Evolving Personal Finance » family
Finding an New Balance Between Working and Caregiving
Six weeks ago, an acquaintance approached Kyle and me about a possible childcare swap. The other couple wanted to trade full days looking after one another’s children so that the primary caregiver could work per diem occasionally. They couldn’t afford to pay for childcare (childcare in Seattle is expensive, people!) so a swap was a good fit for them. I debated (with myself and with Kyle) whether to accept this offer for quite some time. The … Read entire article »
Filed under: family, marriage, parenthood, self-employment
Breastfeeding Ain’t Free
Before I became a mother, I had the misconception that breastfeeding an infant was free. I mean, I knew it wasn’t completely free because the calories the baby eats have to come from somewhere, but I thought the costs beyond the extra food that the mother was eating would be negligible. Breastfeeding was some magical minimalist pursuit where all you need is mother and baby. While there may be some unicorn mother-and-nursling pair out there for … Read entire article »
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 »
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 »
Becoming Hundred Thousandaires
Kyle and I officially have a net worth of over $100,000! I’m so excited to reach this milestone, but how it happened precisely has taken the wind out of my sails a little bit. But it probably shouldn’t have. See below. 😉 Slow and Steady One afternoon last week, I had some time to kill waiting in a parking lot, so I became absorbed in our Mint account (naturally). This was the net worth balance I saw … Read entire article »
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 »
Money and the Timing of Children
Kyle and I have been married for 3.5 years, and 1) we don’t have any kids, 2) we’re not pregnant, and 3) we’re not trying to get pregnant. We do want to have (two or three) children in the future. And the timing of those decisions has nothing to do with our finances. This week, our church started a series titled “God and the Rest of the Week,” which is about not segregating God into solely … Read entire article »
Filed under: family, grad school
Christmas 2013 Recap
It seems that every year Kyle and I try a slightly different approach to Christmas gifts shopping, but our choices this year didn’t work out so amazingly. (I’m still waiting for my giving revolution, y’all.) The first year we were married, 2010, was a disaster because we spent way too much money and made the whole event stressful. In 2011, we instituted a per-person spending cap that was very successful in keeping the whole affair … Read entire article »
HuffPoLive Segment on Boomerang Kids Paying Rent
Today I participated in a HuffPost Live segment with Erin from Broke Millennial that was inspired by her great post on why parents should charge their boomerang kids rent. Erin asked me to join her as someone who paid a rent-equivalent while I lived with my parents post-college. So for those of you who are curious about my and Erin’s faces/voices, the segment is embedded below. It was supposed to be 20-25 minutes but was cut to about 10 – can you tell I didn’t get all my talking points in? 😉 About a year ago I wrote two posts of my own about boomerang kids, based on my experience as one: Boomerang Kids, Listen Up: It’s Not All about You How to Be an Exemplary Boomerang Kid Thanks so much for asking me … Read entire article »
Talking to People Who Are Different from You about PF
Last week, I promoted one of my blog posts on my personal Facebook profile. (I know that’s crazy to anonymous PF bloggers, but I’m completely open about my blog IRL!) It was the review of the Barclaycard Arrival World MasterCard, and you can see I was pushing it a bit. (We just signed up for our second one last night! Woohoo!) I knew that some of my FB friends would see that and consider signing … Read entire article »
Filed under: credit cards, debt, family
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