Evolving Personal Finance » Archive
Weekly Update 45
I haven’t done one of these update posts in a few weeks, partially because of travel and partially because the PF blogosphere was pretty quiet over the holidays! But posting and commenting seems to be back at full speed, so this update is as well. Pretty quiet week for us! We saw Jekyll and Hyde at our local theater this week, but it wasn’t the greatest. We had a lovely date night in on Friday – we cooked dinner together and then watched Harry Potter 7 Part 2. We watched (on TV) our university’s basketball team lose on Saturday so we’re pretty upset about that, but we knew it would be a challenging game. Posts I Liked Mrs. Pop from Planting Our Pennies spins an interesting tale from their time property-hunting at Eyes … Read entire article »
Filed under: weekly update
Grandparents Providing Childcare
I have noticed an unexpected trend in my friends/peers who have had their first child. I guess I assumed that new parents would, after their maternity/paternity leave ended, either both return to work and put their child in daycare or one parent would stay home to care for the infant. Instead, I would say that most of the first-time parents that I have observed (an admittedly small number) have their parents provide childcare after both … Read entire article »
Filed under: family
Do You Buy, Lease, or Get Free Entertainment?
For Christmas this year Kyle received an Amazon (affiliate link – thanks for using!) Kindle gift card (and the giver checked that we do in fact own a Kindle). Receiving that gift card, as well as considering some others, made me realize that we really don’t buy media any more. I can remember only twice in the last five years or so that we’ve bought a song, book, or movie that wasn’t a gift. It’s not just … Read entire article »
Frugal Friends Go Skiing
This past weekend I found out just how naturally frugal some of my church friends are! A few weeks ago one of the women in our small group suggested a day trip to a ski resort in West Virginia. The decision-making cascade our group made from that invitation was exactly in line with what Kyle and I would have wanted to keep costs down! Lodging: Even though we had to drive from NC well into WV, … Read entire article »
December 2012 Month in Review: Money
I found tracking and budgeting very difficult this month – it was the combination of lots of spending on Christmas gifts and that we were traveling for over 1/3 of the month. Sticking to our discretionary budget was nearly a lost cause and not even our targeted savings accounts could save us completely! Zeroing-out-wise, it turns out that you can’t spend $460.34 on cell phones in a month (on a budget of $95) and expect … Read entire article »
Filed under: month in review
Grocery Challenge Update for December 2012
This is our December review for our attempt to take control of our grocery spending through seven goals and a new grocery budget cap. In December we spent $502.54 on groceries, about 25% above our budget of $400. I don’t feel terrible about this overage because there were a few unusual circumstances, and I think we’re on track to meet our budget next month. We did pretty well accomplishing our goals aside from the time we … Read entire article »
Filed under: food
Whose Money Is It, Anyway?
One of the money conversations I was a part of over the holidays concerned a family estrangement over money. A parent was constantly giving money to his adult son and his adult daughter objected repeatedly, saying that if her father was going to give money to her brother he should give her an equal amount. The result was that the daughter was cut out of the father’s life and the father is still giving money … Read entire article »
Filed under: family
Holiday Conversations around Money
Kyle and I have had a great time this week visiting friends and family in his childhood home of the greater Los Angeles area. I have particularly been surprised by the candid conversations we’ve been able to have about personal finance. My interest in this subject area has grown with the age of this blog and I enjoy hearing about the view of money from people in my who are not personal finance professionals or … Read entire article »
Reader Request: Credit Scores and Credit Reports
My friend ED recently submitted a personal finance-related question to us and we’re happy to address it today! If you have a question you’d like to ask, either about something objective like ED’s question or just what our personal opinion is on something, please email us at evolvingPF at gmail dot com or surf over to the Contact Us link at the bottom of the page to use the anonymous submission form. Our reader question this … Read entire article »
Filed under: debt
At Long Last, Our Budget(s)
A few weeks ago, Kyle and I finally sat down together to create a new iteration of our budget. We probably should have done it after we moved in August, reducing our rent by about $100/month, or after we got our annual cost-of-living raises in September. We put off incorporating that extra money into our budget because we weren’t sure how the fiscal cliff would be resolved and we didn’t want to get accustomed to … Read entire article »
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