Evolving Personal Finance » weekly update

Favorite Posts, Mentions, and Top Comments Week of 18Feb2013

February 24th, 2013 | 9 Comments

Kyle and I are busy/stressed about work!  Kyle is giving a departmental seminar on Monday and I am practicing my preliminary exam presentation in lab meeting.  Too bad this busy work-week corresponds with Kyle’s programs recruitment weekend, so Kyle has some responsibilities for one of the applicants and we are attending some of the dinners and parties together.   This week I attended the first session of a 6-part workshop on writing.  It’s being put on for an engineering audience but the content is almost entirely general writing so I hope to improve my blogging as well as scientific writing.     Guest Post   Andrea from So Over This provided a wonderful guest post on how to help a loved one who is overspending from the perspective of the one who needs the help.  I really … Read entire article »

Filed under: weekly update

Weekly Update 50

February 17th, 2013 | 4 Comments

Kyle and I had a busy week socially on top of our intense work schedule.  My prelim document is due tomorrow and my presentation is two weeks from tomorrow, so there will be a few guest posts on the blog so that I can take a break from generating content.   On Tuesday evening Kyle and I saw Mary Poppins at our local theater.  It was a good show – I liked how they translated the magical elements to the stage – but it was too child-friendly for my taste.  On Wednesday we watched our university play its rivalry basketball game with friends (and were pleased with the outcome!).  On Friday I went to a little seminar on consulting and actually learned some new things even though I’ve been to many of … Read entire article »

Filed under: weekly update

Weekly Update 49

February 10th, 2013 | 4 Comments

Busy busy week for both of us again – that will be the story through the beginning of March for me (for my preliminary exam) and until Kyle gets a job for him.  This week I got the first draft of my preliminary exam document to my advisor for comment and Kyle inquired about his first postdoctoral position.   We also attended an alumni networking event on Saturday but didn’t meet anyone who would be immediately useful for making connections as we aren’t going into industry in the next year or so.   In awesome news this week, my advisor was elected to the National Academy of Engineering!  That is an enormous honor befitting his long career and many contributions to his field.  Another professor told me about it in the hallway … Read entire article »

Filed under: weekly update

Weekly Update 48

February 3rd, 2013 | 14 Comments

Looking back at my calendar, I can see we had a very quiet week!  I’ve been keeping my nose to the grindstone writing my preliminary exam document and finishing up collecting some data.  Kyle has been trying to turn his focus to applying for jobs, and this week he heard a seminar from a PI he’s really interested in.  The guy is at UCSF so I’ve let my imagination run away with me (as I am wont to do) and have been looking up housing options in San Francisco.  I’m being ridiculous because Kyle is in such an early stage of the application process that I should be getting my hopes up – but the lab would be a really good fit and we’d be one giant step closer to … Read entire article »

Filed under: weekly update

Weekly Update 47

January 27th, 2013 | 12 Comments

Weekly Update 47

We spent our entire month’s eating out budget in one fell swoop this week!  We went out for restaurant week to a place that’s been on our minds but out of our price range since we moved here (The Melting Pot).  Our meal took 2.5 hours and we had wonderful service.  I even ate a bit of dessert!  It was fun to have such an interactive meal.   We had another interesting end of the week here … Read entire article »

Filed under: weekly update

Weekly Update 46

January 20th, 2013 | 13 Comments

Kyle and I were both (extra) hard at work this week – actually succeeding in our effort to get to work on the early side!  We were also able to score tickets to a basketball game this week, which was very fun.  Durham was all in a tizzy because of 3-6″ in snow were predicted for Thursday night, and many schools an businesses announced closings and delays on Thursday evening.  I told myself “I’ll believe it when I see it” and keeping myself from getting excited turned out to be the best move – the roads were simply wet on Friday morning, nothing more!     Posts I Liked   Kim from Eyes on the Dollar details all the ways you can save money with grocery store loyalty cards.   Matt Alden S. from Dividend Monk at Budgets … Read entire article »

Filed under: weekly update

Weekly Update 45

January 13th, 2013 | 10 Comments

I haven’t done one of these update posts in a few weeks, partially because of travel and partially because the PF blogosphere was pretty quiet over the holidays!  But posting and commenting seems to be back at full speed, so this update is as well.   Pretty quiet week for us!  We saw Jekyll and Hyde at our local theater this week, but it wasn’t the greatest.  We had a lovely date night in on Friday – we cooked dinner together and then watched Harry Potter 7 Part 2.  We watched (on TV) our university’s basketball team lose on Saturday so we’re pretty upset about that, but we knew it would be a challenging game.     Posts I Liked   Mrs. Pop from Planting Our Pennies spins an interesting tale from their time property-hunting at Eyes … Read entire article »

Filed under: weekly update

Weekly Update 44

December 23rd, 2012 | 6 Comments

Kyle and I flew to California this week for our Christmas vacation!  We had two normal days at work, then drove to northern Virginia on Tuesday evening and flew out early Wednesday morning.  Since then we’ve been hanging out with Kyle’s parents and seeing our friends from college.  I’m so glad all our shopping is done and we just have to wrap the presents that arrive every day and make peanut butter balls to add … Read entire article »

Filed under: weekly update

Weekly Update 43

December 16th, 2012 | 4 Comments

This was a rather different week work-wise for me because I decided to almost completely suspend my labwork to start preparing for my preliminary exam!  I set a fairly modest word count goal for each day and loaded myself up with new papers to read.   In addition to our normal activities this week, I also interviewed a prospective student on behalf of my college and Kyle performed a holiday concert with his community band that was amazing!  And did anyone catch the crazy end of the Butler-Indiana game?!  I was happy to see Butler win and to see Indiana lose.  😉  Not that I think our team will go undefeated this year, but it’s nice to outlast some other good teams – we’ll see!   Other than that we’re really just looking forward … Read entire article »

Filed under: weekly update

Weekly Update 42

December 9th, 2012 | 2 Comments

We had another really great week!  We’re being very productive at work and had lots of holiday parties and such to attend.  We also saw another musical and had chicken and waffles with some friends before the show.  And we went to my friend’s holiday handbells concert, which was amazing.     Posts I Liked   Get Rich Slowly shares an awesome reader story about overcoming toxic financial midsets learned in childhood.   Nelson from Yes I Am Cheap writes a great admonishing post on lifestyle inflation.   Michael from Money Under 30 diagrams his strategy for living with an irregular income.   Mrs. Pop from Planting Our Pennies explains what to include in your net worth statements.   Jordann from Making Sense of Cents shares how to avoid lifestyle inflation.   Joe Plemon from Christian Personal Finance lists ways to enjoy Christmas and not … Read entire article »

Filed under: weekly update

« Newer Posts
Older Posts »