• On Life and Love

    Daily tasteeness (2008-01-23)

    The list is short today, but it’s a lengthy read if you read the discussion in the comments. » Rent Forever, Don’t Buy A Home on Blueprint for Financial Prosperity This blag challenges the idea that you should buy a house as soon as possible to avoid “throwing your money away”. Michael was the first to really plant that piece of conventional wisdom in my mind, and I’ve been interested in thoughts on the issue.

  • On Life and Love

    Budgeting tools

    Continuing with last week’s post dishing up the skinny on my budgeting past, I wanted to write just a bit this week about the budgeting tool I’m using now, per Better Budget Challenge # 2: Choose your budgeting tool. I mentioned back at the beginning of the month that I was using PearBudget. That wasn’t a good fit for me. A week of that showed that. I couldn’t easily see my spending the way I wanted to. So I downloaded the old spreadsheet form of PearBudget and have been using it. I like it. As I put in my spending, I can see through simple columns and rows how much…

  • On Life and Love

    Daily tasteeness (2008-01-20)

    Organize & Prepare: Do Your Taxes Quickly | My Dollar Plan The title says it all. This seems like a good way to get organized to make taxes simpler. Single Guy Money: Save Money on Auto Insurance I just ripped Progressive a new one for how much I’ve been overcharged for my car insurance. If you have the money to do so, Single Money Guy has some tips to get discounts on insurance. Time To Call The Credit Card Company “If you are trying to get out of credit card debt, you might want to think about giving your credit card company a call.” Get your rates reduced, increase your…

  • On Life and Love

    *rip*, *tear*, *slice*

    I just found out that Progressive has been charging me extra each month because they think I’m an “inexperienced” driver. That I haven’t had a license for at least three years. Never mind that I’ve had this policy for this car for three damn years. And never mind that I had my first policy with them for my first car during my freshman year of college. Silly. They told me they couldn’t access the details of those old policies (the Indiana one and the one for the first car), and they assumed I had a permit for those. I was told to get driving records from the DMVs in question…

  • On Life and Love

    Fear is the mindkiller…

    I’ve been sitting here for the last hour or so, rereading my writing works in progress, trying to find a thread to pick up and run with. Or trot with. Or stroll with. I tried playing around with a micro from a writing prompt, but my imagination was pretty dry. I’m going to keep trying, but I’m saddened by my lack of creative thought. In other news, I told my students I was quitting today. One student’s response was, “You don’t like teaching high school? Why couldn’t you have figured that out at the beginning of the year?!” Ah. Nasty little child. Students like her, that want nothing other than…