Evolving Personal Finance » Archive
Budgeting Is a Waste of Time
On a recent episode of The Truth about Money, Ric Edelman mentioned that one of the key principles of their financial advising practice is that “budgeting is a waste of time.” I really respect the financial advice I’ve heard on his radio show and read in his books, particularly their argument to keep your mortgage forever. Therefore, it was a little surprising to me to hear them say that such a bedrock principle of my … Read entire article »
Filed under: budgeting
Favorite Posts, Mentions, and Top Comments Week of 15December2013
My big objective this week was to accomplish enough at work so that I could leave town with a clear conscious. I have a deadline for early January and I needed to make sure that I would meet it. So I worked Sunday through Saturday this week, and finally on Saturday afternoon I declared myself finished with work! I officially start winter break this morning after I stop by lab for a quick second to move some samples. We’re going to church, eating lunch, and then driving up to my parents’ place for the break. Merry Christmas! Happy New Year! I hope you have a great break if you’re taking one! Posts I Liked Jordann from My Alternative Life and Joe from Stacking Benjamins each wrote year-end reflection posts that I enjoyed. Jordann … Read entire article »
Filed under: weekly update
Blog Statistics Update November – December 2013
In this last month we celebrate the 2-year anniversary of EPF’s launch! I wrote a post about how blogging has enriched my life, both figuratively and literally. We also received a check that puts us in the black for the blog this year – our income exceeds our expenses. More on that in the Earning section below. In the last month, I’ve been late on getting up two posts. I have still maintained my perfectly consistent … Read entire article »
Filed under: blogging, month in review
The Thinking Person’s Guide to Dave Ramsey: Swapping Baby Step Order
This is the fourth installment of this series on reasonable way to adapt Dave Ramsey’s Baby Steps program to fit your financial goals. You may want to reference last week’s post on intra-Baby Step modifications to familiarize yourself with the steps before we dive into this week’s discussion of inter-Baby Step modifications. The big difference between Dave Ramsey’s approach to managing debt and investments and other financial professionals’ is that Dave Ramsey does not care about … Read entire article »
Tempting Cash Back Credit Card Offers
I’ve been alerted to four tempting cash back credit card offers in the last month or so – two by commenters, one by Kyle, and one through online searching. Kyle and I are still working on churning our second Barclaycard Arrival™ World MasterCard® – Earn 2x on All Purchases (affiliate link – read my review!), but we should be done this month with Christmas travel and gifts. It probably isn’t the best idea to sign up … Read entire article »
Filed under: credit cards
Favorite Posts, Mentions, and Top Comments Week of 8December2013
We had a nice week here – lots of work and some fun social stuff. I also finally learned how to use the Yoast plugin (at least rudimentarily)! Now I have to go back and add a million (well, 400-some) meta descriptions. We went to an appreciation dinner for the FPU leaders that was very nice – AND we found out that one of the key players in Republic Wireless attends our church! Posts I Liked Tonya from Budget and the Beach made $10,000 in side hustle income this year! Grayson from Debt Roundup polled his readers on whether they prefer cash back or travel credit cards. Matt Becker from Mom and Dad Money has a new son! He shares his excitement and fear. J. Money from Budgets Are Sexy lists six amazing gifts for … Read entire article »
Filed under: weekly update
Solving Our Two-Body Problem in 30 Seconds
We’ve had two small developments in the graduating/finding jobs front of our lives since my last update that are having a major impact on our two-body problem! New Information 1. In a meeting this week with my advisor, he stated that it is his goal for me to graduate this summer and I told him “I’m on board with that.” Of course, this doesn’t mean that I will graduate next summer because it’s up to me/my work as … Read entire article »
Filed under: career
The Thinking Person’s Guide to Dave Ramsey: Reasonable Baby Step Modifications
As we discussed in the two prior posts in this series, Dave Ramsey’s (DR’s) program for getting out of debt and building wealth works very well for some people but may be inappropriate for those who don’t agree with all of the underlying principles. The next two posts are intended for people are curious about following the Baby Steps loosely but who want to know what some reasonable modifications may be. In this post, we … Read entire article »
Filed under: choices, debt, emergency fund, giving, goals, psychology, savings
Short-Term Challenges to Speed Debt Repayment
One of the coaching clients I met with recently is going to be working his way out of debt for a number of years (unless something changes drastically). Of course, as per the protocol, we talked about Dave Ramsey’s plan and about how he thought he would be psychologically motivated by the early win of paying off his lowest balance debt first. The client stated that he has been successful in the past saving up money … Read entire article »
Filed under: debt
Favorite Posts, Mentions, and Top Comments Week of 24November2013
Lots of updates this week as I skipped this post last Sunday! 1) Last weekend we were at my parents’ place for Thanksgiving, which was a great visit as usual. The spectacular point was my 10-year high school reunion. It was wonderful to spend time with so many friends and acquaintances, some of whom I still have active relationships with and some of whom I haven’t seen in 10 years! Several people told me that they … Read entire article »
Filed under: weekly update
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