Evolving Personal Finance » choices
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
Picking Up the Check
Here’s one perk to being a grad student: everyone pities you. Wait, that doesn’t sound like a perk… I’ll rephrase. When you’re a PhD student, people with real jobs assume you are poor. They either think you’re taking on debt for your extended schooling or know that you’re living on a small stipend. The perk is that this pity often expresses itself in financial generosity in the form of free meals. For nearly all of … Read entire article »
What We Did in Graduate School to Enable Our Risky Career Decisions
Since our move to Seattle, Kyle and I have been meeting lots of new people as well as updating our friends and acquaintances about the changes in our life. These conversations often go as follows: new person: So what brought you to Seattle? Kyle: I got a job at a small biotech start-up. new person: Oh, wow! That’s great. And what do you do? me: I’m self-employed. I’m starting a business teaching graduate students about personal finance. new person: A … Read entire article »
Filed under: career, choices, savings, self-employment
What to Do with Side Income
Admonitions to ‘earn more’ are fairly rampant in the PF blogosphere (of course, balanced by the ‘spend less’ mindset). I read all the time about bloggers’ and commenters’ side hustles and what they do with their extra money. We have not been immune to this trend, either – a few years ago, Kyle started earning a small side income from a hobby job, and when I stopped working full-time last August, I developed a variable … Read entire article »
Things Are Experiences
There is a certain theme that comes up cyclically in reporting on personal finance issues: it’s better to spend your money on experiences rather than things. Sometimes this assertion is backed up by studies and sometimes not. The basic point is that experiences give you a great time and leave you with wonderful lasting memories, while the enjoyment you receive from stuff is rather fleeting and it just rots in your closet/garage/storage unit. Actually, phrased … Read entire article »
Big Wins, Small Wins, and the Payoff-to-Energy Ratio
What matters more for your net worth, big wins or (lots of) small wins? Big wins are those singular decisions or actions we can take that have a large impact on our net worth. They can even be the reason that we have a positive net worth at all! Big wins can come on the income side of the net worth equation for sure, like consistently negotiating raises and changing jobs for better opportunities. They can come … Read entire article »
Make Hay While the Sun Shines
In my funemployment, I have two desired approaches to my work, which have been in conflict in the last few weeks. Approach 1: I work best in slow and steady increments. (I learned this while writing my preliminary exam document and confirmed it while writing my dissertation.) When I have a big project that feels overwhelming, it’s best for me to work on it a bit every day and get small pieces finished at a time. … Read entire article »
Consider the Source
I think most of us like to think of ourselves as skeptical, or at least not gullible. It probably goes doubly so for me because I call myself a scientist. But I realized just in the last couple weeks that I was taking some financial advice at face value without considering the potential bias and motivation of the advisor! And I lost out on giving some advice to someone who likely has a more conflicted … Read entire article »
Filed under: choices, housing, retirement
What’s So Great About High Cost-of-Living Areas?
When I stepped out into the southern California sunshine on the first morning of our recent trip, I exclaimed to Kyle, “How are we not living here?!” I repeated this phrase multiple times throughout our long weekend in Los Angeles. All I wanted to do was spend time outside, which thankfully we were able to do for much of Friday and Saturday. The weather was beyond gorgeous, particularly warm and sunny for February, and a … Read entire article »
Our Best (Pain-Free) Money-Saving Moves
In this post I will detail how much money we have saved (that is, not-spent) by making simple, painless changes in our life. We really haven’t given up anything by making these choices, although sometimes the workarounds can get a bit creative! I’ve ranked our choices from most money saved per year to least. Moving Closer to Work While Reducing Our Rent Two years ago, Kyle and I were living in a luxury apartment and we really … Read entire article »
Filed under: choices, credit cards, frugality, housing, luxuries, spending
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