Evolving Personal Finance

Attend Weddings But Don’t Go into Debt

May 20th, 2013 | 31 Comments

Wedding season is upon us! I love marriage and I love attending weddings to spend time with and support our friends and family. That’s why I initially felt sympathy for Christopher Sledzik, the face that CNN put on its recent article on the rising cost of wedding attendance and the pressure friends and family feel to attend. Like Sledzik, we are also 27 and in the last three years have devoted all our vacation time … Read entire article »

Filed under: choices, credit cards, debt, marriage, savings, targeted savings, travel

Favorite Posts, Mentions, and Top Comments Week of 12May2013

May 19th, 2013 | 4 Comments

We had a busy last week but our weekend is pretty open. Because Monday was my only free evening, I worked late. On Tuesday we saw Sister Act – probably our last show at our local theater EVER! So sad. On Wednesday we had small group as usual. On Thursday my parents spent the night at our place on their way to Atlanta. We were planning to go out to dinner with them but they … Read entire article »

Filed under: weekly update

Blog Statistics Update April – May 2013

May 17th, 2013 | 17 Comments

Kyle and I are putting more effort into the advertising/making-money aspect of the blog. We’ve put up more affiliate links through some posts and created a page of the financial-type products we use. So far no luck with the earning money aspect but I like this approach better than sponsored posts at this point. I’m also way way ahead in my editorial schedule! I have, like, three weeks of posts completely written and scheduled now. It … Read entire article »

Filed under: blogging, month in review

Welcome, Budgets Are Sexy Readers!

May 16th, 2013 | 9 Comments

Thanks for visiting our blog! For my regular readers, today J. Money from Budgets Are Sexy has a guest post from me on my previous “side hustle” of participating in clinical trials and psychological studies. As it happens, I did another study this very week! It was a follow-up to one I participated in a couple years ago at my university. I took a survey and then had my memory, vision, and hearing tested for 1.5 … Read entire article »

Filed under: blogging, side income

Long-Distance Marriage: Communication and Personalities

May 15th, 2013 | 16 Comments

This is the third installment of our series on financially navigating a long-distance marriage. Please read and comment on the first, second, and fourth installments as well! I asked the couples several questions regarding their money personalities and communication about money and the answers ended up being closely related to one another. 1) Did living apart cause any major money conflicts? 2) How much of your communication time was spent on money, and how did that compare to … Read entire article »

Filed under: marriage, psychology

Realities of Account Ownership

May 13th, 2013 | 24 Comments

This post is a follow-up from my visualizations of account structures that couples use – different combinations of joint and separate accounts. I didn’t specify during that post, but there are actually three ways of viewing account/property ownership: the names on the account/deed how you think of the account the legal owner and beneficiary, in the case of divorce/death (will depend on the state) For example, I’ve talked with married couples who have individual names on various accounts but … Read entire article »

Filed under: marriage, transitions

Favorite Posts, Mentions, and Top Comments Week of 5May2013

May 12th, 2013 | 17 Comments

Pretty slow week outside of work for us! We attended a talk by the former director of the NIH on translational research, which really got me jazzed again about doing science policy or something similar. We also prepared and served lunch at the homeless ministry we volunteer with from time to time. We’ve been working on the blog more this week and also trying to get a lot accomplished at work. We need to find some time to play some tennis! Small update on my car: I have a confession. From last spring when we stopped driving my car to a couple months after we moved to our townhouse last August, I was really good about starting my car about once per week and driving it around the parking lot/complex. However, … Read entire article »

Filed under: weekly update

Using Upromise to Pay Down Student Loans

May 11th, 2013 | 6 Comments

Like zillions of other college graduates, I have student loans – and, like a good chunk of those debtors, my loans are through Sallie Mae. When I graduated from college I was automatically enrolled in Upromise, which is a rewards program that is affiliated with Sallie Mae. I accumulated rewards in Upromise through various means and transfered those rewards to Sallie Mae to directly reduce my student loan balance. Apparently the program can also be … Read entire article »

Filed under: college, debt, found money

Debate over Outsourcing Cleaning

May 10th, 2013 | 41 Comments

Recently we met up with some people we know from church; one couple had participated in a panel at one of our church’s premarital counseling retreat weekends (which we also did on our one-year wedding anniversary). We started talking about expectations we all had when we were engaged and how smooth or rocky the first couple years of marriage were. The two of us more recently married and currently childless couples basically said that household chores … Read entire article »

Filed under: luxuries

Long-Distance Marriage: Money Management

May 8th, 2013 | 24 Comments

This is the second installment of our series on financially navigating a long-distance marriage. Check out the first installment and come back on subsequent Wednesdays for the third and fourth! The questions I asked about money management logistics were the ones that I was most interested in. My bias here is that Kyle and I keep totally joint money (both in the names on our accounts and how we think of them), but I wondered whether … Read entire article »

Filed under: budgeting, marriage