My Simple Guide To Budgeting For One, Part 2

In Part 1 of My Simple Guide To Budgeting For One, I shared a little bit about my personal finance journey, including how I set goals and how I choose the best resources to manage my money. One of the biggest takeaways: Set reasonable, tangible, exciting, specific, and intentional goals. Tracking In 2014, my budget was...

Work Hard, Save Hard

I’m more than halfway through the busiest month of my year. I plan academic summer programs all year long and all four of them start in July. Most days lately, I wake up as early as I can (it averages at around 6:00a) and get a lot of work done in the morning. I’ve been...

My Simple Guide To Budgeting For One, Part 1

Over the summer of 2014, I stopped living paycheck to paycheck. It sounds like I won the lottery or something. Rather, I won the job lottery. Well, I worked hard through college and graduate school, applied for a well-paying summer job, and got it. I didn't have any previous connections to the organization that hired...

An Ode To Quiet Monday Mornings

My alarm hums gently while I ease out of sleep and open my eyes. My room is filled with grey light and, through my blurry vision, I can see my curtain blowing in the slow breeze. It's Monday. And my alarm is still going off, so I turn it off and put on my glasses....

I’ve Got 99 Problems, But Takeout Ain’t One

Big news: I'm on Day 104 of my No Takeout Challenge! Subtract my five "slip-up's" and you have 99 days of my life without takeout! You also have a clever title for this blog post that almost works, so I decided to go ahead and use it. The creative juices aren't always flowing, my friends....

How Being A Walking Commuter Changed My Life

In 2012, I traded my car in for a bicycle. Within a couple months of the trade, I discovered that riding a bike around a city full of people texting and driving is completely terrifying. Since I value my life, I let my beautiful bike start to collect dust while I transitioned to the life...

Hi, My Name Is Jane & I Used To Eat Takeout

What started as a fun experiment has turned into an unexpected lifestyle change. And before your bullshit radar goes off, let me just say that I have never experienced this much success with a personal challenge, budget-related or otherwise. For some reason this one just worked! I stopped eating takeout and delivery food on January...

10 Ways To Be Healthier Without Extra Effort

I'm on Day 53 of my personal challenge to completely eliminate takeout and delivery food. I can honestly say that this is the easiest and most natural challenge I've ever engaged in. When I made the decision, I thought it would be impossible considering how often I ate my meals from a to-go box. But...

6 Essential Meal Prep Tips

I am in the middle of a personal challenge to reduce the amount of times I get takeout or delivery and really commit to cutting my food spending. Today is Day 22 of no takeout (not even once) and a redesign of how I approach meals throughout the week. I'm proud to say I haven't...

Here’s What I Learned When I Added Up My Food Costs For 3 Months

Ignorance is bliss. And I've been blissfully and completely ignorant to how much money I spend on food. I track my spending to the penny, so I've always had the information available. I just didn't take the time to add up monthly grocery and dining out expenses. I recently (reluctantly) did the math and what...