My husband and I have been married for two and a half years now. We’ve gotten a kitten together, honeymooned together, rearranged furniture and painted more rooms than I care to mention. But something that we have not managed to do together is to change our beneficiaries on our joint and individual financial accounts. To […]
I am one year and five months away from being fully vested in my agency’s pension plan. As I mentioned previously when I discussed what happens to your pension when a company goes bankrupt, I contribute 6.45% per paycheck and my employer matches this contribution. Another nice option for staying with my employer for an […]
I recently heard some advice from financial guru Suze Orman about lending money to friends and family. Her basic view is that you need to have all of your own financial ducks in a row (8 month emergency fund, fully funded retirement account, fully funded 529 plans, secure job, able to easily pay rent/mortgage, etc.) […]
One of my pet peeves is when gas stations advertise a cash-only price on a billboard with the “cash price†stipulation in such small letters underneath that I don’t know it until I have parked to take advantage of the great price. I have learned my lesson one too many times on this one, and […]
I remember a conversation I had with one of my college professors several years ago. It was an exciting night; as a senior in the International Studies department I had been chosen to attend a reception at the college president’s home to honor a guest speaker. On the car ride from the dinner to the […]
I have been actively using social buying websites for two years now. Typically I have great experiences, such as our half-price weekend trip to Moody Gardens Hotel and tickets in Galveston, half-price tickets to Houston Museum of Natural Science exhibits and butterfly atrium, and the Cake Pop class I recently took with a friend. But […]
I’ll give you an intimate peek into our finances for a moment. My husband and I generally agree on finances. He is not uber-frugal like myself, but has a healthy respect for savings and loathes being in debt. When I met him he had paid off his college loans at 23 (that was a plus […]
Almost eight months ago now I traded in my slider phone for a Smartphone. My world changed drastically—both professionally and personally. Suddenly I could be “on call†through email, and a mini-obsession of checking my phone began (brought on by the little green light that beeps every time the world is trying to get a […]
This is not an article about whether or not you can afford to pay for your child’s/children’s college education. Rather, this is an article from the perspective of a recent college grad (2005) on whether or not parents should pay for their child’s college education. What do I mean by using such a conditional and […]
One week from today my husband and I will be hosting my father and four of my aunts and uncles for an impromptu reunion at our home. This is truly a historic event, as my father’s side of the family lives all over the country (Michigan, PA, Arizona, and New Jersey) and rarely gets together […]
