Evolving Personal Finance » Archive
Five High-Value Baby Products for Your Shower Registry
I have to admit I really struggled in creating the registry for DPR’s baby shower. I’m not much one for shopping, and as a first-time mother with very little exposure to babies, I didn’t have many recommendations in my mental file yet. I definitely should have sought out more recommendations from other mothers as it was very difficult to sift through all the “must have” lists for newborns. Now that DPR’s been with us for five … Read entire article »
Filed under: parenthood, spending
October 2016 Budget Report
This month, Kyle and I finally FINALLY had the money management conversation(s) we had been putting off for so long. As a result, we are making some updates to our finances: 1) We are going to live off of Kyle’s income alone for our monthly spending, short-term goals, and long-term goals (retirement). We are going to use my income to fund our mid-term goals. This means that we are, for the first time in our marriage, … Read entire article »
Filed under: month in review
A Year of Net Worth Tracking
On October 1, 2015, I created a spreadsheet for tracking our net worth broken out by our various accounts. While Mint has been tracking our technical net worth since Kyle and I got married and combined our finances, I consider our true net worth to be slightly different, and those differences were large enough last fall that I wanted a separate place to keep track. (Our “technical” net worth is all our monetary assets minus all … Read entire article »
Filed under: net worth
September 2016 Budget Report
We’re still getting our feet under us in terms of our spending on DPR, but things are starting to normalize. Our large start-up costs are largely behind us, I think, and now we’ll just have some ongoing expenses to keep her fed, clothed, etc. One totally new expense for us this month was childcare! I had my first speaking engagement as a parent. I had an amazing day: my hosts put on a wonderful event and … Read entire article »
Filed under: month in review
Trading Money for Time: Our First Babysitting Hire
Those of us working jobs and earning an income are “trading time for money.” This is explicitly obvious if you are an hourly worker, but it’s still largely true for salaried workers. The alternative to trading time for money is to have money come in based on your investments – monetary, property, or perhaps time. It’s a less direct exchange of time for money, and sometimes frees you to spend little to no time on … Read entire article »
Filed under: choices, parenthood, self-employment
Outfitting our Baby with Hand-Me-Down, Borrowed, and Used Stuff
It’s quite challenging to maintain our frugal nature with DPR on the scene. During my pregnancy, we collected items slowly and with an eye to their cost by shopping consignment stores and sales and judiciously accepting hand-me-downs from friends and relatives. But when DPR arrived five weeks early, we went on an Amazon spending binge to finish obtaining what we thought was the bare minimum of stuff that she would need immediately upon coming home. … Read entire article »
Effortless Perfection in Your Finances
My (grad school) alma mater is notorious for holding its undergraduate women to an impossible standard: effortless perfection. Effortless perfection in that context means not only being smart and getting top grades; looking beautiful, fit, and put-together; being popular and kind; succeeding at everything you attempt; etc., but doing it all without even appearing to be striving. No one is perfect, and most people have to try very hard to perform well in even one … Read entire article »
Filed under: goals
August 2016 Budget Report
I have to admit we have not been paying much attention to our spending in the last few months. That’s likely unsurprising given that we’re still adjusting to life with our new baby and we’re earning much more money than we used to. In fact, we’ve gotten a bit trigger-happy with our Amazon purchases in the last few months. It all seems to be needs, but then again we seemed to get by without these … Read entire article »
Filed under: month in review
Cloth Diapering in an Apartment
Kyle and I are cloth diapering our new baby DPR despite living in an apartment with no washer/dryer hookups. I met another apartment-dwelling new mother recently who is using a cloth diaper service because it hadn’t even occurred to her that she could try washing her own cloth diapers, so I decided to share our solution here. Our six-unit apartment building has a coin-operated shared washer and dryer in the basement ($1 per machine each load). … Read entire article »
May, June, and July 2016 Budget Report
In this post I’m catching up on reporting our spending over the last three months. I was expecting to get through the May and June reports before DPR arrived, but as she came early they were deferred! May was an unusually social month as some of my family came into town and we went out of town for our family baby shower. DPR arrived at the end of the month. We spent most of June in the … Read entire article »
Filed under: month in review
Recent Comments
- Adam on Home Equity Is Funny Money
"Hi Emily - I just stumbled upon your blog. Great post! Up in Canada this is a…" - Emily on Home Equity Is Funny Money
"I agree that an appraisal is the best number to work with. I can't think of why …" - JL on Home Equity Is Funny Money
"I only note it as round numbers, in $50k or $100k estimates. I also usually upda…" - We Maxed Out All Our Retirement Accounts for the First Time! - Evolving Personal Finance | Evolving Personal Finance on Avoiding an Expensive 401(k) Plan through Self-Employment
"[…] was the first year that we contributed to Kyle’s expensive 401(k…" - Business Goal Tracking for Week 8 of 2022 - Evolving Personal Finance | Evolving Personal Finance on Business Goal Tracking for Week 6 of 2022
"[…] Done as of two weeks ago! […]…"