Welcome! As a long time lurker among the Personal Finance blogs I decided to dive in and start one myself.
A little bit about my personal finance situation: After graduating college, I was lucky to find a good paying job (for my field, at least) and live a good life in one of larger US metropolitan cities. During this time, I met Mr. Bean. In Summer 2004, after 3 years of working FT and 2 years of dating, we were married, quit our jobs, and moved to another state where we are pursuing our doctoral degrees at a large land-grant state university.
We are fortunate that both of our doctoral programs pay all tuition and fees and pay a modest stipend (after taxes, ~$1300 / month each). I also moonlight as a Personal Chef (more on hat later) which brings in roughly $300-400 / month
Mr. Bean has always kept exact records of his spending. I have not. I’ve never been a BIG spender, so ever since I’ve had enough money to know I’m not in jeopardy of depleting the account, I’ve been a lax and disorganized record keeper. Since we started school in 2004, I’ve been a penny pincher and always looking for ways to make our money go farther, but I never tracked my spending (I should note: Mr. Bean and I each have our own accounts as well as a joint account. Mr. Bean has always kept exacting records of his own money as well as our joint money). However, I felt like it was silly of me to be clipping coupons, turning down the thermostat but not know, even within a $500 range, how much money was in my checking account.
Starting in Summer 2006 I started tracking all my money n Quicken. I now feel like I’m in control of my finances. I hope that in a few years when we are done with school, we’ll have preserved enough of our pre-graduate school savings to buy a home. I’d like to use this blog to get your help and support, as well as share some of my strategies for adjusting to slashing your household income by over 70% and still having a happy, fruitful life. (added 11/30: I should note taht while income was slashed, we also moved to a less expensive city adn get really affordable health insurance through the university.. so some expensives have been slashed, too!!)
Greetings and Salutations!
November 11th, 2006 at 02:52 pm
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November 11th, 2006 at 03:07 pm 1163257631
While being frugal is great you need to invest and save! It sounds like you will soon be able to do that! I am sure you have perused the money saving ideas on the boards!
In any case welcome aboard and I look forward to reading your blog!
November 11th, 2006 at 03:14 pm 1163258056
But yes, welcome, Mrs. Bean.
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