Happy Friday, friends! This week’s post is weirdly shopping heavy, but I’m here for it. I mean, some of the implied shopping is books, so at least that tracks.
Yesterday was Diada de Sant Jordi (Saint George’s Day), otherwise known as Day of Books and Roses. One of my coworkers surprised us with a selection of bookish stickers (“team whoever the villain is” is my favorite), bookmarks, roses, and a book of our choosing from her donation pile.
Excited about Independent Bookstore Day tomorrow. I mean, every day is Independent Bookstore Day to me, and event days are crowded, so I’ll probably skip the festivities at my local shops. But I like the opportunity to celebrate them, even if from afar. I also love Modern Mrs. Darcy’s list of great indie bookstores around the world.
I took Montana Happy’s cozy living style quiz. Zero surprise that “whimsical retreat” is my brand of cozy (although I do like a garden, and also a house, not an apartment, is my ideal).
My current financial goal is to insert a pause on purchases. I am a quick decision-maker, which is beneficial in literally every facet of my life…except shopping. It urges me to buy things that, if I put just a little more time and thought into it, I might not want in the long run and thus regret buying. So this cute top is on pause right now. I want more spring/summer casual business clothes for work…but also need to reassess if this is one I really love or if it just checks that box (meaning there might be something else I want more). If I still love it in a week, I’ll take the leap.
Speaking of things I took off pause…these are the best under-skirt shorts I’ve ever worn. I have only worn them once, but it was on a super mobile day (i.e., I walked around a lot rather than just staying in/near my office, like most days), and they did not budge even a little bit. They’re also lightweight and super soft and low maintenance. I’m going to pause a little before purchasing more – give them a couple more wears to see if it was a one-time thing or if the quality persists after multiple washes – but if they continue to perform as well as they did the other day, Thigh Society can just take all my money. A good undershort is hard to find.
Enjoy your weekend! I hope you get to visit at least one indie bookstore (if that’s your thing)!
Unpopular opinion – Spring is, objectively speaking, the very worst season. At least in Texas. But I imagine any place with trees or floral plant life is just unbearable right now.
So what does that leave? The desert? Desert people – how are you right now? Can you breathe? I’ve forgotten how it feels to be able to do that. Is it wonderful? I bet it’s wonderful.
The pollen is really pollening. My gray car has taken on a perpetual yellow tint, despite vigilant rinsing. I’m constantly drugged, and as they are providing no actual symptom relief, I’ve concluded the allergy meds are merely keeping me alive. I have a constant wheeze. It’s a miracle I can open my eyes wide enough to read print at all.
That must be why the audiobooks I read in March outnumbered the print books I read. For the first time ever. Incredible.
It’s National Poetry Month, though, so I’m going to power through with puffy, watery eyes to enjoy all the lovely collections I’ve planned. Print is always my preference with poetry.
[Disclaimer – I am a Bookshop.org affiliate – I get a cut of the sales from most of the links below.]
The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler (I haven’t quite finished the previous ones in the series, so I’m going to have to read them OUT OF ORDER to get this one read by the time book club comes *melodramatically breaks out in hives*)
Game Changer by Rachel Reid (I just picked this up from the library yesterday, and it’s currently my top priority read – I’ve been waiting since February 16! I know I’ve pre-ordered the special editions that are coming out in October, but I am tempted to purchase regular copies so I can read them earlier.)
Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid (Still waiting. But I’m #2 instead of #14, which is where I started on the waitlist, so…pretty impressive, Denton HR fans!)
It’s National Poetry Month, and I’m going to celebrate not only by reading lots of poetry but also by learning more about how to write it well from some of my favorite poets.
Financial Feminist by Tori Dunlap – April Mini Challenge: Knock, knock: who’s there? (answers the question/describes a person)
Libro.fm
Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert (narrated by Adjoa Andoh) – Listen to an audiobook by a disabled author (Part of The Great Audio Reading Surge of March 2026. It’s so good! I’m excited to read the other two this month.)
