Evolving Personal Finance

Blog Statistics Update March – April 2013

April 19th, 2013 | 10 Comments

This has been a fun month on EPF. I’m happy to be back to blogging full time and being a bit more ahead on my editorial calendar. I’m excited to be working on a big 4-part series of posts! I am way more ridiculously excited about this than I should be – two people have signed up with Republic Wireless using my referral link! If they stay customers for 30 days I get a $19 credit … Read entire article »

Filed under: blogging, month in review

Evolution of Our Relationship with Bank of America

April 17th, 2013 | 36 Comments

Let’s get one thing straight from the start: I think Bank of America is terrible. You will hear that repeatedly through this post. Kyle thinks Bank of America is okay. They haven’t done anything major to annoy him – or perhaps I should say he has not let the things about their service that drive me crazy get to him. This post details the stages of our use of BoA and concludes with why the heck … Read entire article »

Filed under: checking, savings

Festival of Frugality #384

April 16th, 2013 | 15 Comments

Tax season is over, y’all!!! Well, except for those who filed extensions. My husband and I are bad PF bloggers and waited until about a week ago to do our taxes. We realized that we didn’t have a W-2 from Kyle’s side job (we don’t think it was ever issued), so we had to file an extension. I actually enjoyed doing our taxes more this year than ever because I have more and more understanding … Read entire article »

Filed under: carnival

Pledging to Financially Support an Individual

April 15th, 2013 | 47 Comments

Last week Kyle and I were pitched by an acquaintance who is embarking on missions-related work. The request to meet with us came through an introduction by a friend who is a current supporter of this missionary. (I’m not quite sure missionary is the right word, but he’ll have an evangelistic ministry and he is seeking outside support, so I’ll use the term here.) He attended to our church campus so we have met from … Read entire article »

Filed under: giving

Favorite Posts, Mentions, and Top Comments Week of 7Apr2013

April 14th, 2013 | 7 Comments

We are back in NC and enjoying the spring that has finally arrived! Well, I should say I’m enjoying it and Kyle is complaining about how hot the house is now without any A/C. Nothing else out of the ordinary went on except we had a meeting regarding evangelism, one of my favorite subjects, which I’ll post on this week and we saw Smash Mouth in concert on Friday night at our university. Posts I Liked Grayson … Read entire article »

Filed under: weekly update

Do You Want a Vacation Home?

April 12th, 2013 | 44 Comments

When I was in high school, I was invited to a friend’s family lake house along with several of our other friends. We stayed there for a couple nights, waterskiing and eating and hanging out all day. It was great fun to be hosted by that family and I had never had an experience like that before – it was tremendously generous. I learned that the lake house was owned by my friend’s parents jointly … Read entire article »

Filed under: housing, spending

The Real Reason I Am into Personal Finance

April 10th, 2013 | 30 Comments

Kyle and I took the “Life Values Inventory” together last week – it’s a little tool that helps you identify your values and which ones you would like to be spending more or less time on. It was developed by people at my university so the career center and counseling services are always pushing it – it’s free so it’s worth checking out. Anyway, as I have previously identified “security” as one of my top 5 … Read entire article »

Filed under: values

Our Experiences Using Tax Software

April 8th, 2013 | 28 Comments

A week ago I filled you in on why Kyle and I haven’t yet filed our taxes – we aren’t sure what our gross income truly is! Now that we’re getting down to the wire on the deadline for filing our taxes we need to make a decision and get through the math of figuring out how much tax we owe for 2012. Like other years, we will likely use free online tax software and … Read entire article »

Filed under: taxes

Favorite Posts, Mentions, and Top Comments Week of 1Apr2013

April 7th, 2013 | 16 Comments

Kyle and I have been in CA since Wednesday and are flying home tonight. It’s been a quick trip, but we’ve been able to spend a lot of time with Kyle’s parents and aunt and uncle and saw some other family and friends briefly as well. Last Sunday we had our busy Easter morning and brunch and then watched our team get demolished in the Elite Eight (I’m still not over that injury – holy cow). I spent all of Monday and Tuesday preparing for a presentation I gave to our collaborator’s lab meeting on Tuesday afternoon. The meeting went well and I had a good conversation with my advisor in which we agreed that I will write a grant (for the experience) and take some other career-prep steps. During this trip … Read entire article »

Filed under: weekly update

March 2013 Month in Review: Money

April 5th, 2013 | 13 Comments

While last month was characterized by super-stress, this one has been characterized by super-fun! My prelim was on March 4 and I’ve been having a great time since then getting back to work. Kyle and I also both had additional presentations to give to various audiences this month, so our work has been more slide-making and reflecting on previous work than generating new data. We hosted a lot of social stuff this month, which was costly … Read entire article »

Filed under: month in review