At the end of every quarter, I take a look at our actual spending as compared to what I budgeted at the end of last year. I don’t panic as long as there has been money to pay for everything and we aren’t raiding savings on a continual basis to pay for things, but, especially as the year winds down, I like to have an idea of what changes I need to make to the budgetread more…
I decided quite some time ago that weddings are all about the dress, and honestly, for various reasons, I wasn’t quite happy with my wedding dress. So I planned an excuse for a new dress. I see no need for C and I to renew our vows, but I thought it would be nice if, for our tenth wedding anniversary, we took a set of anniversary photos. (Our tenth anniversary is over a year away, soread more…
I randomly have thoughts about what I should write a post about, but by the time I get a chance to sit and write, the ideas are all gone. I need to start writing them down, to seize the opportunities that present themselves, because they may never come this way again. Which is actually what I want to talk about today. So often, we, especially the “we” that write personal finance blogs are all about theread more…
I’m getting a raise: I got the official paperwork today and the extra money will be on the paycheck I get on April 27. Also on that check will be the 1% increase toward my retirement savings. I do this purposely so that I never miss that extra 1%. It comes at the same time as my average 3% raise (this year it’s 3.75%), so I see extra money on my check and extra money goesread more…
The Budget: Our monthly eating out budget is $150. We’re currently averaging $132/month. Of course, we’ve already spent over $100 on eating out in April. Okay, that’s not true, we spent that $100 in March, but I’m paying the credit card bill in April and that’s when it gets counted. I’ll admit I’ve been inconsistent, sometimes paying for meals out with the credit card and sometimes with the debit card, so that’s kind of confused things,read more…
Gas is Expensive!: With a full quarter of the year gone, it’s time for a quick budget review. The area where I seem most off so far this year is on car expenses. I budgeted $190/month, to include paying for insurance and setting money aside for repairs. Right now, I look at this and think “where did I come up with my numbers?” Insurance itself is over $100/month, even though we pay every 6 months. Thatread more…
As regular readers know, my mother-in-law passed away recently. While C and I are both doing fine, there are a million little things we need to take care of right now. The time has to come from somewhere, and in my case, that means no time to write quality posts for my readers here. Thankfully, I have some amazing blogger friends who instantly stepped up when I asked for help. So for the next week orread more…
I am very excited to be participating in Women’s Money Week 2012. I am breaking from my usual posting schedule to post everyday this week in support of this project. Today’s post is about Budgeting. Click here for more posts on this topic. There is a part of me today that just wants to cheat and point you to my earlier posts A Budget is NOT the First Thing You Need, A Budget is Not the Secondread more…
I’ve written in the past about why it matters to have health insurance. But health insurance is not mandated by law. Car insurance is. And here’s why. A little over two weeks ago, C was in a very low speed car accident. No one was injured, and it was the other driver’s fault. (That was not disputed.) The accident happened only a block for so from C’s campus. He got to school, emailed me the importantread more…
Important information about the data: prior to mid 2010, money that went on the credit card never got classified in any category other than credit card. That skews the data for everything from eating out, allowance, pets, house, and misc. I have data going back to 2005, but for now, we’re sticking with what our financial life has looked like since 2008. Why 2008? That was the year I graduated with my MBA, the lastread more…
