Evolving Personal Finance » personal
My Dream in 23 Years – What’s Yours?
One of the important components of the All Your Worth Balanced Money Formula is the Dream Fund. Of the 20% of take-home pay that is supposed to go toward savings, 25% of it is for your dreams – aside from retirement and all of that. When I was a kid I thought I would want to own a beach house. Maybe some other people want a plane, an around-the-world cruise, or to pay for their … Read entire article »
The Slippery Slope of Separate Money
One of the basic rules of marriage that we were introduced to in premarital counseling: Don’t keep track. Life is not 50:50, nor should it be. While both spouses should contribute to a marriage and household, it’s both fruitless and fodder for fights to try to make everything fair and even. At the moment, we keep our finances completely joint. We still have some leftover separate accounts, but all of our functioning money is joint. And … Read entire article »
Filed under: budgeting, marriage, personal, spending, targeted savings
Frequent Flyer Programs: Have We Been Missing Out?
While I have been flying several times per year for the last nine years, I never considered myself loyal to any one airline. We are almost always flying for weddings or other events so our dates are inflexible and we choose flights strictly based on timing and price, not what airline is operating the flight. (Although I do love when a direct flight on Jet Blue or Virgin is the cheapest!) Because I never practiced … Read entire article »
The Financial Implications of Dropping One Car
We have decided to become a one-car family! If you remember, three weeks ago my car wouldn’t start and we found out it needed $1,600 in repairs. We paid $400 to get it running and evaluated the possibility of relying completely on Kyle’s car until we start working at different places. (We don’t want to sell the car because it still has a lot of miles left in it. Kyle will graduate in a year-ish … Read entire article »
First Major Travel Plans of 2012!
We just booked our first flights and RSVP’d to our first wedding in 2012! Both events are taking place in April. We’ve been quite light on travel in the last few months – we haven’t flown anywhere since last November – so this feels great. Our April is going to be quite busy! We have something major going on every weekend except one. March 29 – April 2: I’m traveling to Atlanta to be part of a … Read entire article »
Filed under: personal, targeted savings, travel
Hobbies vs. Values in Targeted Savings
Kyle and I had an argument recently about one of those nooks and crannies of our financial life that you could never predict would come up. When we were in premarital counseling, we agreed almost totally on how to (theoretically) manage our finances, but of course when it comes to implementation thing never go as smoothly as planned. You can agree on 95% of topics but still argue over the remaining 5%! A few months ago … Read entire article »
Filed under: marriage, personal, targeted savings, values
What’s the Deal? Are We Poor?
I’ve read a couple posts on personal finance blogs in the last week in which hordes of commenters shared their yearly incomes. (I did too – I have no issue with this. I have read others doing this in the past, but these were close to one another in time.) I was surprised that our combined income was among the lowest of any posted – probably in the bottom 2% of commenters. Our income is … Read entire article »
Fantasy Summer Money
I’m in the process of interviewing for a summer internship in the “business world.” While I don’t want to get ahead of myself (there’s only a small possibility that I’ll even get the internship), I have given some thought to how an internship like this might change our financial situation. It would be the first of our anticipated transitions! The position pays about 4.5 to 5 times what I make now, so I’ve tried to … Read entire article »
Filed under: budgeting, personal, transitions
Childhood Games Indicating Financial Personality
Kyle has been lobbying for us to get a chess set for several months now so we can play together, and last Friday I finally agreed and we picked one up. We played four games over the next two days and he beat me soundly in every one. I am a bad loser so I was kind of sulking after, and I asked him if he would let our (future) kids win in chess. Then … Read entire article »
Filed under: emergency fund, personal, savings
Emergency Budget Exercise
How would you survive if you lost your primary source of income? The US is (arguably) just starting to rebound from a really tough economy and job market in which we’ve seen more long-term unemployed people than ever before. In addition to the job market, an accident or illness could befall your family rending you unable to work. These are depressing situations to consider, but better to consider them before they happen than to be … Read entire article »
Filed under: budgeting, emergency fund, personal
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