Hey there, I’m Holly. I’m a writer, accountant, and most importantly, mom to two fantastic young men. My husband passed away unexpectedly in 1999 and it’s been the three of us (and a fantastic village of friends and family) against the world since then.
I worked in accounting for a small company for almost 12 years. A new job opportunity popped up unexpectedly a few years ago. After a lot of prayerful consideration, I left my beloved co-workers to start a new adventure with the small city I live in. My kids are both in college now and I’ve come to the realization that now is MY time. This new job expands my work portfolio and will ultimately offer me a bit more time to focus on my side passion of writing.
Writing has been my passion for as long as I can remember. I started writing a novel with a friend when I was in the 7th grade. I’m still playing around with a version of that novel. I wrote a story that was published in a Chicken Soup for the Soul book in 2009 and I religiously write out New Year’s resolutions every year. After reading personal finance blogs for years I finally decided to start my own a few years ago. It was more of a journal for myself then since I only shared it with a handful of people. Now I’m trying to be more intentional with it.
The Social Security payments we’d been receiving since my husband’s death ended with the high school graduation of our youngest son. Unfortunately, their expenses that this money helped with through the years didn’t suddenly go away once they graduated high school and I realized if I needed to have a second job right now (I do) then why can’t it be doing something I love? That’s what I’m working on now in trying to build this blog up and perhaps even pick up some freelance writing.
I’m certainly no money expert but I have become quite adept at living on a shoestring, single-mom budget the last 19 years. Money is usually fairly tight but we’ve always had our own home, my kids played in sports and participated in other extracurriculars and we’ve managed financially, even with my oldest son’s crazy expensive, Type 1 diabetes diagnosis 12 years ago. I’m always looking for new ways to increase my income and reduce expenses and I feel like I probably have some pretty decent tips and advice I can share with others.
This blog will be a hodge-podge of information including how to survive on one small-ish salary, tiny-home living, and rediscovering dreams that may have been set aside temporarily while I was busy raising kids. I’m going to share my successes and my failures. I’m looking forward to new adventures in this next stage of my life. Hope you join me.
