11 June 2024
You know those podcast episodes that you hit play on as soon as you see them in your feed? Today’s post was inspired by one of them – a recent Lazy Genius episode. In it, Kendra shares 20 helpful decisions she keeps repeating across four areas of life: personal, kids, food, and money. “Decide once” is probably my favorite Lazy Genius principle – it speaks to my heart which loves both efficiency AND intentionality – and though I’ve written about some of my “decide once” decisions before, we’ve never discussed money-related decisions specifically. Since I loved hearing Kendra’s, I thought it might be helpful to share some of John’s and mine, especially since we love chatting personal finance around here :) Let’s do it! P.S. This is probably obvious, but “deciding once” means making one decision about one thing and continuing to make that decision over and over until it doesn’t work for you anymore. Boundaries AND freedom! A mostly unrelated photo, but you know these Articles Club gals are a great source of riches in my life! 1. I sign up for every Meal Train that crosses my path, and I bring a prepared meal from a local shop. In this season of young kids, trying to prepare and deliver two meals in one day (for my family and the other family) was causing enough stress that it had begun to dissuade me from signing up in the first place. While it’s more expensive than cooking from scratch, I love that I can choose a meal that matches the family’s needs with ease (gluten- or dairy-free, vegetarian, etc.) and support a local small business, too. 2. When a school or teacher asks for money, we give it. Our oldest attends a public elementary school, and our middle will soon join her
10 April 2024
One of the most frequent requests I get, on all platforms, is for a mortgage plan update. This is funny to me (the requests are usually random and out of the blue!), but I welcome it, and I understand it: there are not many people willing to talk about finances in a personal and detailed way. But here I am! Willing to talk! So let’s get into it, because we have made a shift since our last conversation… A brief overview of where we’ve been: Spring 2013: We buy our house! We pull together a 13% down payment, because that’s the most we could afford. Fall 2014: After paying off our car loans, we use about half of what we had been paying to make an extra mortgage payment each month (directly to the bank), and the other half to build up a fund for our next car purchase. Fall 2015: Car fund complete, we shift that amount we’d been paying toward our mortgage, too. Instead of paying down our mortgage directly, though, we begin transferring the extra monthly amount into a specific home brokerage account and invest it, with the goal of paying off the mortgage balance in one lump sum once we reach the amount we need. I talked about that here. 2018: We shift our strategy. Instead of paying off our mortgage as soon as our home brokerage account reaches the right amount, we plan to keep saving a little longer, until we’ve reached a large-enough amount of money that, if carefully invested, the returns themselves would be large enough to cover our monthly mortgage payment (meaning our mortgage would no longer need to be a part of our household budget). I talked about that here. 2022: With June in (public) kindergarten, we shift most of the money we had been paying for preschool each
7 December 2023
Writing about your own generosity is a tricky thing, isn’t it? On the one hand, there’s the very real fear that you’ll come across as prideful, a show-off. Or that you’ll needlessly make others feel bad about their efforts – which might represent a real sacrifice – or feel shame about the gap between your generosity and theirs. So why risk it? Of course, there’s also this, just one chapter later – also from the mouth of Jesus: Giving in public = bad? Giving in secret = good? If only it were so easy :) The Christian faith is not interested in being simple; it’s interested in being true. In the end, the motivation of the heart is what categorizes the same act as either a treasure or a disgrace in the eyes of God, which can make it confusing to know when to share. However – as long as I can feel reasonably confident that I’m sharing to reflect the light and love of God and not to be praised by men blog readers, I want to do so. Also, we hear a lot about Christians behaving badly. But there are many, many, many more stories of light that go untold – stories of quiet, unsung acts of selflessness, compassion, and generosity. We need those stories, too, to remind us about the beauty, grace, and truth of a life spent imitating Jesus (imperfectly, always, but earnestly, too). Finally, on a practical note, I like hearing about the positive things others are doing! It inspires me to be better, to do more, to stretch my conception of what I think I’m capable of and comfortable with – and it gives me ideas for how to do so! It reminds me that people everywhere are doing their best to make people
23 May 2023
Editor’s note: I wrote most of this post when I was still pregnant with Annie (!). It’s sat in my drafts folder for more than two years, waiting for me to come back and finish it up. Today is the day! I decided the best thing to do would be to publish my original speculative thoughts and then add a little two-years-in update with how things have actually turned out (so far). I hope it’s helpful! There were a number of topics I knew I wanted to discuss once the news was out about baby number three. There was deciding to have a third baby at all, of course, as well as the pros and cons of another boy or girl. But one I was really looking forward to? The financial implications of having a third child. We’ve discussed the intersection of money and kids a few times (here and here most specifically!), and I find it an endlessly fascinating and severely under-discussed topic. So, consider this post one part sharing our personal experience, one part encouragement, and one part practical strategizing. As always, I can’t wait to hear your thoughts. Let’s dig in! Though each additional kiddo in a family introduces a new element to the financial picture, I think a third child is unique in a way a second or even a fourth is not. I thought I’d walk through a few common kid budget categories to share how we thought through them, and a few things you might want to think about if you’re considering having a third. I hope this post offers some hope, helpful perspective, and fodder for conversation with your spouse! :) Housing Let’s tackle a big one first! People have been curious from the beginning as to where baby sister will sleep. Our