Ka-Blog is back!
Posted on July 1st, 2009 – 10:45 AMBy Kara McGuire
After three months at home with baby #3, a dreamy boy who eats well, puts himself to sleep and rarely cries, I am back in the saddle at the Strib. I’ll tell you about money and my maternity leave in Sunday’s paper.
Thanks to all of you who headed over to www.twitter.com/kablog to follow me. I’m still tweeting everything I spend with the exception of my regular fixed expenses. How many times does someone want to read:Mortgage $977 or Student loan $96.65?But if you want me to continue tweeting those expenses, let me know and I will.
While gone, I missed having the blog, especially when the urge struck to write something complicated, like the explainer on student loan changes from today’s paper. Can’t do that in 140 characters!
In the weeks to come, I’ll write about car-shopping, credit card changes, savings and debt payoff.
But being a little sleep-deprived and new to juggling three, I’m hoping you’ll make my job easier.
What are the personal finance issues your family is facing? Any money matters or financial trends you’re seeing or reading about that drive you nuts? Questions about investing that you don’t want to pay an adviser to answer? Know any inspiring folks who got out of debt? Live next to the most frugal family known to man? Hankering to be a guest blogger for Ka-Blog?
I hope so!. Email kara.mcguire@startribune.com or comment on this blog post. Some of my best ideas come from nuggets delivered by readers like you.
It’s good to be back.
11 Responses to "Ka-Blog is back!"
I’d like to see you write about families with kids that are trying to make one parent working part-time, freelance, or staying at home work. We talk about the desire to do that, but haven’t figured out how. Also, would like to see you write about maternity leave policy and how you and others struggled (I assume) to finance unpaid leave. I believe that it is ridiculous that there is not at least some state or federally mandated paid leave (or even an FMLA, unpaid leave law that would apply to the many people that work in companies under 50 people). Most other industrialized countries recognize the positive impact on society/the state of supporting appropriate bonding and nuturing time between mothers and babies.
hey Kara,
It’s great to have you back!
Following you on Twitter was good, just not the same.
We have a large amount of credit card debt. We are trying to pay it down, but we have too many other bilss. I have heard some debt consolidation adds that say credit card companies will forgive a certain percent of your debt. Is this true? Which debt companies do you recommmend to seek help from?
Welcome back! And congratulations!
So glad to have you back! The Strib just isn’t the same without you!
I would love any kind of guidance on how to help your savings grow.(Is that possible any more?)
If you’re ever looking for a guest post at Kablog, just let me know! I’d be happy to help!
Hey Kara, Welcome Back and congratulations! Would like to hear you comment and/or thoughts on Debt Management Plans vs Debt Settlement vs Bankruptcy. I just started on a debt management plan but not sure that I made the right decision and not sure who to turn to for good advise.
Welcome back. I think it would be interesting to get feedback on the credit card issues that resulted from the Delta takeover of Northwest. It may be a little early, but it would nice to hear how smoothly that transition went for people. (Maybe this is too narrow a topic?)
How about trying to interview some folks that retired 4th qtr of last year?
Kara, how about trying to interview folks recently retired to see how they are coping with the market collapse?
Welcome back, Kara. I’d be happy to guest blog, and I could even answer the first poster’s question, at least in regard to our experience on one of us leaving work and how we managed our budget.
Welcome back, just had a baby last August myself.
How about handling finances when you are juggling multiple house?
My husband I bought our first house (a foreclosed fixer upper) in 2004 and lived in it until 2007, when we started renting it out. We also bought a house in 2005 that was a fixer upper and after a few months of work, rented that one out. We bought our current home in 2007 and plan on living here for many decades. We can hold onto the other houses for years and continue to rent them out if necessary. But, we are frustrated by the fact when we were looking into fixing up houses in 2003-2004, everyone was telling us how housing markets go up, up! And now, it feels like we have more to handle than we could have ever seen. I wish I had three kids and one mortgage, but will handle one kid and three mortgages as long as I have to.
For those of us who planned on being landlords or the accidental landlords, what now??
If you are not covering this, but want a guest blogger, let me know. I am interested anyway and as I am armed with a journalism degree, I might as well put it to use again.
