PERSONAL FINANCE, ELEVATED.
I once had a lazy landlord who made us vet prospective roommates, which meant awkwardly asking people for their credit report. While I vaguely knew that my “credit was checked” whenever I applied for an apartment, it didn’t become real until I was asked to assess a person’s worthiness based on a bunch of stats. […]
When we found out our friends were getting married across the Atlantic, I, forever the maximizer, thought to myself: while we’re in the UK, might as well hop to another European city, right? After the wedding, instead of heading straight home to New York City, we’re stopping in southern Portugal to relax for a few […]
Here’s a reason why you might want to have an emergency fund. Say you rent a car in LA, decline the insurance, and drop off the car right on time. Per usual. Then the car rental clerk takes you outside to point out a two-inch dent on the passenger-side door. Well, here’s a first: you […]
Have you ever been at a group dinner where everyone except you put down a Chase Sapphire card, and wondered: what do they know that I don’t? Maybe you got your first credit card at your local bank, because you didn’t know other credit cards existed. Or like me, you were a hapless college student […]
I’ve been on a tear lately where I travel to expensive islands, get initially shell-shocked by food prices, then wonder if I’ve made a critical mistake in choosing my destination. First Maui, then New Zealand, and now it’s happened with Iceland. Within hours of landing in Iceland, I was not only freezing in my jeans, […]
Hello, hello! I’ve had a few money wins lately, so here’s a quick life update from me today. 1. We Cancelled Cable! Well, my husband did. It’s a huge administrative win, and I feel such a weight off our shoulders. Cable was one of those things we never used enough to actually justify the price […]
Somehow it’s been drilled into our heads that credit cards are the absolute worst and should be avoided at all costs. And for some, the thought of having more than one credit card is like opening up Pandora’s Box. I realized just how powerful this narrative is last December when my husband and I met […]