As January fades and February blooms, we're going to turn our attention from basic money management to something much more complicated: how money affects our relationships.

In December 2016, Bloomberg published a piece that profiled seven different couples from around the United States. The article -- which was essentially a series of short interviews -- offered a quick glimpse at how other people handle money in their relationships.

Here, for example, are Rebecca and Ari discussing what it was like to move in together:

Three weeks ago, I drove from Portland to Colorado Springs to participate in Camp FI, a weekend retreat for people interested in financial independence and early retirement.

Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't drive this distance. It's a 1300-mile trip that takes at least twenty hours to cover. Or, if you're me, it's a 1400-mile trip that takes 23 hours of driving spread over two days.

But, in case you haven't noticed, we're in the middle of a global pandemic, and although I'm not nearly as cautious as many of my friends, I don't relish the idea of confining myself to close quarters with dozens of strangers for hours on end in an airplane. Besides, I like to drive. And I love the beauty of the American west. And I needed some time alone to think deep thoughts — and to listen to the Hamilton soundtrack over and over and over again. Continue reading...

Today I present the second and final installment of my property tax saga -- the informal hearing. (You can check out the first post here.)

To briefly recap, I'm a new homeowner and my assessed property value shot up by 31 percent from last year. So that, along with the fact that I have a tax-protesting father to please, landed me in County Appraiser Brad's cubicle for an informal hearing.

The bad news<

During the first week of July, I had the privilege to chat with financial author Scott Burns. What was intended to be a brief interview about his new book, Spend 'til the End [my review] lasted for nearly two hours. Burns was fascinating.

It has taken weeks to edit this conversation into something digestible for the web. It's still quite long, but I hope it's as interesting to you as it is to me.

J.D.
Can you give my readers a brief history of your background?

In a nutshell: By diligently applying four simple rules, you can move from being at the mercy of money to being a master of money.

In 2004, Jesse and Julie Mecham were twenty-year-old newlyweds trying to make ends meet. They lived in the 300-square-foot basement of a sixty-year-old home. He was pursuing a master's degree in accounting, while she was finishing a bachelor's degree in social work. Plus, they were planning for their fist child.

The Mechams felt flat broke.

A few weeks ago, I celebrated another birthday. For whatever reason, birthdays always make me think about how many more birthdays I have to celebrate. And eventually, I think about how my husband would handle the finances in the event of my death.

Happy birthday, huh?

Although I am unlikely to die anytime soon, you never know. When thinking about my earthly exit, I am bothered most by the practical things that would affect my family. In the middle of grief and loss, I don't want my husband to be struggling to know which bills are on autopay, how much we contribute to our IRAs each month, or what the passwords are to important accounts. So, in my opinion, the most loving thing I could do is make sure he can keep our family's financial life together. It's time to create a Financial Plan.

My wife and I have begun to explore the idea of taking a trip later this year. We're in the preliminary stages of our research and budgeting. Though we aren't ready to book anything yet, it's fun to look at what's available, and to dream of where we might go.

Over the weekend, I polled my followers on Twitter to ask their advice for finding great travel deals. Here are some of the tips and websites they recommended. I'm sure I'll refer to this list often in the coming months.

We financial planners and financial writers love to trot out hypothetical illustrations along the lines of “If you save 20% of your income starting at age 40, you'll be able to retire by your late 60s, assuming an 8% rate of return” — a scenario I wrote about in March. While such projections are necessary for planning for the future, the truth is that they will most definitely be wrong once the future rolls around. There are just too many unknowable variables, such as future investment returns, inflation rates, and tax rates.

However, the unknowable unknowns aren't just limited to economic variables, as readers often remind me after I write such an article. Here's a tale a GRS reader told in the comments section after my March post:

In 1996 I had $78,000 in retirement funds and was 32 years old (hubby was 38). Then our home was flooded because a contractor doing a city project made a mistake. While struggling with being unable to live in the house, I was diagnosed with cancer and needed surgery ([we had] no insurance). Within a year I had cashed out the $78,000 to begin rebuilding the house and pay for surgery (we recouped a very small portion of the loss from the contractor). We sold the house and walked away with $11,000 to our name. That was in 1998.

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"Look at this," Kris said yesterday when she returned from grocery shopping. She held up two yogurt containers for me to see.

"So what?" I said. "Black cherry yogurt."

"Look closer," she said.

This is the second of a fourteen-part series that explores the core tenets of Get Rich Slowly.

Yesterday I completed my first marathon. It didn't happen exactly as I'd planned, but it happened. Instead of running 26.2 miles, I walked the entire course. Some might view this as a failure. Not me. I'm ecstatic to have finally, at the age of forty, met one of my life-long goals.

Though I had hoped to run the marathon, training injuries the past two years thwarted me. Instead, I walked the Portland Marathon in six hours and 54 minutes. Chris Guillebeau (who wrote The Art of Non-Conformity) walked the first nine miles with me, and Mac joined me for the final 8.2 miles. Though it didn't happen the way I intended, I accomplished my goal.