You’ve probably seen ads for cards promising free travel if you sign up. But you really like your current credit card. You pay your balance in full each month and it gives you decent rewards you’re pleased with. But sticking with just one card for years at a time means you’re missing out on a lot ... Read more →
When we started our blog, we were freshly engaged, and had started to plan our wedding. Readers of our blog know that we had some expensive ideas for the wedding and not many of you agreed with our decisions. We went ahead with our own plans anyway a few years after that first post. Five ... Read more →
Sadly, after almost nine years of renting an apartment and stable rent payments, we’ve decided that we need to get a bigger place to live. Our financial lives were pretty simple the past few years, even with the addition of a new family member. We’ve decided to turn our world upside-down and look for property ... Read more →
One of the great things about my current job is that my wife and I can commute together, whether it be by public transportation (in the past) or by car (currently). While I’ve waxed poetic on how much I love my job, I found myself a few weeks ago interviewing for another position. It’s a ... Read more →
Due to an unfortunate stint in the emergency room this past summer, I single-handedly hit our health insurance deductible for the year. You know what that means? FREE STUFF! (well, not for my employer or the other people who are paying in this insurance plan, but I digress…) A few days ago I had my regular ... Read more →
After almost 2 years of being parents, my wife and I have realized that we have a “Spirited Child”, ie, a child who is just more of everything. As such, we’re trying to be sensitive to his needs, temperament, and personality. Large scale disruptions can mean hours (yes, plural) of uncontrollable tantrums. Included in these ... Read more →
Just a reminder that the $100 giveaway contest ends today at 11:00 PM CST. Read about emergency funds and enter the contest here! As I’ve talked about on our Facebook page, we’re pretty much all set for Thanksgiving; we’ve ordered a turkey and sides. That’ll help immensely considering the difficulty it will be to even ... Read more →
Happy Friday! It’s been quite the week here at Make Love, Not Debt. Here’s a wrap up of what’s been going on. Guest Posts Abby wrote a guest post for Couple Money — Figuring Out Financial Equality in A Marriage I wrote a post for Reach Financial Independence — Who Did I Marry, Financially? Giveaway ... Read more →
In eight years, we have been extremely lucky in that we have never had to tap into our emergency fund. As such, it’s a been a while since I’ve actively thought about it. There’s a myriad of ways that our emergency fund helps us on our path to financial security. We see it as a ... Read more →
If you’ve been following us on Twitter (@lovenotdebt) you’d have known that I’ve been dealing with the IRS and their mistakes that I talked about in this post. I’m actually on hold with the IRS as I write this post, and I imagine that I look like this: I’ll be posting soon about what’s happened ... Read more →
It’s no secret that I suffer from depression, sometimes major, sometimes moderate, sometimes mild. It was only a few years ago that I got actual medical help, and as it turns out, treatments can be quite expensive. In the past few years I’ve also read a lot of the medical literature on depression and have ... Read more →
The air is crisp, leaves are changing color, and Starbucks managed to prevent a shortage of pumpkin spice lattes. Ah fall. I hope that you’re enjoying your fall and also enjoying what we’ve been posting on the blog. Abby is signed up through the rest of the year so expect to read much more of ... Read more →
Ever since my wife was pregnant with our child, there was no doubt that we would both keep working full time. We thought that we had a good grasp of the costs involved with working full time. Daycare, of course, for our kid when we work, and a whole new slew of costs associated with ... Read more →
When we started this blog in 2006, we had a little over $18K in credit card debt. That number was probably higher since we had already started paying down that debt. Also back then, our salaries were about 35% lower than they are now. Since our main goal back then was to get rid of ... Read more →
To this day, I still love getting physical, tangible, U.S. Letter Carrier delivered mail. Of course, these days that is becoming increasingly scarce (Postal Service shutdowns notwithstanding) as most of my communications arrive via electronic mail. However, there’s one envelope with my name and address that I never like to receive: an IRS-sent letter. The ... Read more →
As you know, I’m a busy guy. I have a gregarious toddler running around and both Her and I work full-time. I don’t have the time to worry about any delinquent activity on my credit report. And now, with Credit Karma’s Free Credit Report Monitoring, I don’t have to. With identity theft being the most ... Read more →
If you were on the internet at all yesterday you may have noticed that some of your favorite websites were down. There’s a pretty good chance that they were down because GoDaddy was at the receiving end of a vicious hack. Not only were millions of GoDaddy websites down, but all of their services as ... Read more →
Right now, your favorite finance bloggers are breathing oxygen-thin air a mile above sea level in Denver at the 2012 Financial Blogger Conference. Except for me. Last night the winners of the Plutus Awards were announced, but unfortunately Make Love, Not Debt did not take home the prize for Best Debt Focused Blog. The winner ... Read more →
We’ve joined over 100 other bloggers to promote the Life Insurance Movement. Thank Illinois Certified Financial Planner Jeff Rose for this awesome idea! When Her and I got back from our honeymoon, not two weeks passed before Her took the initiative and started researching life insurance. We first looked to friends for suggestions…which was a mistake. Our First ... Read more →
So you may have noticed the lack of activity. Sorry about that. I’m lazy. And busy. And being a family of two full-time working parents of a rambunctious probably-gonna-be-diagnosed-with-ADD-and-INSANITY toddler is craaaazy. However, if you still love us (AND YOU SHOULD), we’d really really really love for you to vote for us at the Plutus ... Read more →