You got a promotion at work, you started side hustling, you got your tax return and you’re ready to celebrate! You pop the champagne, head out for a meal, and treat yo’ self. Besides, you can afford it now, right? It’s easy to turn over our pockets at the end of the month and wonder […]
First Time Car Buyer’s Wild Ride
I think most of us have our first car near and dear to our hearts. I was lucky to be able to drive my family’s Mitsubishi Expo during the later years of college. Talk about glamour. Prestige. My friends loved it or hated it, loved it because if you sat in the front seat it […]
I Don’t Budget… Is That Going To Ruin Everything?
“Hi Mechanic,” my friend’s voice played over the voicemail, “I am going to Japan for six months, and was wondering if you had any advice on how to handle finances while abroad,” My heart beat faster, excitement coursing through me. Three of my favorite things: Travel, finance, and giving actually solicited advice! Is this real […]
The Beginner’s Guide to Investing – For When You Just Want To Be Told What To Do
So you’ve followed The Ultimate Flowchart and you have a budget. You save up 3-6 months of expenses for an emergency fund, and now you’re sitting pretty. What next? When I finished with school I had knowledge piled up in my head: I knew how to calculate fluid velocity in a pipe, the fracture toughness of a […]
The Career Ladder Is Slow— Take The Career Elevator Instead
In the last few months, I have applied to several jobs. I talked to recruiters, endured phone screens, coded up a couple take-home tests, whiteboarded, live coded, and answered probing questions such as: what are your biggest weaknesses? and who would you want to play you if your life was made into a motion picture? […]
What Does Financial Independence Mean To You
I am part of a growing movement of people looking for a way out of the rat race. The movement is called FIRE: Financial Independence, Retire Early. The blogosphere is growing with people embracing the movement, and I at first felt like I had little to add to this space. After all, Gwen of Fiery Millennials is […]
The Ultimate Flowchart
At some point after becoming an adult, you wish there was an instruction booklet or something telling you exactly what you need to know. People will tell you, “It depends on the situation!” and you will say, “Yeah, yeah, I know, so what should I do for my situation?” Eventually, you go off and get a financial […]
Frugal Roots
My parents set the example for frugality. My dad had a mental catalog of every item in the grocery store and how much it should cost. After shopping for our staples at King Soopers, our local Kroger mart, we’d walk across the street to Safeway because milk and bagels were cheaper there. We never ate […]
The Makings of a Financial Mechanic
“You can have a dog when your sister is your age,” my dad promised. Which meant in four long, painstaking, wishful years I could have a dog. I asked how much a dog would cost me, and my dad said, “One hundred dollars.” He knew my five-year-old brain would convert that to “a lot of […]