E*Trade sent me a sad email earlier this month. My annual interest rate, which had hovered around 2.5 percent, has shriveled to 0.95 percent - a significant, upsetting reduction.
I decided to shop around for better deals. There really weren’t many. Most banks have lowered their rates in recent months, even for online-only accounts (thanks, crappy [...]
The Broke Yuppie
trudging slowly toward solvency.
Author Archives: Erin
SmartyPig, you are sweet
Beware free, uncooked meat
From The New York Times comes an entertaining, cautionary tale about accepting free but questionable gifts or playing Mr. or Ms. Fix-It when you don’t know the first thing about fixing it.
The moral of the story: If you don’t know how to install a toilet, bleach your hair or replace your car battery, hire a [...]
Inspiration from David Foster Wallace, or: Life is one long budget
The following is from his 1995 essay on commercial cruises entitled “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again.” The quote’s not explicitly about money - more about choices in general - but it’s relevant all the same. And it’s gorgeous prose. (All you prose lovers out there: read the entire essay.) Here goes:
I am [...]
Money in May: 12, 13, 14, 15, 16
Tracking my expenses dollar by dollar, day by day. Here’s what I spent this week:
May 12: $0.50 on a pack of Ritz crackers with peanut butter at the little convenience store at work. The shop’s manager is a blind man, and he had to feel the crackers to verify what I was buying. That was [...]
Don’t eat the marshmallow
As a good yuppie should, I read The New Yorker, and this week’s edition features an article that, aside from being fascinating, provided me some inspiration and a long-term goal.
The article is about delayed gratification. More specifically, it’s about a 40-year-long study on delayed gratification that is offering researchers insight into how patience and a [...]
My emergency fund
Starting an Emergency Fund, personal finance bloggers say, is one of the essential parts of taking control of one’s finances and crawl one’s way out of debt. Here’s what it entails:
Definition of an Emergency Fund: Some amount of money - $1,000, $5,000, maybe more - that is set aside to pay for true emergencies if/when [...]
Money in May: 8, 9, 10, 11
Oh geez, these days drained my bank accounts. I went to Chicago for the weekend to visit friends and family and celebrate turning 26 and, well, I could have done worse, but I could have done better, too. Then, when I got back, I had to buy more stuff (cat food, a Mucinex, etc.). The [...]
Money in May: The 6th and the 7th
The 6th was my birthday. Yay! That meant dinner out financed by my lovely friends and lunch out gifted to my by some wonderful coworkers.
The rundown:
May 6: Spent no money, but had a Mexican lunch and a tapas dinner, and then some pizza and wine after we realized how expensive the tapas dinner was (and [...]