How My Priorities Have Changed Since Getting Pregnant

Having gotten knocked up later in life, I can say with confidence I do not envy anyone younger than me bringing a baby into this world. It turns out I’m, like, a pregnancy champ, so I might be a bit biased. But I’m also mature, and content, and wealthy, and married to a great man, […]

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The Joy of Living Within Your Means

  I’ve found people who are bad with money typically know they’re bad with it, but they think just having or making more would solve that problem. That couldn’t be further from the truth. If you currently spend everything you make, no increase in income is going to change that. You have to learn to […]

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The Joy of Purposeful Consumption

No, I’m not talking about tuberculosis. I mean the act of consuming with a purpose. I’ve already written a post on The Joy of Purposeful Spending, but I wanted to include consumption, because consumption doesn’t just apply to spending and saving, but also eating, using, and wasting. I say a lot of things all the […]

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Finding Your Financial Motivation

  I talk to a lot of people about their finances who don’t have a single plan, or oftentimes even a single goal in mind when they think about their money. They know they’re bad with it, but because they can afford their minimum payments they’ve got no motivation to improve their situation. This is […]

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The Joy of Purposeful Spending

  The inspiration for today’s post came as I was going to take our clothes out of the washer at the RV park. It’s $1.50 per load, so $3 for a wash and dry. As I pulled the six quarters out of our reused Ziploc coin purse I thought “Wait a minute, I’ll just hang […]

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A Budget Is Not A Punishment

Contrary to popular belief, a budget is not a punishment. People think adhering to a budget is scary, a hassle, inconvenient, or that they’ll have to “live like they’re poor”,  but in reality a budget is simply a tool that allows you to tell your money where to go. You get to tell your money where to […]

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A Fiscally-Minded Partner

  I was working on a collection of my most sound financial advice, and trying to decide where best to begin when my fingers started typing me down a very different path. Everyone knows Greg and I don’t have any debt (you can read about our journey here) but not as many people know the […]

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Hilton Status Match Through 2019

  For a limited time Hilton is offering free status match to their Honors program. If you have elite status with any other hotel programs you can apply for a free match on Hilton’s Status match page. Chase IHG cardmembers get automatic Platinum Elite status and the past two years we’ve both used ours to […]

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Missing money, Retention bonuses, DIY updates

  There are a few things I’ve tried and recommended lately to get and keep a few more Warcken dollars in our Warcken wallets. 1. missingmoney.com. In October I suggested everyone check out missingmoney.com to see if any states you’ve ever lived in owe you cash money. Of course I did this myself, and found […]

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Annual Fees and Credit Card Retention Bonuses

  Greg and I have a lot of credit cards, and most of them have annual fees. Some are a necessary evil for benefits the cards provide, and some annual fees actually pay for themselves. Depending on the card and its benefits, we’ll call when the annual fee is due and ‘threaten to cancel’ unless […]

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