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson (narrated by Robert Sean Leonard) – Listen to a banned book (Another part of The Surge. I am glad I didn’t read this as a child. I was way too sensitive to have been able to handle this then. It was almost too much for Adult Me to try to listen to during lunch and while driving. There was ugly crying involved.)
Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V. E. Schwab – Listen to a Libro.fm staff pick (Also read in March. While I liked Schwab’s series – Shades of Magic and Villains, specifically – better, it was a solid read, and the audio was fantastic.)
Judge Stone by Viola Davis and James Patterson (narrated by Viola Davis) – Read an audiobook from your wish list (Just waiting on my libro.fm credit for the month to pop up!)
It is March, which is the best month. The month of my birth. I can even forgive it for being spring. It’s starter spring, when I am thinking about which plants I want to have outside this year and trying to convince myself that my allergies aren’t that bad. It’s a tricksy month. I can get on board with that.
As is my custom, I’ve started several of these already (and even finished a couple). A peek into my process – I start compiling my TBR lists at least a couple of months in advance. My book clubs generally have things already picked out (e.g., two of them have selections chosen for the whole year already), so I go ahead and list those books and plug them into the reading challenges where they fit. Then, as I start herding together the print copies for the blog post picture, I find myself picking them up. And when I pick a book up, I start thumbing through it. And then, before I know it, I’ve started/finished it.
As problems go, it’s a nice one to have.
Anyway, here are my reads for the best month of the year!
[Disclosure: Most of the links below are affiliate links; I get paid a percentage if you purchase from these links. Alternatively, you could search your favorite indie bookshop on Bookshop.org or Libro.fm, and they get an even bigger cut!]
Book Clubs
I am especially excited about my book club selections this month. Happy birth month to me!
I’m pretty sure cozy is accidentally (but also predictably) becoming my favorite reading challenge this year. I’m looping the books from the series I’m reading into this curriculum, so I’ll also list them under this heading from here on out.
I’m spending the month finishing up my reads for January and February (which will still put me ahead of schedule on this challenge). Most of what I’m focusing on this month for this challenge is the curriculum for learning to play the organ.
PopSugar
Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde – A book you were hoping would fit into a prompt but doesn’t
Kingdom of Ash by Sarah J. Maas – A book with a shadow daddy
52 Book Club
My Friends by Fredrik Backman – Provokes strong emotion (I have never read a Backman book without either ugly crying or laughing until I wheeze – usually both – at some point, and this one was no exception)
Kingdom of Ash by Sarah J. Maas – Character with a secret identity
A Rule Against Murder by Louise Penny – Read an audiobook in a new setting (in my new office during my lunch break – because I can shut the door and be left in peace for an hour – such a luxury!)
Nowhere Bookshop Bingo
Books: A Memoir by Larry McMurtry – bookish memoir/biography
Lost Lambs by Madeline Cash – Nowhere book club pick
Books: A Memoir by Larry McMurtry – A book by an author who went to your high school or college
Modern Mrs. Darcy Spring Preview
Three(ish?) times a year, Anne Bogel (aka Modern Mrs. Darcy) and her team tell us the new books coming out that season that they think we will particularly enjoy. I don’t ever make it through all of them, but I pick a handful out of each season, from either the actual list or the “other books you might like that we haven’t vetted yet” list, that sound amazing (and/or that I have received via one of my subscriptions).
Happy February, friends! As long as January felt, I didn’t quite read as much as I’d hoped. Too much doomscrolling. So I’m going to put a healthy limit on that and carve out some specific time in February for reading. Here are some of the things I hope to dive into.
I am approaching this year’s theme a little differently than I have in the past. Inspired by the curriculum portion of the Anti Brain Rot Reading Challenge, I’ve put together a monthly curriculum for it. I haven’t decided if I’m going to post each month’s lesson plan separately, but just in case I don’t, here are my cozy nonfiction and fiction choices for February.
Little Organ Book by Flor Peeters and Pedal Mastery by Joyce Jones – Part of my organ curriculum that will span the rest of the semester (and, I imagine, further after that as I improve my organ-playing skills)
Lovely One by Ketanji Brown Jackson – A memoir/biography
If This Is Love, I’ll Take Spaghetti by Ellen Conford – A book that has been on your shelf the longest. I thought it would be the Hank the Cowdog series, but I’m pretty sure I owned this one first. I still have the copy I bought from the Scholastic Book Fair!
