Emily Guy Birken

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 time during the pan...

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 awesome friends. As ...

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, rather than having ...

Worrying about money is one of America’s most popular pastimes even when things are normal. Add a global pandemic, stay-at-home orders, an economic crash, an...

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 exclaim “You should ha...

Being at home for an extended period has led many people to some truly inventive and bizarre activities, from recreating famous works of art with whatever’s ...

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 sense of humor origi...

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 even though money is a...

One of my favorite book genres is historical fiction set in Victorian England. These books offer a strange kind of comfort, even though I intellectually reco...

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 Wisconsin), the birds are ch...

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 teaching schedule (...

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 work. But you know w...

I recently talked to two different women in my life who are stressed at work. In both cases, a combination of factors, including some workplace toxicity, the...

Financial independence (and specifically the Financial Independence Retire Early or FIRE movement) has been in the news quite a bit lately. Such articles oft...

Visualize for a moment that you have everything you want in your life. You feel fulfilled by your work, relaxed about your finances, and contented in your da...

As the year winds to a close, it’s a common time for contemplation and self-questioning. This is when you may ask yourself questions like: What do I wish I h...

We’re often told that money can’t buy happiness. The best things in life are free, after all, and money only works if you take it seriously. There are import...

Personal finance literature can be full of the kind of simple-yet-unhelpful advice that no one knows how to take—things like, you should have an emergency fu...

Well-entrenched spending habits can be difficult to shake. If you’re in the habit of impulse buying, paying for convenience, or engaging in retail therapy (d...

Last week, we talked about finding the budgeting routine that will work for you. But that’s a little like finding the flossing routine that will work for you...