by Karen on April 10, 2012
This post was originally published on June 8, 2010. Paycheck-to-paycheck living has become all too common, especially in this economic climate. Unfortunately, it’s a vicious cycle, and when you’re in the middle of it, it can feel impossible to break out of it. It seems that every time you start to get ahead, there’s a [...]
by Karen on January 16, 2012
At the start of the year, my friend Kacie inspired me to explore new options for simplifying our finances and bill pay process. I’m still working out some of the details for these new systems, but I’m going to share them with you here, in addition to the systems we already have in place for [...]
by Karen on August 4, 2011
While visiting my best friend last weekend, we had an interesting discussion about budgeting. She and her husband are in the same place Tony and I were when we decided to start living frugally. They’re looking for ways to cut back after moving to a new city and taking a pay cut. Like a lot [...]
by Karen on April 25, 2011
This post was originally published on May 13, 2009. Now that I’m a stay-at-home mom, this post is truer than ever for me. I needed a reminder of why my priority will always be finding ways to cut our spending instead of increasing our income. I thought I’d share it with you, too. When you’re [...]
by Karen on September 10, 2010
This summer has been terrible for our finances. We haven’t had any income since May. Thankfully, our bills were drastically reduced for the first, oh, 6 weeks of summer while we stayed with Tony’s family. But we still had car insurance, health insurance, student loan payments, my health insurance deductible, and other expenses. We moved [...]
For the past couple of years one of my favorite bloggers, Rachel at Small Notebook, has challenged herself to a month of very limited spending and written about her results. Last year, I was inspired to try a challenge of my own — a summer of cash budgeting. It may seem like a month or [...]
by Karen on April 19, 2010
Last week’s post about holding off on paying down debt sparked a little controversy in the comments. I wanted to clarify some of my views, because there seems to be some confusion about my financial philosophy. First of all, I am not debt free. I have never claimed to be. Like most 25-year-olds, my husband [...]
by Karen on April 12, 2010
Update: I just wanted to clarify something. We are currently repaying our student loan debt slowly but surely. Our loans are not in forbearance. We just aren’t focusing our efforts solely on debt repayment. We’re splitting our extra income between debt repayment and savings. In January 2009, we paid off our credit card debt. Compared [...]
by Karen on February 9, 2010
When I first switched to my ING checking account, I absolutely loved it. I still love my checking account with them. But we are finally experiencing some of the confusion I feared when we made the switch. Because ING Direct is an electronic bank, our account must be linked to a brick and mortar bank. [...]