Evolving Personal Finance » spending
I’m Grateful for Automation in Our Finances
I know I’ve been repeating this ad nauseam in the past few weeks, but Kyle and I have been working a lot in the past couple months. I’ve been running into problem after problem with my experiments and am under a deadline to produce. Kyle has been writing his dissertation in typical Kyle-style – to the exclusion of everything else. We barely have time to keep up with our laundry and dishes and I’m falling … Read entire article »
Filed under: spending, targeted savings
When Plans Change
I have a personal update for you today! It’s about how our protracted time to graduation has affected our plans, careers, and finances. I though we had some timelines and plans down, and then they were shot to heck, and now the picture is re-coming into focus. Grad School I’ve mentioned in my weekly wrap-ups here that for the past several weeks Kyle has been working around the clock on writing his dissertation. We were hoping that … Read entire article »
Filed under: career, cars, goals, marriage, personal, savings, spending, transitions
Who Is the Accountability Partner for What?
I had an interesting conversation with a couple of my FPU students a couple weeks ago. I was telling them about how much I like Republic Wireless and they asked if I am planning to upgrade my phone when they release the new one. I said that Kyle has been pushing me to upgrade but that I didn’t see the need – to me upgrading a functional smartphone after only one year of use seems … Read entire article »
Filed under: lifestyle creep, marriage, spending
Republic Wireless Graduates from Beta and Offers the Moto X
Over a year ago when I was looking for a new cell phone I heard about Republic Wireless, a company trying to offer something new in the cellular market. The main premise of Republic Wireless’s business model is that there are wireless networks all around us (especially at home and work) and we should be taking advantage of them. Most businesses these days use voice over IP (VoIP) for their telephone needs. When cell phones … Read entire article »
What Are You Gazelle Intense About?
This post was inspired by the recent Get Rich Slowly article on pushing vs. relaxing in personal finances. A “pushing” phase is when you are super intense about your finances and making sacrifices in other areas of your life, like relationships and health. Circumstances that should bring about pushing are living beyond your means, feeling a lot of stress about your finances, or when you are nearing default on a loan. Similarly, Dave Ramsey would … Read entire article »
Filed under: budgeting, debt, psychology, spending
You Should Spend More and Save Less (Especially Grad Students)
The same episode of Freakonomics that I wrote about last week contained another segment that I thought worthy of comment here (and actually there is one more!). Levitt told Dubner some advice that he received from an older faculty member when he was just starting out as a professor of economics: “You should spend more and save less. You’re never going to be poorer than you are today… Your salary would only go up and your … Read entire article »
Filed under: career, grad school, savings, spending
Perfect Articulation of Plastic as Real Money for Young People
In episode of Freakonomics from 10/3/2013, Steve Levitt and Steve Dubner discussed a listener question that I thought was a perfect articulation of my opinion concerning the studies that show that people tend to spend more when using credit cards in comparison with cash. Steve Reta wrote: “This morning I was reading an article on how credit card spending is making us ‘irresponsible’ because it removes the ‘pain’ of paying with cold hard cash. I found … Read entire article »
Filed under: credit cards, psychology, spending
How Much Effort Do You Put into Getting Rewards or Deals?
This week, we bribed our friends with Papa John’s pizza to help us move our furniture and some boxes. Just like the last few times we’ve ordered pizza for a group, we searched for a promo code and found one for 50% off our order. Easy-peasy. Also this week, we bought a wedding gift off a registry. As usual, we searched for promo codes for each retailer the couple registered at to see who would give … Read entire article »
Filed under: spending
How We Watch All the TV We Want for Free (Including Sports)
Three years ago, Kyle and I took a look at our budget and our newly formed targeted savings goals and realized that our cable package was holding us back. We had much more pressing applications for the extra $80 per month we were paying to have access to those channels. The issue was that we – especially Kyle – love television. I know that’s not a popular thing to say, but we do! We were … Read entire article »
Does Less Exposure to Commercials Translate to Fewer Wants?
Like many other Americans, I stopped watching TV commercials about ten years ago. Between giving TV up for years on end (college, early grad school) to DVRs to Netflix and Hulu, we were no longer forced to endure traditional TV spot commercials. Of course advertisers still want eyeballs, so our honeymoon from commercials only lasted a few years. Advertisers increased their efforts in other areas, most noticeably injecting commercials before and in between online video content. … Read entire article »
Filed under: spending
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