Money Lessons Hidden in Your Favorite Scary Movies
Despite my current love for all things horror, I was quite the scaredy-cat when I was a kid. (This may have something to do with the...
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Jan 36 min read
5 Secrets For Keeping Your New Year's Resolution
If you’re the resolution or goal-setting type, early January is the time of year for making your plans on how to do and/or be better in...
Emily Guy Birken
Feb 21, 20233 min read
Do You Need an Accountant When You Have TurboTax?
My husband is a dedicated DIYer. He loves the challenge of learning a new skill. He appreciates the joy in saying “And I did it myself!”...
Emily Guy Birken
Feb 8, 20239 min read
44 Ways to Be Better at Life
About a month ago, Campbell Walker (aka Struthless), put out a video entitled 32 Ways to be Better at Life in honor of his 32nd birthday....
Emily Guy Birken
Oct 6, 20229 min read
Everything I Know About Money I Learned from Pop Culture
Since early childhood, I have been an avid consumer of pop culture. Whether it’s chewing gum jingles from the 1980s, movies I watched on...
Emily Guy Birken
Sep 23, 20225 min read
10 Easy Ways to Find More Money
Recently, someone asked me to list my top 10 favorite ways to save money. (I have a truly madcap social life, let me tell you.) I don’t...
Emily Guy Birken
Jul 1, 20225 min read
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Boredom
“I think the boring stuff is the stuff I remember most.” –Russell, Junior Wilderness Explorer I spend two hours each week managing our...
Emily Guy Birken
Mar 4, 20225 min read
The Responsibility of Hope
Several years ago, I was talking to a college friend about retirement, and he told me that his retirement plan was to assume climate...
Emily Guy Birken
Feb 4, 20227 min read
What Being a Teacher Taught Me About Money
Though I have spent the last 11+ years working as a personal finance writer, I’m actually an English teacher by training. Teaching seemed...
Emily Guy Birken
Jul 23, 20216 min read
The Life of a Couch
This past Saturday, my husband and I took our old couch to the dump. After 18 years of faithfully supporting our behinds while we watched...
Emily Guy Birken
May 21, 20217 min read
Teaching My Kids to Invest
I can vividly remember the first explicit lesson I had on the power of compound interest. Mr. Bosley, my 9th grade Social Studies...
Emily Guy Birken
Mar 12, 20214 min read
Can Emotions Lead Us to be Rational?
There was a time when I struggled to figure out why I was so drawn to the study of Behavioral Economics. It's not a natural attraction,...
Emily Guy Birken
Feb 26, 20214 min read
Defining Enough
One of the foundational works in the development of my financial philosophy is the classic book Your Money Or Your Life by Vicki Robin...
Emily Guy Birken
Jan 15, 20217 min read
Putting Perfection Paralysis in its Place
The start of a new year is supposed to feel like an exciting new beginning. We have the opportunity to shed old habits and rewrite our...
Emily Guy Birken
Dec 4, 20206 min read
3 Strategies for Teaching Your Kids About Money
Over the weekend, a friend tagged me on Facebook in a discussion one of her friends was having on how to teach kids about money. The...
Emily Guy Birken
Nov 20, 20206 min read
The Do - Over
In November 2012, about a month after my dad was diagnosed with the glioblastoma that would take his life in April 2013, my husband and I...
Emily Guy Birken
Oct 23, 202011 min read
That Time I Got into a Fight with Ally Bank
I’m not in the habit of getting into knock-down drag-out fights with my financial institutions. I prefer to reserve my WWE style...
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Oct 9, 20207 min read
The Awful Power of Putting Things Out of Your Mind
Some of the unfettered joy and extreme discomfort of parenting comes from recognizing your own traits in your child. Not only does my...
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Sep 25, 20205 min read
RBG, Independence and Women's Financial Wisdom
Note from Emily: I originally wrote this piece in September, 2020, but after the devastating June 24, 2022 Supreme Court ruling that...
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Sep 11, 20207 min read
Escaping the Cult of Productivity
Many years ago, I learned that Samuel Johnson, one of the most prolific of all English writers, spent his days lamenting his own...
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