Knowing where your money’s at is the first step in financial planning. Before you can set goals, panic about having no money, or compliment yourself on your ability to buy a new back scratcher, you’ve got to know: What you earn What you spend Your debts Your assets In other words, your overall net worth! Lucky for us, there’s a FREE service that’ll do all of this for us. It’s called Personal Capital. I talk...
Vanessa lives in Eugene, Oregon with her boyfriend and three cats, Freya, Orpheus and Gandalf. Vanessa works as the Licensing & Contracts Officer for the University of Oregon and is an attorney by training. In 2018, she bought her first home and is now facing the prospect of some pricey renovations or the possibility of selling this home and buying a different place. She and her boyfriend are also in the process of discerning whether...
Home Improvement This month marks our sixth anniversary of moving to our homestead in Vermont and, coincidentally, the month we start renovation projects! When we first saw this house seven years ago, we knew there were a number of things we’d like to eventually change. But, we waited. First we waited because we’d just moved in and I think it’s smart to live in a space for awhile before embarking on renovations. I wanted several...
Inflation is here: it’s large, it’s in charge, it’s up 8.5% as of March 2022, which is the biggest 12-month increase since 1981. Woohoo! Aren’t we lucky! But all is not (totally) lost because inflation doesn’t impact all prices equally. As we’ll explore together today, this is an uneven inflationary period: almost everything is more expensive, but some things are hit harder than others. What Exactly IS Inflation???!!! Before we dive into how inflation affects...
Sara is a doctor and mother living with her best friend, Jodie, in the Pacific Northwest. Sara is a single mother by choice and her son Sam is now seven months old. She loves her work as a doctor and her new role as a mom, but wants to make sure her finances are as healthy as they can be. What’s a Reader Case Study? Case Studies address financial and life dilemmas that readers of...
After my enthusiastic foray into beginner ski lessons earlier this year, I’ve now signed up for SOMETHING EVEN MORE DANGEROUS: a beginner chainsaw safety class. I can’t say I’m excited about it, but I am looking forward to developing this skill. We live in a place where a chainsaw is a necessity and using one safely is paramount (assuming, you know, you want to retain all your limbs). We’ve gotten by these past six years...
Q: What’s the easiest way to earn extra money? A: A cash back credit card! I made $712.59 last year by using my cash back credit card. Not bad for buying stuff I was going to buy anyway! A cash back credit card gives you a predetermined percentage of money back on purchases you make with that card. Some cards offer a flat percentage whereby they give you the same percentage back on every single...
Today’s a serious one and includes a content warning: I’ll be discussing domestic violence and intimate partner abuse. So take care and skip this one if you need to. If you’re in an unsafe situation, or know someone who is, you can contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1.800.799.SAFE (7233) or by texting “START” to 88788. I’m writing this not to solve the problem or offer solutions, but to raise awareness. April is financial literacy...
Peter and his wife, Kim, both work as registered nurses in a medium-sized city in the Eastern United States. They became a family of three when they adopted their daughter, Rachel, in October 2020. Well, family of four including their cat, Pringles. Peter and Kim both enjoy their careers as nurses, but are at a point where they need to step back to part-time work in order to reduce burnout and fatigue and for the...
February was a boring month from the perspective of the old expense report. Not much was purchased aside from the ordinary, which was a kindness to our savings account. No one’s expenses are the same month to month, and I relish a relatively cheap month. I see it as an opportunity to sock more into savings for the inevitable expensive month you just know looms on the horizon. As I’m fond of saying: No one...
