Evolving Personal Finance » Entries tagged with "gifts"
December 2015 Budget Report
We took an extra long Christmas break this year because we skipped out on traveling for Thanksgiving. Kyle used up all but one of his vacation days! We spent several days up through Christmas Eve with Kyle’s family in California, took a Christmas morning red-eye, then spent Christmas and several days following with my family in Virginia, and returned to Seattle for New Years Eve. The month was fairly normal spending-wise except for the 11 … Read entire article »
Filed under: month in review
Zillions of Gifts, on a Budget
Kyle and I finished our Christmas shopping this past weekend! Well, we essentially started and finished it this weekend so it went pretty fast. Giving gifts to only long-distance recipients is a double-edged sword – we have to shop online and early so that there is time for shipping, which goes against our procrastinating nature, but that means the shopping is done well in advance of Christmas and that reduces the stress! (“Well in advance” … Read entire article »
Weekly Update 43
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
All I Want for Christmas Is a Giving Revolution
I’m a Scrooge. Well, I’m not necessarily cheap (I prefer frugal), but gift-giving and gift-receiving totally stresses me out. The whole process used to be manageable when I was only responsible for giving to my immediate family members, but the list of gift recipients has completely blown up with my marriage to Kyle, as he has a wonderfully close (and large) extended family. Giving presents stresses me out because I’m kind of a perfectionist and I … Read entire article »
Found Money Creates Wants
Today’s post is not going in the direction of showing you strategies for battling the “wants” that spring up after finding money. Rather, I am just going to share the experiences and struggles that have emerged for us in the wake of receiving some monetary gifts this summer, particularly in terms of our joint money mindset. Kyle and I received a large gift for our second wedding anniversary in May, and this month we received/are expecting … Read entire article »
Filed under: found money, marriage
Strategies for Paying for Vacations
Kyle and I committed to attend the black tie wedding in Chicago that I’ve mentioned a few times. In addition to attending the wedding itself, we are going to make it a long weekend to see some of our good friends who live there as well as sight-see as we have never been to Chicago before. We are excited to make some amazing memories! Financially, though, the trip is going to be a stretch. We haven’t … Read entire article »
Filed under: found money, luxuries, travel
Decisions We Are Wrestling With
Over the past few weeks we have had a few financial opportunities and decisions crop up and we’re taking our time trying to decide what to do in each situation. I’d like to take this post to share with you what’s been going on with us. Wedding We were invited to a wedding in Chicago (black tie!) at the end of June and we’ve been going back and forth about whether to attend. The wedding itself should … Read entire article »
How Might Your Spouse’s Love Language Affect Your Finances?
I’m sure that many of you are familiar with Gary Chapman’s theory of the Five Love Languages (affiliate link – thanks for using!). But have you ever considered how your love language and your spouse’s love language might affect your spending habits and career? For those of you who haven’t read any material by Chapman, I’ll briefly summarize the idea: Every person has an emotional “love tank” that can be filled or emptied by their relationships (we’ll … Read entire article »
Filed under: books, marriage, psychology
We Have Too Many Gift Cards!
Kyle and I have recently been reminded of a pretty good problem to have: We have a ton of gift cards and we have no plan for spending them! Why We Have So Many Cards 1) I think we might receive more than the average people because I, particularly, am very difficult to buy for. People know that I like to read so they tend to give me gift cards to booksellers (we have a lot to … Read entire article »
Filed under: found money, frugality
Financial Tethers to Our Families of Origin
Marital problem confession time: Kyle and I have two areas of our financial picture that have created a fairly high level of conflict on several occasions during our marriage. They both have to do with fully separating ourselves financially from our parents. During premarital counseling, we learned about “leaving and cleaving” (Genesis 2:24), which means separating from your family of origin and creating your primary allegiance with your spouse. While going over all our money management … Read entire article »
Filed under: marriage
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