Don't Set Your Happiness on FIRE
If you’re not a regular in the personal finance corner of the Internet (where spreadsheets are sexy, fluent NASDAQ speakers proliferate,...
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Emily Guy Birken
Aug 7, 20207 min read
How to Practice Slow Motion Time Travel
What if I were to tell you that time travel is possible? No, I don’t have a DeLorean (or any other novelty 80s sports car) with a flux...
Emily Guy Birken
Jul 24, 20206 min read
How to Avoid a Pandemic Spending Frenzy
Several weeks ago, after having spent 103 straight days with my family, I asked my husband to give me a list of errands that had gone...
Emily Guy Birken
Jul 10, 20207 min read
The Problem with Focus
For the last several months, my brain has been…mushy, for lack of a better word. I stare at empty Word documents, unable to start writing...
Emily Guy Birken
Jun 26, 20206 min read
New Habits Learned in 2020 (So Far)
Not only has 2020 seemed to last at least a decade so far, but sometimes, it can also feel like there is no relief on the horizon. A...
Emily Guy Birken
Jun 12, 20209 min read
Using the 5 Whys to Investigate Your White Allyship
While this blog is usually a place for discussing difficult financial questions, today I’m going to talk about how one of my financial...
Emily Guy Birken
May 29, 20207 min read
Consistency: The Simple-But-Not Easy Secret to Success
I like to think of myself as someone who is good at creating productive routines. And if by creating, you mean writing them out in...
Emily Guy Birken
May 15, 20208 min read
Beware the Three Shoulds
It seems like you can’t swing a sourdough starter these days without hitting some unwelcome hot take on how we all should be spending our...
Emily Guy Birken
May 1, 20205 min read
Life is Not a Buffet
When I was a little girl, I very sincerely wanted to BE my big sister. Tracie was smart, cool, stylish, and calm, and she had some truly...
Emily Guy Birken
Apr 24, 20205 min read
Dealing With Too Much
There’s a chapter in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women wherein Marmee encourages all four girls to do whatever they want for several days,...
Emily Guy Birken
Apr 17, 20207 min read
Change How You Think About Your Finances...with Tetris!
Worrying about money is one of America’s most popular pastimes even when things are normal. Add a global pandemic, stay-at-home orders,...
Emily Guy Birken
Apr 10, 202011 min read
What to Do When the Economy Comes Screeching to a Halt
If you spend any time in the financial corner of the internet, you’ll sometimes find yourself among the finger-wagging set who like to...
Emily Guy Birken
Apr 3, 20206 min read
4 Ways You Can Improve Your Finances While Stuck at Home
Being at home for an extended period has led many people to some truly inventive and bizarre activities, from recreating famous works of...
Emily Guy Birken
Mar 27, 20207 min read
Patience, Extended Social Distancing, and Other Impossible Things
When I was a child, my mother liked to tell me I couldn’t be a doctor because I had no patience. (If you’re wondering where my puntastic...
Emily Guy Birken
Mar 20, 20208 min read
The Fed’s Interest Rates and Other Imaginary Friends
Here is a fact about finances that feels like it can’t possibly be true: Money doesn’t actually exist. Yeah, I know. Sounds crazy. But...
Emily Guy Birken
Mar 12, 20207 min read
Calm Your Fears in 3 Simple Steps
One of my favorite book genres is historical fiction set in Victorian England. These books offer a strange kind of comfort, even though I...
Emily Guy Birken
Feb 14, 20207 min read
What To Do With Your Tax Refund
This time of year has so much to recommend it: the weather is slowly warming (if you don’t happen to live in the arctic wilds of...
Emily Guy Birken
Feb 6, 20205 min read
Living Mindfully When You Don't Like Where You Are
Two of the unhappiest years of my life were when I was teaching. During my first and third year of teaching, I had an extremely difficult...
Emily Guy Birken
Jan 31, 20206 min read
How to Ask for a Raise
Last week, I wrote about how aligning your work priorities with those of your workplace can do wonders to help you feel more satisfied at...
Emily Guy Birken
Jan 24, 20208 min read
Bringing Mindfulness to Work
I recently talked to two different women in my life who are stressed at work. In both cases, a combination of factors, including some...
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