Written by money management contributor Charlie Park of Pear Budget. When our daughter Lucy was born, her grandparents and a few friends of the family gave her savings bonds, to be used for college, or music lessons, or other Good Things. They were generous, to be sure, but they unintentionally gave us a bit of [...]

Written by parenting teens contributor Robin Dance of Pensieve. My husband is an excellent financial manager.  This has proven important in our marriage since I’m partial to words, not math or anything remotely associated with budgets.  Charlie’s excellent Warm and Fuzzy Budgeting post was preachin’ to his choir. As is often the case in marriage, the [...]

So… budgeting. Several of you have mentioned wanting to see our family’s budget. I’m happy to show you what we do, though I have to admit — it’s nothing fancy. Charlie Park blew me away with last week’s post about warm and fuzzy budgeting. He’s right — it’s nothing more than hopes, and goals, and [...]

Written by money management contributor Charlie Park of Pear Budget. Me: “Hey, SimpleMom readers! We’re going to be talking about money.” You: “Yay, money!” Me: “We’re going to start off talking about … get excited … budgets!” You: *yawn* I know, I know. Too often, budgets are the boring uncle at the cocktail party of [...]

I loved reading everyone’s responses to their most common financial frustrations. I’m not saying I love that many of you have these frustrations, of course, but it is helpful for me to see where this community is financially, and how we can possibly help each other on a solid road to financial freedom. There were [...]

Almost two years ago, I first shared some newly-found emotional benefits to being debt-free. We just sent in our last payment to finish off my school loans from college, and were emotionally high from the eurphoria of not owing a thing to anyone. Two years later, and we’re still shaking in our boots in gratitude [...]