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!”...
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Emily Guy Birken
- Feb 8
- 9 min
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, 2022
- 9 min
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, 2022
- 5 min
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, 2022
- 5 min
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, 2022
- 5 min
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, 2022
- 7 min
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, 2021
- 6 min
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, 2021
- 7 min
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, 2021
- 4 min
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, 2021
- 4 min
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, 2021
- 7 min
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, 2020
- 6 min
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, 2020
- 6 min
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...