Life Updates

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Hey everyone. Man, what a summer it’s been, eh? (no, I’m not Canadian). I have been absent lately, and I apologize for that. There’s been some major life changes and also, it’s been sunny out in the Seattle area, which is an absolute rarity, so I have found it hard to sit inside and type away at a screen instead of enjoying playing baseball in the backyard with my son and crawling around in the grass with my baby girl. We have also been having fun adventures at “Gammies cabin” in a warmer part of the state, and have basically been enjoying every second we can milk out of this beautiful weather!

As far as life changes, the big one is that I have changes jobs twice in the last 3 months. I got promoted to manage a team within my company, which was pretty awesome. I had always aspired to management, and really enjoyed putting a team to work and accomplishing some major goals in a short amount of time. But shortly thereafter a much more compelling offer came along to join the IT team, and I finally left my company after 7 years with the same team. It feels a bit weird, and awesome at the same time. I am two days into my new role and enjoying it immensely.

Change Is Easy, Change Is Hard

I also realize I haven’t spoken much about jobs, careers, income and the like because I feel like it’s easy to excuse earning more money as “too hard” and will get responses like “easy for you to say, you can’t just go out and make more money.” I have kept this blog focus on budgeting, savings, wise spending, DIY skills, and all kinds of frugal information on how to travel for free, get great deals and generally cut your spending by a LOT while still enjoying life. But in reality, that is only half the puzzle. To save money, you need income. Period.

I have touched on it indirectly through posts like Life Is Too Short To Be Lazy, but savings money and making money are driven by the same thing: Your Passion! You can think of your passion as the driving force for all money decisions in your life. It is the spark that ignites and the fuel that burns to keep your ship moving while you navigate the waters of your financial life. Without it, you’re just floating there in the harbor, or worse, sinking (in debt) in the middle of the ocean. You need to tap into that passion if you are ever going to make any impactful and lasting change to your finances.

I always start a budget by asking “what are your life priorities?” What I should ask is “what is your passion?” That can quickly get to the heart of how to find the leverage to make big financial changes. I’ve covered the budgeting and spending side thoroughly through my Real Reader Budgets, but you need to use that same motivation to attack the other side of the equation: Your Income. So I’ll be talking a bit more about making money and all the things that go with building the income side of the equation.

Attitudes About Money Based On Margin

My wife and I were recently having a conversation on the way home from the cabin about our attitudes about money based on how much money we were able to save each month. We realized that we had 3 distinct attitudes for our 3 different outcomes at the end of each month. I’m putting together a 3 part series that is in conversation format between my wife and I based on where we have been and where we are now, and how that affected our decision making.

As much as we want money to be all math and numbers, there is no way to separate it from our emotions. Money touches almost every aspect of life, and has a deep emotional and psychological effect on us whether we realize it or not. And how we think about our financial situation can have huge implications on the decisions we make with our money. So this will be a non-scientific dive into our financial mindset over the past few years and hopefully some of you can resonate with it and avoid some of our financial pitfalls and join our financial successes.

Other Updates

Mostly, I am enjoying life. My boy is now 2 1/2 years old, and my little girl is 7 months old. It is an absolute joy and honor to be their Dada and to get to watch them explore their world in a way that only kids can. I love watching them learn, love and laugh.S

My wife and I just celebrated our 6 year wedding anniversary. More and more each year I get to discover my wife and her beautiful soul. We have lived a lot of life together now, and it just keeps getting better and better.

Nerdy Blog Updates

My blog is still alive and kickin’. I know I haven’t posted in a month or so, but there is so much financial fun ahead is CRAZY! So stay tuned 🙂

I’m also joining the nerds at the Financial Blogger Conference this year in New Orleans. Basically, a bunch of us money nerds get together and talk about spreadsheets, financial statements and how we saved a ton of money on toilet paper last month. It’ll be a friggin’ blast! Oh, and we also talk about nerdy blogging stuff like SEO, WordPress plugins, Social sharing, etc. WOOT!

Welp, that about wraps up the updates for now. And stay tuned, as I’ve got a BIG giveaway coming up soon that you DON’T want to miss!

Comments: How are YOU doing? 🙂