Despite having what one might call a healthy sense of self-confidence, there are moments when I feel overwhelmed with envy for what other have. If I’ve been eyeing a dress online and deemed it irresponsible to purchase it, I’ll seethe just a little bit when I spy a co-worker wearing it the next week. This ... Read more →
I have been exceedingly good when it comes to spending and saving in these last few months of 2012. Influx of money from doing more work than anticipated? Into the savings account it goes! Need a new dress for a variety of upcoming occasions because I’ve worn the same two dresses so many times that ... Read more →
The title here is deceptive, because really, the obvious trouble with Christmas is that I’m Jewish, and don’t celebrate it. But! When you marry someone who does celebrate it, and you don’t have your own family competing to get you to celebrate it with them, then Christmas becomes your holiday too. No, the real trouble ... Read more →
One of the most revolutionary things my young financial mind discovered upon entering the world of personal finance writing after college was the concept of early saving for holiday spending. I had always found myself unpleasantly stressed as the holidays arrived, particularly after I started spending Christmas with my husband’s family. They are a very ... Read more →
As I write this (ed. last week, of course), Hurricane Sandy is pounding down our door (read: causing some trees outside to sway slightly). Work has been cancelled; schools are shut down; public transportation is offline, and we’re holed up inside waiting to see if the hype was accurate. One would assume that in the ... Read more →
When my husband and I moved in together, it became evident that certain things would be left to him, and certain things to me. His idea of “making the bed,” for instance, involves mostly pulling at the blankets until only part of them are a giant, wadded-up mess; I prefer a taut surface you can ... Read more →
I had the opportunity to enjoy an “Employee Appreciation Day” at work recently, which of course resulted in conversations having nothing to do with money that I promptly interpreted into financial lessons for us all. On this particular sunny afternoon, a few co-workers were discussing their addiction to iced coffee. Where I live, iced coffee, ... Read more →
There are many benefits to our current situation, beyond the obvious points of no-rent and free food. The students here are genuinely interesting, intellectually engaged kids who are, by and large, well-behaved and very nice. There are times when I feel like a den-mother, asking nineteen-year-olds what kind of cookies they’d like at a study ... Read more →
Readers of this blog will recall the vehemence with which I railed against smart phones. Not for me! I cried. You’re all wasting your money! Plan ahead, and stop texting during our coffee dates! From my high horse, I came up with dozens of reasons why my plain old little non-data phone was, and is, ... Read more →
My husband and I have a joint savings account (which, to be fair, is currently totally funded by me) which we have titled “House Fund.” This is a misleading name, in part because we may never actually buy a house, and we use it for a variety of other expensive things that we would need ... Read more →
This past week, I traveled to Washington, DC, where my husband is doing an internship. It was lovely to see him after a month apart, but with a week away I knew I had to do some prep-work in the apartment. This largely involved eating everything in my fridge that could go bad, including finding ... Read more →
When my husband and I got married last year, I knew I would have to come to terms with spending unreasonable sums of money on things that would be ridiculous and unavoidable one-use items. Flowers, rented chairs, a veil – these were all things that would be employed for exactly one day, cost lots of ... Read more →
One of my projects this summer is to read through Shelby Foote’s three volume history of the Civil War. There are a few motivators behind this several-thousand-page journey through the mid-nineteenth century – self-betterment, a general interest, a long-held goal. But mostly, I want to get my husband, who is Southern born and bred, to ... Read more →
One of the things that happens when you suddenly realize you will have more money in your twenties than you had previously thought (see: living rent-free) is that you start to consider what kind of adult things you could do with that money. Retirement savings! Maybe one day we can afford a house! Etc. And ... Read more →
Kanye has his workout plan, and I have mine. Guess which one involves spending as little money as possible? (Hint: Only one of us has only the vaguest idea what “bottle service” entails.) One of the (clearly) many areas in which I’m loathe to spend money is in my fitness. This isn’t because I don’t ... Read more →
My husband and I were moved into temporary housing this weekend. Along with gaining more space (I didn’t know I’d missed it until it was back in my life) and scaring our cat into a weekend hiding under the bed, this new situation comes with a variety of frugal challenges; namely, feeding myself and generally ... Read more →
If you like our blog, please cast a Plutus Award Ballot for us for Best Personal Finance Blog for Young Adults and/or Best Debt-Focused Personal Finance Blog! When I was a (younger) person, living in in a town not far from Manhattan, I spent much of my time fantasizing about how wonderful my life would ... Read more →
You rarely realize how much crap you’ve accumulated in any period of time until you have to pack up and relocate said crap. While I pride myself on keeping an immaculate house and all of my possessions in their tidy, perfect, obsessive-compulsive places, I recently discovered that I am, in fact, a secret hoarder. The ... Read more →
Recently, my husband stumbled onto a bit of fellowship luck for part of his graduate program. As a result, our loan burden for the coming year is somewhat reduced. Obviously, this resulted in much rejoicing, in large part because we won’t have to worry about the lack of interest deferment on Stafford loans in the ... Read more →
May has inadvertently turned into a month of “Getting Things Done.” While I would ordinarily begin doing a type of spring cleaning (although let’s be real, I’m obsessive compulsive and every week is spring cleaning week in my apartment), the fact that we are being moved out of our apartment (for renovation purposes) has had ... Read more →