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...
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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...
Emily Guy Birken
- Oct 23, 2020
- 11 min
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, 2020
- 7 min
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, 2020
- 5 min
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, 2020
- 7 min
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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- Aug 28, 2020
- 7 min
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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- Aug 7, 2020
- 7 min
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...
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- Jul 24, 2020
- 6 min
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...
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- Jul 10, 2020
- 7 min
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...
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- Jun 26, 2020
- 6 min
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...
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- Jun 12, 2020
- 9 min
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...
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- May 29, 2020
- 7 min
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...
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