Difficult Women by Roxane Gay – A book you meant to read in 2020
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones – A book from President Obama’s summer reading list (2025, but it didn’t specify a year)
In the Country of Women by Susan Straight – Book rec from a friend (and also reading with said friend!)
PopSugar
Fangs by Sarah Andersen – A book in a different format than your usual: physical, audio, eBook – I usually have one of each format going at any given time, so I took a little license with this prompt and chose a book that’s mostly illustrations
Well, friends. The day has come. My last day of working for UNT Housing. From my start as a night desk clerk to the leader of our amazing tour team, it’s been a little over 20 years of meeting loads of people I love and helping students feel at home on campus. I’m excited about my new adventure as an academic advisor, though!
Here are some lovely things that have given me much-needed pauses as I plowed through the to-do list of things to make next week easier for the staff.
I love this poem by Rudy Franciso. I love the “Amen” chorus from the audience, too. “It’s hard being alive, but it looks so good on you.”
I miss Let It Be Sunday, but I love the new Joy the Baker monthly series, The Bakehouse Almanac. I think I shall subscribe to a new analog magazine (for free through my AARP, of course. Because I’m old enough to qualify for AARP, and I have a lot of participation points to burn.)!
I am grateful for this reframe of “This Will Be My Year” from Dr. Chanequa Walker-Barnes. Regardless of what happens to me and in the world, did I do my best? Did I take care of myself? Did I take care of my relationships (or, in the case of 2024, did they take exceptionally good care of me)? Did I experience joy? In that light, yes. 2020, 2024, 2025 – each of these has indeed been my year, and I expect that 2026 will be as well. There will be lots of opportunities to practice those four things.
There is hope for Patchouli Joe’s! They have a GoFundMe to raise money to transition to a new location. Please donate to help if you can.
I love The Residence so much. I wish it had gotten renewed. It was worth every dollar of production costs, and Netflix is a fool. I’m glad these actors are getting recognition for their great work.
Happy January, friends! As you can deduce from the picture, I’m utilizing my library card a lot these days. Trying to reorganize the shelves to make room for the books I own is a whole cozy project and one of the first on my list to tackle this year. Anything I can do to slow the inflow of new books that need to find a space will help.
To be clear, I’m not…not buying books. Don’t be absurd. Just not buying as many.
Anyway, here are the reading plans this month. I’ve finished a few from this list already, but I’m looking forward to the rest!
Book Clubs
The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year by Ally Carter – I listened to this one on the way to and from the farm at Christmas. So good! Although the male voice on the audio gets low and hard to hear at points. That added some stress I didn’t need in holiday traffic. Delightful otherwise, though.
The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi – This is for the second meeting of the fantasy book club at a local bookshop that has just announced they’re CLOSING!!! Sad times! I guess we’ll see tomorrow what the plan is going forward, if there is one.
I may not be able to attend the Rise & Shine book club this month. The theme is “something old,” so I would love to gush over Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White, which is one of my faves. Of course, it falls on the one Saturday this month I have to work. And of course, March’s meeting (when the theme is “something funny” – I love funny things and would love to get all those recs!) does, too. UGH.
Series
I’m a sucker for series. I devoured most of the Rebel Blue Ranch series (next up is the enemies-to-lovers one – one of my favorite tropes!) and the Dream Harbor series last month, and the series tab is the largest by far on my TBR. This format is excellent for character development, which is one of my main requirements for really enjoying a book. This year, I’ll be diving into new series as well as re-reading some favorites. I loved Catherine Newman’s Sandwich, so I’m hyped about the follow-up. One of my book clubs is reading The Long Goodbye later this year, so I’m finally starting the Philip Marlow mysteries! I’m re-reading Inspector Gamache this year, and I quit a few pages into the latest Thursday Murder Club because I forgot some things from previous books that I know would make it more enjoyable, so I’m re-reading those as well. Here are the ones that I’m planning for January.
