I love that you take a minimalist lens to money management, Rebecca! You add an important perspective to this advice that we don't see in personal finance — like having an "uncluttered" view of your finances and insurance as a way to "alleviate worry." This is why I love seeing conversations about money outside of the personal finance space!
Thank you! I would love to see money discussions happen more and more in non-personal finance spaces. There's so much to learn and benefit from. Thank you for sharing all you do, Dana -- I love your take on all this as well.
This is such a fantastic collection of sound pieces of advice! For me, I always like piece 1: "Get a handle on your emotions around money" is probably going to take a lifetime 🤣 - and you clearly pre-empted that... so thank you for giving us the motivation to know it will always be a WIP as we do other things to organize our finances
I learned about this stuff when I found a budget coaching program that’s offered free through my credit union. They held our hand through biweekly coaching calls while we tracked our spending, put all of our debt front and center on one shared spreadsheet and I cried my way through learning spreadsheet formulas.
Now I’m the one managing the spreadsheet and we do an audit at the end of the month and at the beginning of the year to plan for annual and periodic expenses and how we invest. We’ve found our sweet spot for monthly expenses so I’m not obsessive about it anymore.
It’s a lot and it required a lot of emotional and mental work in the beginning, but it’s one of the best rituals we have in our marriage.
I’m curious about the living will, I will look into that.
Such great advice. When I was in college, my dad gave me the book, “making the most of your money” by Jane Bryant Quinn. The whole beginning of the book was about the foundational stuff, setting up an emergency fund, basic insurance including disability insurance, and the fundamentals of investing, which are so unbelievably easy, anyone can do it. Knowing all that, I still forgot about renters insurance! So thank you for the reminder. My version of the financial lecture for young people is to start a Roth IRA and put a little bit of money into an index fund every month.
Roth IRAs are so amazing, I almost couldn't believe they were real when I first learned about them. Money that grows forever, tax free?? When you're young it's hard to really understand how powerful that is.
Thanks for the book mention -- that sounds like a good one!
This is an excellent new direction you're taking here. Very good advice all round, too. It's the sort of stuff that few of us want to face, but which can bite us in the butt later. "Minimalist money"; that's got to be a new meme. Well done! I thoroughly enjoyed reading (and learning).
I love that you take a minimalist lens to money management, Rebecca! You add an important perspective to this advice that we don't see in personal finance — like having an "uncluttered" view of your finances and insurance as a way to "alleviate worry." This is why I love seeing conversations about money outside of the personal finance space!
Thank you! I would love to see money discussions happen more and more in non-personal finance spaces. There's so much to learn and benefit from. Thank you for sharing all you do, Dana -- I love your take on all this as well.
This is such a fantastic collection of sound pieces of advice! For me, I always like piece 1: "Get a handle on your emotions around money" is probably going to take a lifetime 🤣 - and you clearly pre-empted that... so thank you for giving us the motivation to know it will always be a WIP as we do other things to organize our finances
I learned about this stuff when I found a budget coaching program that’s offered free through my credit union. They held our hand through biweekly coaching calls while we tracked our spending, put all of our debt front and center on one shared spreadsheet and I cried my way through learning spreadsheet formulas.
Now I’m the one managing the spreadsheet and we do an audit at the end of the month and at the beginning of the year to plan for annual and periodic expenses and how we invest. We’ve found our sweet spot for monthly expenses so I’m not obsessive about it anymore.
It’s a lot and it required a lot of emotional and mental work in the beginning, but it’s one of the best rituals we have in our marriage.
I’m curious about the living will, I will look into that.
It'll come as no surprise to you that I loved this piece! Excited for part two 👀
Such great advice. When I was in college, my dad gave me the book, “making the most of your money” by Jane Bryant Quinn. The whole beginning of the book was about the foundational stuff, setting up an emergency fund, basic insurance including disability insurance, and the fundamentals of investing, which are so unbelievably easy, anyone can do it. Knowing all that, I still forgot about renters insurance! So thank you for the reminder. My version of the financial lecture for young people is to start a Roth IRA and put a little bit of money into an index fund every month.
Roth IRAs are so amazing, I almost couldn't believe they were real when I first learned about them. Money that grows forever, tax free?? When you're young it's hard to really understand how powerful that is.
Thanks for the book mention -- that sounds like a good one!
It's an oldie-but-goodie.
Thank you Rebecca! I needed this!
So helpful and motivating, thank you!
This is an excellent new direction you're taking here. Very good advice all round, too. It's the sort of stuff that few of us want to face, but which can bite us in the butt later. "Minimalist money"; that's got to be a new meme. Well done! I thoroughly enjoyed reading (and learning).