When the World Seems Like It’s Collapsing

Posted on March 16, 2020 by Holly

Photo by Craig Whitehead on Unsplash

Wow, this week has been crazy. Unlike anything I’ve seen in my 46 years.

Confession time…when talk of the Coronavirus started up about a month ago, I did not take it too seriously. In all honesty, I should have, because I do have a son that is immune-compromised. I also have a co-worker who is highly immune-compromised. So although I’m still not concerned about myself getting too sick if I were to contract it, I am now concerned that I could make someone around me very sick.

This post is going to stray a bit from my normal personal-finance topics. This is going to be some personal observations and maybe a few tips. That’s the glorious part of having a blog, I can write about what I want. You may be interested, you may not be. Continue reading →

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How To Cut The Cord And Still Watch Your Favorite Shows

Posted on March 2, 2020 by Holly
tv in living room

Photo by David Švihovec on Unsplash

Less than 5 years ago, about the time my oldest son was getting ready to graduate from high school, I took a hard look at our finances. Once Michael graduated from high school, the Social Security payments we’d received since my husband died would be stopping for him. Two years after that Nicholas would be graduating from high school and we would lose his Social Security payments as well. This was a nice little chunk of change out of our household income. It was time to start tightening up the budget.

The first line item that instantly jumped out at me was our internet/cable bill. Were we really paying $182 a month for internet, cable, and Netflix? I surveyed the boys to see what was important to them regarding TV channels. They were already primarily just watching Netflix on their gaming consoles. It really wasn’t a big deal to them if I wanted to cut cable. Nick’s only request was that we find a way for him to access ESPN. Continue reading →

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Substitution Not Elimination

Posted on February 17, 2020 by Holly

Do you know why most people are resistant to budgets? They think budgets are going to restrict them from everything fun in their life. That’s not the idea behind a budget. A budget, call it a spending plan if that makes you feel better, is a written plan to show you where you’re spending your money. Read this post if you need help setting up a budget. Read this if you need help tightening up your budget a bit.

Maybe you’ve set up your budget and you realized that you’re spending more then you are bringing in each month. Now you’re mad at me because you think you’ve just proved to me that a budget is going to suck all the fun out of your life. Nope, the budget just showed you that you need to tweak some things so you can still live your life but not at the cost of your financial future. The trick is to find a substitution instead of eliminating things completely from your lifestyle.

Here are some easy substitutions when you need to cut back. Continue reading →

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Living Intentionally

Posted on February 2, 2020 by Holly
woman walking on beach

Photo by Brady Knoll from Pexels

Life is tough sometimes. Money gets tight, you worry about your kids, your parents, your friends, your job, the state of the world… Yeah, I’m a worrier. I always have been and I always will be. When I feel life getting a little overwhelming then I have to focus on living intentionally.

What’s that even mean? Living Intentional? To me, living intentional means not sleepwalking through life. Life gets crazy busy sometimes and it’s easy to get lazy and settle into mindless routines. Living intentional means being more aware of what I’m doing on a daily basis to achieve my life goals. It’s focusing on the things I want in my life and not those that I don’t. Here are a few categories I’m focusing on being intentional about in my life. Continue reading →

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Lottery Dreaming

Posted on January 20, 2020 by Holly

I’ve done one or two posts on the lottery before. It’s a little guilty pleasure of mine. I live frugally; I don’t smoke, rarely drink, and I don’t have a shoe or handbag fetish like so many women. So throwing $2 a week down on the Powerball or Mega Millions or the occasional scratch-off ticket comes out of my entertainment expenses on my budget. It’s fun to dream about winning the big one and being able to contact David Bromstadt to help me find my new Lottery Dream home, am I right?

My last post on this was about 4 years ago when the Powerball was insanely large.  Wednesday night’s drawing will be approximately $343 million.

The nerdy accountant/dreamer in me has a great time thinking about what I would do if I won though. Cash option for Wednesday’s drawing is $233.3 million, assuming a deduction of about 40% for various taxes taken off the top, that would leave around $140 million. Disclaimer, I’ve never won the lottery so I’m just doing some educated guesses. Please don’t send me comments correcting my figures; go write your own blog post if you want exact numbers, I’m just daydreaming here.

Holy Cow!! What would I do with that much money? Continue reading →

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Living Your Ideal Life

Posted on January 16, 2020 by Holly

I guess I’m still in that Hey, it’s January, let’s change our whole life for the better rush that I get every year. That’s just me, I can’t help it. And honestly, I’m always looking for ways to improve myself/my life. That doesn’t mean I’m not happy with my life or even myself, I just feel like there’s always room for improvement. So I’ve jumped on the Rachel Hollis train over the last few months (last year it was the Jen Sincero train). Most of the time I really like Rachel’s message and her motivation and enthusiasm.  Some days I’m like…let’s dial it back a thousand, chic. Continue reading →

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Stop the Bleeding!

Posted on January 6, 2020 by Holly

Stop the bleeding! This is a favorite expression of mine. In years past, when my boys were younger and wilder, I used it often. One kid in particular loved to bang himself up, enough so that our favorite immediate care knew us by name. Today though I’m using it in a different context. I’m using January to jumpstart my efforts to stop the bleeding in my budget.

I’m going to take a wild guess that I’m not the only one who tends to overspend, especially this time of year. Maybe some of you need to stop the bleeding as well with your finances. If this applies to you then read on! I’m going to detail a few steps I’m taking this month to get back on track with my finances. Continue reading →

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New Year-New Goals!

Posted on January 1, 2020 by Holly

2020 is officially here!! January is my favorite time of year (well, except the part where I’m always flat broke from overspending at Christmas). I absolutely LOVE the idea of a brand new year full of opportunities. Do you have to wait until January each year to set goals or decide to stop a bad habit? Of course not; you should always be working on being the best you that you can be. A new year beginning to me is a great point to check in and see how I did last year and re-evaluate on what I want to achieve in the new year.

I am anticipating that 2020 is going to be full of exciting changes for our family. Michael is slated to graduate from Bellarmine in May. He’s applying for internships as we speak and soon he’ll be doing his final graduation walk.

Nick has three semesters left before he graduates from WKU. He’s already working on a business plan with a friend and I’m sure he’ll have his own company one day.

I am determined to carve out a writing career for myself this year. I don’t have any plans to leave my current job, especially while we all still need health insurance, but writing is my passion. Now is a great time to focus on my love of writing and hopefully it will become another income source for us. The boys are on the cusp of embarking on their new lives and it’s time for me to re-focus on my dreams. Continue reading →

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2020 is almost here!

Posted on December 30, 2019 by Holly

Holy Cow! How is it almost 2020?? It feels like we should be riding around on spaceships or something…of course, there is such a thing as self-driving cars so maybe we’re not that far off.

This year has flown by. The biggest thing I was involved in this year was my new job. I left my former job in December of 2018 so 2019 was busy spent trying to figure out everything in my new position. I just had my one year anniversary and I still feel like there is so much to learn. Continue reading →

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No-show November

Posted on December 4, 2019 by Holly

I know, I know, I’m sure my 13 loyal readers were probably very worried about me in November. Don’t worry, I’m back and motivated to get busy working on this blog and a product I’ve got in development.

So where was I? Well, work was a tad bit busy and there was that holiday thrown in there but mostly I was busy writing like a mad woman. Um…Holly…we just discussed the fact that you didn’t post one single time in November. That’s correct and that’s because I was busy writing 50,000 words towards a novel. Continue reading →

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