad students seminar that I gave last week in EPF’s November newsletter. If you’re interested in receiving it, please sign up today in the top right sidebar as the newsletter is scheduled to go out Friday morning! The question “But how do you invest on your own?” was posed to me this week by one of my co-facilitators at Financial Peace University. We … Read entire article »

Filed under: investing

You Must Try with Your Finances. What’s the Alternative?

November 17th, 2014 | 14 Comments

One person at my Financial Peace University table this fall has what Dave would term a relatively small “shovel” (income) in comparison with his outstanding debt. He was also a little older than the average table age, though still quite young in objective terms. This person asked a couple questions a long the lines of “Do you think any amount of debt can be paid off?” and “Is it ever too late to start saving … Read entire article »

Filed under: debt

Awesome Comments and Posts 1-14Nov 2014

November 15th, 2014 | 12 Comments

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 … Read entire article »

Filed under: weekly update

Get Your Credit Score (ish) for Free (ish)

November 14th, 2014 | 12 Comments

As part of the seminar on personal finance I gave this week, I did some research into how one can obtain a free credit score. In general, I don’t think you need to know your exact credit score. You should check your credit reports regularly to make sure there are no errors, but beyond that you really don’t need to do much else to guard your credit score. Part of the complexity on this issue is … Read entire article »

Filed under: debt, Uncategorized

Do You Practice What You Preach?

November 12th, 2014 | 24 Comments

It’s so true that trying to teach a subject forces you to truly learn it. I’ve been working hard on preparing my presentation on personal finance for grad students (it’s tomorrow!) and it’s really helped me fill in some of the remaining gaps of my knowledge, particularly regarding debt acquisition and repayment. I haven’t had a lot of interaction with debt in my life, and the interactions that I have had didn’t make a big … Read entire article »

Filed under: debt, investing

October 2014 Money Puddle and Spending Report

November 7th, 2014 | 25 Comments

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 »

Filed under: funemployment, income, month in review, spending

Funemployment Report: October 2014

November 5th, 2014 | 19 Comments

I was less focused this month than I was in August and September. I think I do need to implement one of the time-tracking suggestions that some commenters told me about last month. Listing what I’ve accomplished each day is going well, but there are still some days that I wonder what I was really up to. Even if I don’t start time tracking, I think I need to be more detailed with my daily … Read entire article »

Filed under: funemployment

Consider the Source

November 3rd, 2014 | 6 Comments

I think most of us like to think of ourselves as skeptical, or at least not gullible. It probably goes doubly so for me because I call myself a scientist. But I realized just in the last couple weeks that I was taking some financial advice at face value without considering the potential bias and motivation of the advisor! And I lost out on giving some advice to someone who likely has a more conflicted … Read entire article »

Filed under: choices, housing, retirement

Awesome Comments and Posts 18-31Oct 2014

November 1st, 2014 | 12 Comments

You know, being funemployed really makes it difficult to keep track of time and what I’ve been up to. I often don’t really realize what day of the week it is until the evening when I go to my more-or-less weekly activities. What I’ve been focusing most on these past two weeks is my PF-for-grad students seminar – the first week I worked on making my slides and scripting it almost nonstop and the second week … Read entire article »