Evolving Personal Finance » Archive
Weekly Update 39
I haven’t done one of these in quite a while, but this week I guess I was particularly inspired by all the great posts I read! We finally had a housewarming party so I guess our new place is now officially open for (social) business. We also watched our first basketball game of the season at a friend’s house. We took a look at this year’s TV schedule and it seems that our workarounds from previous seasons will not be as effective. Previously, we were able to watch nearly all the games without cable but this year there are only a few available. So we might need to add cable back in January through April so that we are able to 1) watch all the games and 2) have our basketball-watching … Read entire article »
Filed under: weekly update
Blog Statistics Update October – November 2012
Becoming a finalist for The Blogging Scholarship (vote for Emily!) has really motivated me to get my act together around here regarding attracting more readers, generating higher quality content, and making some money. My goal is to have some ads and other changes up and running by Jan 1. Just yesterday I had lunch with a fellow grad student and we stumbled upon a question that I’m sure many grad students do regarding taxes and residency. … Read entire article »
Filed under: blogging, month in review
The Blogging Scholarship Application Essay
This is my application essay for a $10,000 blogging scholarship from collegescholarships.org. As I was writing it I realize how much this blog has changed my life over the past year and I wanted to share those observations with you. I find out today whether or not I am a finalist for the scholarship. You can vote for the finalists once per day over at the website. UPDATE: I have been selected as a finalist! Please vote … Read entire article »
Filed under: blogging
Adding Credit Cards – How Many Is Too Many?
Every few months Kyle and I consider adding a credit card to our collection to further optimize our rewards. Most of the time we decide not to open a new account but over the summer we each opened one new one for different purposes. (We never carry a balance and credit cards do not interfere with our ability to stick to our budget. I recommend that you develop a track record of perfect use of … Read entire article »
Filed under: credit cards
Winter 2012 Travel Plans
Last night Kyle and I booked our Christmas flights! Against my wishes, we have fallen into an every-other-year visitation pattern with our parents regarding Christmas, and this is a California year. I’ve been checking prices for about six weeks and the prices were far higher than I expected. I always strive to buy cross-country flights for around $400 but they were around $550-600. Finally last night we were able to score flights for under $400 by … Read entire article »
Filed under: targeted savings, travel
The Cost of an In-Town Move
It took over two months, but all of our moving-related expenses have finally come into our mailbox and been tallied! I can now report how much the move cost us. We moved from a 1200 sq. ft. apartment to a 1200 sq. ft. townhouse 5 miles away (and much closer to school and church). We had a week of overlap in rent and utilities between the two places and during that time we boxed and packaged … Read entire article »
Filed under: housing
The Great Debate: 15-Year vs. 30-Year Mortgages
Another way to put the question is what is the better priority – paying off debt or building wealth? Do you pay attention to interest paid or cash flow? This debate can be perfectly summarized by two radio personalities/podcasters I listen to: Dave Ramsey vs. Ric Edelman. I like both of them in different ways but on the question of what kind of mortgage to get they are polar opposites. Ramsey permits the idea of a … Read entire article »
October 2012 Month in Review: Money
We had a crazy overspending month – the first one we’ve had in a long time! We are just no good at denying ourselves in the grocery store. We didn’t have too many random expenses – most things we were able to cover out of our nest egg. We are definitely done paying ourselves back for our moving expenses – we may have even been done last month but we haven’t squared all of our … Read entire article »
Filed under: month in review
Don’t Give Here
Our church is currently going through a five-week series called All In, which is a financial pledge campaign with emphases in being “all in” with the mission of God financially as well as in all other areas of life. The previous campaign our church did started in 2009 and ended in 2012 and this current one will last two years. Giving to our church is something we love doing because we have bought in to the … Read entire article »
Filed under: giving
Petty Customer Service Rant
Driving back from my conference, I had an unpleasant interaction with two employees of a certain extremely fat-phobic national sandwich chain. These employees had apparently never heard “The customer is always right.” or even “The customer is right when the evidence is staring you in the face.” I ordered a double chicken chopped salad, which was the featured menu item, advertised as $6.25, and added a cup of soup for $1.00. My food was prepared and … Read entire article »
Filed under: food
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