So many reading challenges! My, aren’t we ambitious? I’m going back to fitting books into multiple challenges, and I’m trying to fit as many of my book club selections into them as well, so you’ll see quite a few repeats. Here goes nothing.
Anti Brain Rot Challenge
Harlem Rhapsody by Victoria Christopher Murray – A historical fiction book
The Catch by Yrsa Daley-Ward – A book by a Black author who is alive
The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich – A book by an indigenous/Native American author
Another facet of the Anti Brain Rot Challenge is giving yourself deep-dive studies (and designing their corresponding curricula) throughout the year. I have three planned for the year, and the first is going to be learning to play the organ. I already play the piano, so it’s mostly a matter of incorporating the feet. I think. We’ll see. I’m working through an online basics course and brushing up on theory right now, but I imagine there will be several books I add to the syllabus before the end of the “semester.”
Popsugar
The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman – A book that features a platonic friendship between a man and a woman
A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson – a kangaroo word on the cover (a word with a synonym/similar word inside it – “history” includes “story”)
Enchantment by Katherine May – A book with a dust jacket
Libro.fm
Christmas Days by Jeannette Winterson – Listen to an audiobook read by the author
OWC (Overeducated Women With Cats)
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler – A book that starts a series
Endling by Maria Reva – A book long-listed for an award (Booker Prize)
Enchantment by Katherine May – A nonfiction book about science or nature
BBBC (Bad Bitch Book Club)
This Winter by Alice Oseman – A book with a red cover (which is not the cover of the book that popped up on bookshop.org – but here is its red cover, which is super cute)
Alphabet Challenge
The goal of this one is, in this year of ‘26, to read books where either the title or the author’s name begins with each of the 26 letters of the alphabet. To add a little more spice to the challenge, I’m also going to limit it to books I own.
January’s prompt is pretty easy – title includes an article. So any “a,” “an,” or “the.” Look at The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich, fulfilling all sorts of different prompts this month!
I don’t know how much I’ll participate in this one. The start date of the tournament is March 6, and it seems like it would be more fun if I had read all of them by then (and even in my woozy, ambitious New Years state of mind I know that’s not going to happen). But maybe I’ll start with these and see how it goes.
I usually post resolutions on New Years Day, but I decided not to rush it. Yesterday was nice. I got to hang out with Sarah and friends, eat some delicious food, and read a little bit. It’s hard to believe that I go back to work in less than 48 hours. Before I do, though, you know I want to share my resolutions for the year with you.
Technically I have seven (large) goals, but all of them are divided into many small steps that help me get there.
Start Checking Off That 10-Year Bucket List
The bucket list I put together in 2025 ended up with way more than 50 things on it, and some of them are bigger goals that are going to take the whole 10 years to accomplish. Additionally, if I know me (and I do), I won’t stop dreaming up things I want to do, so the list is likely to grow over the next decade. Clearly there are more than five things I’m going to cross off that list this year.
I’m already going to address some of them in pursuit of my financial and cozy goals (see below), but I’ve identified 11 things off the list that I want to do this year. As I’m currently looking for a new job and/or an additional income stream, the order in which they happen will depend on how fast that comes to pass, as a new job would likely have a different busy season to work around, and some of them cost a little money. But right now, this is roughly the order I’m thinking of starting them:
Join the Plot Twist Book Bar dark academia book club
Enjoy a personal reading retreat in a hotel with room service
Renew my passport
Write a score or a song
Upload an original recording to Bandcamp
Finish a fiction manuscript
Take a small town road trip
Read 200 Books
This is…lofty. But I think it’s possible. What I like about this goal is that having it in mind will remind me to give myself regular downtime, which I have a hard time remembering (shocking, I know). I am also attempting quite a few reading challenges throughout the year, and gamifying anything almost always makes it more fun for me.
Establish a Regular Journaling Practice
One thing that keeps me grounded the best is journaling. It not only helps me decompress and slow down my brain before sleep but also improves my awareness of how well I’m taking care of myself in general.
One thing that I often put off and forget to do is journaling. I am hoping to establish a regular practice.
