Evolving Personal Finance » Archive
Reflections on The One-Page Financial Plan
I recently read The One-Page Financial Plan: A Simple Way to Be Smart about Your Money by Carl Richards (affiliate link – thanks for using!). It’s a quick read (I think it took me approximately 3 hours total) and liberally sprinkled with the delightful sketches that Carl Richards is known for. The purpose of the book is to walk the reader through a generic version of the financial planning process that one would go through with … Read entire article »
Filed under: books
An Unexpected Benefit of an Almost Non-Existent Commute
When Kyle and I moved to Seattle, we decided where to live based on proximity to Kyle’s workplace. (I work out of our apartment when I’m not traveling.) Luckily for us, his workplace is adjacent to a residential area, and we secured an apartment just 0.2 miles away. Kyle walks all of three minutes to and from work. This is awesome for many reasons. 1) We only own one car (instead of two), which stays with … Read entire article »
June 2017 Budget Report
June struck me as a very simple month for us, financially. Nearly all of our variable spending was on groceries. We only bought gas once. We didn’t eat out at all. We only bought four items from Amazon, which is pretty low these days! We were fairly busy around town attending birthday parties and going to the zoo, but didn’t have to spend major bucks to do so. Over the last six weeks, we finally … Read entire article »
Filed under: month in review
Un-Frugal Cloth Diapering Pitfalls to Avoid
I thought cloth diapering was an inherently frugal activity, but my eyes have been opened. For some people, cloth diapering might be even more expensive than disposable diapering! But if you avoid just a few pitfalls, cloth diapering will remain a frugal strategy. The cost of disposable diapers are pretty much all up front: the retail cost of the diapers. Frugality in disposable diapering is all about finding the least expensive diapers that work for your … Read entire article »
Filed under: frugality
W-4 Calculations Don’t Have to Be a Black Box
I admit I’ve been a quite confused by W-4 forms for a few years now. In the perennial debate over whether it’s better to get a tax refund or pay additional tax on April 15, my preference is to the smallest refund or owe the smallest amount possible. In the past several years, we’ve done pretty well hitting that nail on the head, but it’s not due to any great spreadsheet wizardry; it’s mostly been … Read entire article »
Filed under: taxes
May 2017 Budget Report
If April was defined by our travels, May was defined by our houseguests. Several members of my family came to visit us on two occasions, which really seemed to take over our month. It was wonderful to have them around, though, and they had a ton of fun with DPR. We did end up overspending on groceries because we provided just about all the meals for our guests. We mostly hung out in our apartment … Read entire article »
Filed under: month in review
Lifestyle Inflation: Ubering to the Airport
I realized last month that Uber has become my default mode of transit to and from the airport – to the point that it doesn’t even cross my mind that there are other possibilities! Confession: We spent $175.64 getting to and from the airport last month (4 rides), which is as much as we spent on one plane ticket! I can’t believe I’ve let my lifestyle inflate to this degree – I’m so embarrassed! This lifestyle … Read entire article »
Filed under: lifestyle creep, travel
April 2017 Budget Report
April was a very busy month for us! I gave six talks this month on two trips, one day trip and one multi-day trip to the East Coast. We also traveled to California on two subsequent weekends. Thankfully DPR took all that upheaval pretty well, though it wiped me out. We filed our tax return on April 15 after preparing it using tax software. We owed a small amount of money to the IRS and gave … Read entire article »
Filed under: month in review
Why We Are Forgoing a 529 (for Now)
In 2016, we had a baby, DPR. We expect that DPR will go to college one day, largely because we are over-educated and we expect her to follow in our footsteps to some extent. We want to contribute some money to said college education, although not necessarily pay for all of it. Our parents paid for most of our college educations, which was a great leg up financially as young adults. Funding some of DPR’s … Read entire article »
March 2017 Budget Report
This was a pretty bad month for us in terms of large, unexpected expenses popping up that didn’t fit into our targeted savings accounts. Our ‘Miscellaneous’ spending category was completely overwhelmed. We also incredibly overspent one of our variable expense categories. Even our targeted savings accounts didn’t fare well; one of them is now negative! But thankfully we have our buffer funds to help us smooth this out. The one success we had was a … Read entire article »
Filed under: month in review
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