Aloysa's Kitchen Sink

A Letter to A Friend With Money

Aloysa — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 12:00:27 +0000

My dear, dear Girlfriend, You have been my good friend for eleven years. Time flies, doesn’t it? You are turning forty today. Happy Birthday! Do you realize how much you have achieved? You have money. You have no debt. You have a big house, and you have a good and stable job. You can afford [...]

How Not To Retire By 40 – Part II: An Ode To Emergency Fund

Aloysa — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 12:00:26 +0000

This post was included in Carnival of Personal Finance #299: The March Break Edition as one of the Editor’s Picks! Family History I was raised by my mother and my grandmother. An emergency fund was non-existent in our family. I don’t think that growing up I even understood what it means. Neither my grandmother nor [...]

Talk It Out: Run and Don’t Look Back

Aloysa — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 12:00:28 +0000

Welcome to Talk It Out. It finally arrived! One of my readers wrote me a while ago, as soon as I introduced the Talk It Out column. I followed up with her to see if the situation she found herself in remained unchanged. Unfortunately for my reader nothing has changed. Fortunately for me, I can [...]

How Not To Retire By 40 Part I: Things That Undo Us

Aloysa — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 20:36:10 +0000

The series of the following posts was inspired by one of my good friends and a great blogger Joe, the creator of Retireby40 , where he is chronicling his journey to retirement. Joe wrote a post How To Retire By 40 where he outlined and mapped his journey to an early retirement. It is a [...]

Not A Classy Exit Followed By A Better (Hopefully) Return

Aloysa — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 19:25:38 +0000

January was a rough month for Aloysa’s Kitchen Sink. So was the beginning of February. Hopefully from this moment forward it will be smoother sailing. One can only hope for it, right? A lot of you asked me what happened, why I pulled the plug so unpredictably. A few of you asked me to come [...]

Using Technology to Cope With Emergencies

Aloysa — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 22:36:07 +0000

This post comes from the NerdWallet.com team of financial bloggers and experts in helping users compare rewards credit cards. Life doesn’t always follow the simple plans you create, so in case life’s unforeseen circumstances emerge it’s always a good idea to have the right tools to help you deal with them. The following are some chaos [...]

Lesson From Bungy Jumping

Aloysa — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 22:26:52 +0000

This is a somewhat scary guest post for those who are afraid of height (like me!) by one of my favorite bloggers,Joe, from RetireBy40. He is a very brave man! Read on and find out why… If you ever thought about an early retirement, you must head over to Joe’s website where he is chronicling his [...]

Introducing Talk It Out and Aloysa’s Reading Picks

Aloysa — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 22:48:35 +0000

Please make sure to check out my staff writer post at Beating Broke, What Our Chinese Guides Taught Us About Pragmatic Consumerism. I came up with an idea for a new series TALK IT OUT: Money and Relationships. This series will be all about money, relationships and our lives. Money can bless a relationship or curse it. Am [...]

How We Did Business The Mob Style

Aloysa — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 22:42:47 +0000

He screamed a lot if you made a mistake. He swore like a sailor. He threw things such as his cell phone at men (never at women, although I was sure he wanted to) when he thought they were stupid beyond his reasonable expectations. Over the years I learned how to duck quite vigorously to avoid [...]

A Good Gym is Difficult to Find. Just Like a Good Man.

Aloysa — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 04:11:14 +0000

Please make sure to check out my staff writer post (it is going live this afternoon) at Beating Broke, Don’t Take Abuse. Know Your Rights. I like to observe people in restaurants, movie theaters, malls and gyms. After some careful and, hopefully, not nosy staring at people at my gym, I figured that people go to [...]