Earn, Save, and Live Joyfully.
One of my most vivid memories of money came at the age of 11. I became friends with the new girl at school. The new girl and her family moved into a brand new neighborhood that had popped up about a mile from my home. I visited her one Saturday afternoon and was amazed at … Read more
In a few days we’ll pack up the car and head out on a week long trip to the beach. We visit North Carolina fairly frequently, but with my husband acting as the sole provider for our family our last two trips were onlxy two days long. We left late on a Friday night and … Read more
There is no better way to tell a tale than to start at the beginning, and so to comprehend my current finances you must first understand my relationship with money. When I think back on my life, even back to the earliest years of childhood, I have very specific memories of money. Despite the fact … Read more
A wave of anxiety washed over me as I walked into the examination room. I wasn’t sure what was wrong but I knew something just didn’t feel right. For days I had an overwhelming desire to just stay in bed. I lost the energy to leave the house or even move around inside of it. … Read more
This weekend I removed a large, wooden rocking horse from our house and then I cried. My oldest didn’t play on that horse very often, but I still felt very sentimental about it. To be perfectly honest I couldn’t figure out why, but as I sat in the space where it used to reside a … Read more
I spend a lot of my day moving things from Point A to Point B. I move the dishes from the cabinet, to the table, to the dishwasher and back to the cabinet every evening, only to start all over again tomorrow. I move the clothes from the drawers, to the kitchen table, to my … Read more
As part of my fanatical decluttering I gave away the majority of my wardrobe. To be honest I grew tired of looking at drawers full of clothes that didn’t seem to fit properly anymore. Some items didn’t really suit my taste and others were from a time long gone by. There were those button down … Read more
I felt the need to tidy my house long before the I read Marie Kondo’s book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. Last year I took the room by room approach to discarding. I went through my drawers and closets carefully and methodically. The first pass I removed the easy stuff like clothes that didn’t … Read more
For the past four and a half years I haven’t taken the greatest care of myself. Instead I have poured every ounce of my being into raising my children. Now everyone on earth has told me that this is not healthy, but for some reason I failed to heed that message. After waiting over thirty … Read more