From June 16 to July 31, we spent almost $9,500 dollars outside of our regular budget. I have been unemployed since January 10. C has not worked since May 2009. And I do not regret any of it. I will admit, my stomach dropped as I watched our savings account balance fall more in those six weeks than it had in the previous 5 months of unemployment combined. And yet, our balance remains at about halfread more…
Since May 2013, I have spent six months working, and almost nine unemployed. Two of those months were last summer, but I have had almost seven straight months of not working as of right now. Was this intentional? Not by any means. It never occurred to me when my boss and I made the mutual decision for me to leave my last position that I would spend this long not working. I have been struggling withread more…
This summer, we went a little overboard with the spending. It was not just adding SP to our lives, either. We added a new hobby and have spent silly amounts of money on it (though C also sold some stuff on eBay for around $1500 total to help offset those costs). We also purchased my tablet, less than 6 months after I had bought a new laptop. Went on a weekend getaway where we didn’t stayread more…
It is hard for me to even write the title of this post. Now should not be the time to spend money. I am not working, and while job hunting is going quite well, I don’t have an offer on the table, which means no guarantee of any new job, let alone a new job that pays more than the last one (which is the goal). And yet, now is very much the time to spendread more…
Maybe a month or so ago, I mentioned in passing that C and I got the CostCo American Express card. We had gotten by without one for over 10 years, so it wasn’t necessarily a need, but I knew I wanted to purchase the laptop and that we would be getting him glasses. We could have afforded either without putting it on a card, as long as we moved money from savings, and since they wereread more…
Has it really been a year? It is time, once again, for Women’s Money Week. Let me be honest, everything I say in any of these posts applies to men as well as women, but I do think it is important to have events that focus on women and their relationships with money. Why? Because in a lot of ways, men are still seen as the bread winners and financial decision makers. It is less trueread more…
I have mentioned that we are refinancing the house. In fact, it is one of my goals on my Sunday Evening Post. We were paying 6% interest. We are moving down to 4% interest. We are also extending the life of our loan by 8 years. Our monthly payments will go down about $500. This is a good thing. So why am I having a minor panic attack about the whole process? I think I willread more…
Do you ever hate your budget? Most of the time, I don’t mind being on a budget. We can afford everything we need and a lot of what we want, but not everything we want. It was brought home this week when the Seattle Opera announced the dates for the 2013 Ring Cycle performances (the cycle is performed over 4 nights). The Ring Cycle is only performed once every 4 years here in Seattle, and Cread more…
Today is Election Day in the United States, where I, and most of my readers, live. Because this will post around the time that most East Coast polls are closing, I have to imagine that if you are actually reading this today, you are looking for a break from election coverage, and that if you are reading this on Wednesday, you are happy to be done with election coverage. With that in mind, I thought itread more…
I have mentioned a few times that right now, I think there is a 50/50 chance my current position will still exist by end of first quarter 2013. I have also said I am not stressing about it. How is that? Psychology Well, first and foremost, I currently still have a job. I will not know anything more until January, which gives me plenty of time to get used to the idea that I may beread more…
