This all started with The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.
It sounds like the most ridiculous thing to say, but I’m dead serious that it changed my life, as promised in the title.
I tore through the book in a few hours, and promptly allocated a Saturday evening to get rid of 75% of my clothing. Four hours and five giant garbage bags destined for Value Village later, I realized something: I have way more stuff than I need.
And honestly, way more stuff than I even really like.
So maybe, just maybe, I don’t need to buy all of those things I thought I needed to buy?
I took a quick look at my Google Keep wishlist from a few months ago, and 9 out of 10 of the items I had written down as must-have “eventually” purchases were things I didn’t want or prioritize anymore.
Hmm. Maybe I’m right about this not-needing-stuff thing.
If I’m right about that, maybe it means I could save more? Or manage my finances better? Maybe reach a few financial goals ahead of time?
And down the rabbit hole of personal finance blogs and sub-reddits I went. Eventually, after spending way too much time devouring r/personalfinance, r/frugal, r/financialindependence, Blonde on a Budget, Mr. Money Mustache, Frugalwoods (they have a dog too!) and other such blogs, I realized two final things.
- I am nowhere near as good with money as I thought I was.
- I’m a hell of a lot better than I used to be.
I have more to learn in order to reach my goals, and I’m excited to do it in public and share what I’m learning – and the progress I’m making in correcting past mistakes. If I can help inspire just one person as much as the aforementioned people have inspired me, I’ll be happy.
First up: getting my financial house in order.
Omg! I just found your site via Twitter and I literally just started a blog a couple weeks ago related to very similar topics as yours. I feel like I found a kindred soul. So excited to follow your journey–and your site is absolutely lovely, btw!
Also, I noticed you decided to blog semi-anonymously. Any reason why you’ve chosen to do that? Do you share you finance posts with your Facebook friends, people who know you in real life, etc?
Hi Cynthia – it’s great to connect! I just checked out your blog and um, we are SCUH kindred spirits! I’m so excited to follow your journey as well!
As for the semi-anonymous stuff, I’m actually the worst at keeping secrets, so I’m planning to get a whole lot less anonymous in the new year, haha. My boyfriend makes so much fun of me because I talk about the blog to EVERYONE, but I think I was just waiting to make sure it “stuck” – I’ve also started a huge number of half-hearted blogs and I wanted to make sure this was different before telling everyone I know about it. Turns out, it totally is!