Evolving Personal Finance » Archive
On Debt and Feeling Like a Slave
I’m honestly not sure how it happened, but I sort of forgot that the Bible compares being in debt to slavery. I hear Dave Ramsey say “the borrower is slave to the lender” on his podcast all the time – maybe that imprinted it on my brain as a Dave Ramsey-ism instead of recognizing it as Proverbs 22:7. And I haven’t made any decisions about debt recently so I guess I let it float out … Read entire article »
Filed under: debt
Edging toward Quality Food: Proposal
I’m in the middle of re-reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma (highly, highly recommended! and that’s an affiliate link so thanks for using!) and it is spurring me to figure out if we can raise the quality of the food that we’re buying without busting our budget. (I also have gotten into lengthy “discussions” about food with two vegetarians in the last couple weeks!) Kyle and I have had many clashes over food and money spent on … Read entire article »
Favorite Posts, Mentions, and Top Comments Week of 14July2013
I’m a little bitter about work this week! I worked over 12 hours on Monday so that I could really front-load everything so that I wouldn’t have to work this weekend. But on Friday I was notified that I was to give lab meeting on Monday, so it turns out I have lots of work to do this weekend after all! Kyle is also giving lab meeting tomorrow so we’re both alternately working and procrastinating. The reason I wanted to have all my work done before the weekend was that we had two parties to attend, as well as helping a friend move and cleaning our townhouse to host a third party. We still did all that stuff but this weekend still hasn’t been as relaxing as I had hoped it … Read entire article »
Filed under: weekly update
Blog Statistics Update June-July 2013
I have a shame-face this month! In the last few weeks I’ve totally squandered the 2-3 weeks of posts I had written up in advance. I’m still not quite writing the day before posting, but I’m definitely working a bit closer to my deadlines. I’m also feeling more “dry” in terms of topic ideas – well, I still have a lot of ideas but not the will or interest to pursue many of them. I … Read entire article »
Filed under: blogging, month in review
Money Updates from the EPF Household
Today’s post is a collection of odds and ends – thoughts and observations about our life as it intersects with our finances. None of these topics are enough for a full blog post at this point so this is a clearinghouse for our thoughts at this moment. Townhouse Water Damage We had a bit of a scare a couple weeks ago with the townhouse we rent. A leak developed in the ceiling of the lower floor, directly … Read entire article »
Filed under: budgeting, cars, housing, marriage, personal, savings, targeted savings, transitions, travel
Reaching Our First Retirement Savings Milestone
Kyle and I are both celebrating our 28th birthdays this July. We’ve been flirting with having one year’s income in our Roth IRAs and after the big upswing in the stock market last week I decided to take a closer look to determine if we had finally passed that one year mark. Wouldn’t that be a wonderful birthday present to ourselves? The one-year’s-income-in-retirement-accounts milestone isn’t some objectively big accomplishment. If you poke around the web for … Read entire article »
Filed under: retirement
Favorite Posts, Mentions, and Top Comments Week of 7July2013
I have had a really nice week! I didn’t get enough done at work, though, so I’ve had to make up for it this weekend. 🙁 Last Sunday we met Cash Rebel on the way home from our trip to Madison, WI. We had a pretty normal workweek; we’ve left open the chance of playing tennis anytime but it’s been raining every single day! So disappointing. This weekend was the weekend of catching up on our Netflix DVDs; we watched City of God on Friday and Apocalypse now on Saturday. We also had a workday at a local elementary school with our church – I added a flagstone path to and mulched a section of a garden and Kyle weeded another section. Posts I Liked Amanda from Frugal Confessions implores us to block out … Read entire article »
Filed under: weekly update
Mini-Vacation Financials: Madison, WI for a Wedding
We traveled to Madison, WI from July 4 to July 7 for a wedding and to see some friends. This trip was very different from the ones we usually take (like our recent trip to Boston) and really made me appreciate both styles of travel. I really liked downtown Madison, probably mostly because it’s summer – great weather and not so many college kids! Usually when we travel for events like weddings we couch-surf and try … Read entire article »
Is “Live Like a College Student” Good Advice?
One oft-repeated piece of advice for young adults who need to get their feet under them financially is to continue to live like a college student for several years after graduation. Maybe this advice applied a couple decades ago, but now that colleges compete for students by enhancing the perks and amenities they offer, I’m not so sure. I think that in many ways I had to decrease my standard of living post-college to live … Read entire article »
Filed under: college, grad school
PF Choices: Damned If You Do and Damned If You Don’t
It seems that there are many choices you can make about your personal finances that will get you excoriated – or at least criticized – by one group or another espousing particular strategies. If you decide on strategy A you’ll get criticized by group B and if you decide on strategy B you’ll get criticized by group A! Sure, people may be nice about it and say “to each his own” but you know they … Read entire article »
Filed under: choices
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