Why Your Emergency Fund Should Be (A Little) Hard to Reach
Apparently, 40% of Americans don’t have enough in savings to cover a $400 medical emergency. While I hope you’ve got more saved than that, that’s a great first goal if you’re looking to improve your finances. Most financial advisors recommend starting off with a $1,000 emergency fund, and then slowly building that up to cover […]
Sparking Joy
The other night, like many of you, we were looking for something to watch on Netflix. We stumbled on Tidying Up with Marie Kondo. The Lifechanging Magic book was a hit in our house when it first came out, so we decided to give it a go. The show wasn’t bad (though it seemed to […]
Budgeting with Love: Part 4, Budget Weariness
All throughout this month, I’ve been posting budgeting tips for you and your spouse or significant other. Last week, I included some tips about eliminating debt. This week, I’m talking about ways to decrease budget weariness. Many couples (and people!) run into budget weariness after being on a budget for a while. To help alleviate this, […]
Budgeting with Love: Part 3, Eliminating Debt
Every Thursday during the month of February, I’m posting budgeting tips for you and your spouse or significant other. Last week, I shared tips for setting and achieving financial goals. This week’s tips are devoted to helping you to get out of debt. First, let’s talk about the biggest thing that has helped us not […]
Budgeting with Love: Part 2, Setting Goals
During the month of February, I’m sharing budgeting tips for you and your spouse or significant other. Last week, we focused on a few budgeting-specific tips. This week, I’m including tips about how to set and achieve financial goals. After you’ve begun budgeting your money, and you have an idea where it is going, it’s time […]
Budgeting with Love: Part 1, Budgeting
In honor of February, the month of love, this month on the PearBudget blog we’re going to focus on budgeting tips for you and your spouse or significant other. Each Thursday, I’ll share a few things that have helped us along on our budgeting journey. The first and most important financial thing we’ve done is create a […]
Save for the Future By Making A Deal With Future You
“Dad! Can we go downstairs?” It was early. She wasn’t supposed to be up yet. “Why are you awake, sweetie?” “I had a bad dream and can’t sleep. Can you come downstairs with me?” “What do you want to do down there?” “Read a book.” Hard to argue with that one. And it wasn’t too […]
An Easy Trick To Avoid Making Nickel and Dime Purchases
We recently asked on the PearBudget page at Facebook what topics you’d like us to write about, and one of the questions posed was “How do you resist nickel-and-dime purchases?” We thought that’d be a great one to tackle first. Ultimately, avoiding nickel-and-dime purchases is about knowing what you need, knowing what you want and […]
A Safe Conversation Starter for the Thanksgiving Dinner Table
photo by Greg Carley Thanksgiving is actually my favorite holiday, mainly because it’s a recognized day for family and friends to come together and spend time catching up and being with one another, but it hasn’t become commercialized the way that the others have. And since it’s so close to Christmas and Halloween, I’m hoping […]
We started up the “Budgeting Tip of the Day” again at Twitter
We started up the “Budgeting Tip of the Day” again at Twitter (twitter.com/pearbudget). Just in case you missed it. In related news, if you’re following us on Twitter, and we aren’t following you, and you aren’t a spammer, send us an @pearbudget message and let us know, and we’ll follow you back.