Welcome!

photo courtesy of butterflysha

Who am I, and why am I here?
Well, I’m a 40-something single mom of two teenage boys and I live in the southeastern US. I recently had what seemed to me a life-changing experience – one that made me think long and hard about how I’m living, the stress I’ve been living under, and what I could do about it. What happened? Well, it’s enough to say that due to circumstances outside of my control, my income was no longer sufficient to cover my expenditures.

How did I get here?
For some time I’ve been living in the state of denial. You won’t find that on a map, but a LOT of us are living there. I’ve tried to maintain a certain standard of living, not a terribly grand one compared to many, but with many of the trappings of middle class success. I had a mortgage payment, car payment, credit card debt, digital cable, lessons for the boys, clothes, groceries, cell phones, gym membership and so on. I didn’t really budget, spent what I had, and when things got tight I’d pull out a credit card to bridge the gap. While I knew on some level that this wasn’t sustainable, I wasn’t really dealing with it either.

Due to those circumstances I mentioned earlier, I was recently faced with not being able to pay all my bills on time, and was considering selling my house in order to set things straight. I got really depressed as I faced up to the reality of my situation, and the fact that the choices that I made over time took me there. I felt miserable. I was a failure, and at a time when I wanted to be able to give more to my children, not less.

What comes next?
I began to really think about how to change my life, how to deal with my problems, how to make sure that the mistakes I made don’t get repeated in the next generation, and maybe even make up some ground. I began to read about personal finance, how to talk to teens about money and finances, to think about how to have real happiness and satisfaction in my life. In short, I began to think about making a really good life for myself and my kids. In order to make it, I needed to define it. Here’s what I came up with:

• First and MOST important of all, it’s having good relationships in my life.
• After that, I want freedom from a few things, like stress, anxiety, debt, and probably a few other things too.
• Next comes freedom to change, to adapt, to accept opportunity, to determine how I want to live.
• Next, and in no particular order come: health, joy, achievement, competence, confidence, creativity and generosity.

Of course, I don’t expect to have all of this all the time. There will always be circumstances outside of my control and stress never entirely goes away. I look at this list as a goal that I need to work toward, things that I’d like to have more of in my daily life.

But that’s not all!
While I think that the heart of making my good life is changing my relationship with money, I didn’t want to write another personal finance blog. There are lots of very well written PF blogs already out there and I doubt that I could do a better job than they are doing. My interests begin with how money and debt have influenced my life but they don’t end there. This blog is my attempt to explore and discover a better and more satisfying life.

There are a lot of other things that I’m interested in, and I expect they will find their way into this blog from time to time as well. Music, books, food, gardening…the list could go on. All of these things, along with my children, extended family and friends will be the platform on which I make my good life…what’s yours?