Evolving Personal Finance

How to Save When You Don’t Have Earned Income

March 30th, 2012 | 16 Comments

For those of us without earned income, the standard retirement advice does not apply. Not only do our workplaces (if we even have them) not provide retirement plans, but we’re locked out of contributing to IRAs. Assuming we’re making enough money to be able to save, how can we advance our goals? 1) Evaluate your financial situation holistically. Not everyone needs to save for retirement at all times. There are other legitimate savings goals that you can … Read entire article »

Filed under: retirement

Earned Income: The Bane of the Graduate Student’s Roth IRA

March 27th, 2012 | 137 Comments

This is my contribution to The Roth IRA Movement started by Jeff Rose at Good Financial Cents. The post will briefly touch on the advantages of the Roth IRA account but will focus on how graduate students can determine whether or not they have earned income (now: taxable compensation). For more posts with greater detail on various aspects of the Roth IRA, please visit the Movement’s page. Also, I am not a CPA or financial … Read entire article »

Filed under: grad school, retirement

How Does Your Salary Compare to the Living Wage?

March 26th, 2012 | 26 Comments

In my posts on saving for retirement last week I threw the term “living wage” around a few times. While I encouraged graduate students to save for retirement, I didn’t think that should apply to students being paid below a living wage. But what exactly is a living wage and how to you determine what it is for where you live? from Investopedia: “A theoretical wage level that allows the earner to afford adequate shelter, food and … Read entire article »

Filed under: budgeting

Weekly Update 8

March 25th, 2012 | 2 Comments

Pretty normal week again – lots of work. I had another project application added to my work and I met with our new collaborators this week, so that was very interesting. We planned an initial experiment that should happen in a couple weeks. Kyle has been staying up late coding, which is more difficult now that we’re driving to work together. I had lunch with a friend this week and I explained to her the guidelies of the diet I used to lose 40 lbs last year. Only a few people have seriously inquired about my methods and one has implemented it very successfully. We also had two friends over to watch some of the NCAA tournament and play games on Saturday night. Lots of basketball-watching generally this week. I attended a … Read entire article »

Filed under: weekly update

Why You Should Save for Retirement While In Graduate School Part 2

March 23rd, 2012 | 23 Comments

aka Why You Should Save For Retirement Even with a Low Income This is the second half of a two-part post intended to inspire graduate students and others with low incomes who are currently not saving for retirement to start. Check out the first post for my assumptions and an argument concerning compound interest. Please remember that I am not a financial planner or CPA and you should not consider my opinions financial advice targeted for … Read entire article »

Filed under: choices, retirement, savings

Why You Should Save for Retirement While In Graduate School Part 1

March 21st, 2012 | 54 Comments

aka Why You Should Save For Retirement Even with a Low Income This two-part post is intended to inspire graduate students who are currently not saving for retirement to start. The graduate students I refer to in this post are those who are being paid a living wage while in school – that is, they are not taking out loans for tuition or living expenses and can keep their must-have living expenses (rent, utilities, food, etc.) … Read entire article »

Filed under: choices, featured, grad school, retirement

What Does “Frugal” Mean to You?

March 19th, 2012 | 34 Comments

My definition of frugality: Not buying things. Kyle’s definition of frugality: Getting good deals. Kyle is excellent at researching products he wants to find the best quality for the best price. On the other hand, he remarked to me last week (and I’m not sure if this was a compliment) “You never want anything! How do you never want anything?” (He meant stuff-wise – I want to spend plenty of money on experiences.) We don’t have a whole … Read entire article »

Filed under: frugality, marriage

Weekly Update 7

March 18th, 2012 | 6 Comments

Not too much exciting stuff went on this week. Kyle and I were working pretty hard so I didn’t spend as much time in the PF blogosphere as I usually have. I saw some exciting positive results at work – I like my job right now. 🙂 We watched our basketball team flail out of the NCAA tournament; we’re still watching but now I’m cheering for the other teams from our conference. On Friday night we babysat for our friends’ one-year-old – 45 minutes of parenting practice! The child had been very well-trained and we had a great time! Posts I Liked Well Heeled Blog wrote a post on what she thinks a college personal finance curriculum should include. A very interesting proposal! Head over to her blog to add your thoughts … Read entire article »

Filed under: weekly update

Choosing an Amex Card

March 16th, 2012 | 20 Comments

As Kyle wrote last week, we are losing most of the benefits of our current primary rewards card. We will still have our Chase Freedom card, which gives 1% on most everything and periodically 5% in certain categories. When those 5% categories coincide with our purchases we will use that card, but the rest of the time we’ll likely use whatever our new primary card is, especially if our rewards are above 1%. It would … Read entire article »

Filed under: credit cards

My Biggest Financial Mistake and Why I’m Glad I Made It

March 14th, 2012 | 35 Comments

You’re going to think I’m really dumb when you read this. You might even want to take away my PF blogger card. My mistake was a doozy. I’ll just say that I made it several years ago when I was just figuring out my finances and I was a lot less involved than I am now. And Kyle wasn’t around to catch the mistake. Summer 2007. I had just graduated from college and started my first … Read entire article »

Filed under: featured, investing, mistakes, retirement, stock market