Daily is ideal, but any regularity is an improvement that I will consider a success. I’m using the guided journal that accompanies Shonda Rhimes’s Year of Yes. I may decide later in the year I don’t need the prompts but for now the questions provide a good framework.
Have 100 Cozy Moments
I couldn’t figure out how to phrase this one, because it could encompass a lot of things. “Cozy moments” sounds a little woo for me, but it will have to do.
Basically, I want to be intentional about pursuing my theme for the year.
This may look like actually noting when moments are cozy or actively seeking them out. It may look like rearranging spaces at home, work, or elsewhere to be more welcoming. It may look like clearing out some clutter to give my brain a rest. There are many different ways this could play out, and I bet I can catalogue at least 100 of them!
Set and meet 100 small financial goals
This sounds like a lot, but it’s fewer than I met last year, so it’s doable. My focus this year (other than increasing income) is on three main things:
Mapping out a solid plan for retirement
Having a solid purpose for each savings bucket
Building a solid knowledge base
The keyword is solid. That’s how I want to feel about my finances at the end of the year (and have the evidence to back the feeling up).
Write 50,000 Words
For real, this time. Something tells me that finishing a fiction manuscript would be an excellent way to make this happen.
Go on 25 Microadventures
A lot of the items on my 10-year bucket list surprised me. Apparently, I want to go places. Did not know that about myself. I’m not sure if I actually want to go places, or if I think I should want to go places.
Welp, we’re going to test it out this year with 25 small microadventures. I’m defining a microadventure as any outing that takes from an hour up to a day. It can be almost anything. It just has to include a place I’ve never been or something I’ve never done. Bonus points if it’s free.
I may ask for suggestions later, but I have a pretty good list going already. It might be telling that this is the resolution I’m least excited about, but maybe I will be pleasantly surprised. It doesn’t hurt to try (I hope).
And there you have it. Those are the plans. It looks like a lot, but it’s mostly a continuation of things I’m already working on. It just gives them a little structure.
From Wednesday, Season 2: “I don’t evolve; I cocoon.”
I feel this.
Cozy seems like a fluffy word to have as a theme for the year. But it’s essential for me, and that’s becoming more apparent the older I get.
People say you have to get out of your comfort zone to learn. And I see the merit in this reasoning.
One question, though – what’s a comfort zone? That sounds nice. Mythical. Soothing. I bet it’s just delightful.
Do neurotypical people have places and situations in which they actually feel at ease? What’s that like?!
When I think back to the last place I felt truly comfortable – no social anxiety, no worry, no counting down all the things in my head that I had to do before it was over or I could leave – I landed on the trip I took to Cape Cod with Hope and her friend Alison.
Easy mornings where I would drink coffee and write, read, or journal. Then we’d have brunch together and do something fun for the afternoon. Then we’d all meet up again for a long, decadent dinner – sometimes just us, sometimes with guests.
It’s the coziest week I’ve ever spent away from my own home. It left space for spontaneity in ways that I rarely experience. And it was absolute magic for my creative process.
I don’t form habits; I have rituals, and even for my favorite ones, I sometimes need some kind of reminder. For example, on Sunday, I woke up, got a few things accomplished, and then got ready for church. On the drive there, I noticed I was feeling super scattered and grumpy. And then it hit me – I had forgotten to have coffee. Yes, you read that right. Not a typo. I – the coffee snob/addict – simply did not remember to brew a cup. I knew my executive function was wonky lately but jeez. This is why I keep a to-do list posted of how to get ready in the morning. Because on days like that, when I am extra steeped in discomfort, I don’t always remember all the steps.
[Shout-out to coworkers who always remind me to take a break and go upstairs to get coffee at work. Y’all are the best.]
I don’t necessarily even follow ambitions, although I do have a lot of them. My most lasting successes all started in a space I felt free to think and experiment – where I felt relaxed enough to be my full creative self.
I say all of this to demonstrate that learning should follow the spirit of the “out of your comfort zone” rule rather than the literal directive. Essentially, learning requires doing something different. Neurotypical people live in a world that tends to work the way their brains do and in ways they are comfortable operating. In order for their brains to form new pathways (i.e., learn), they have to jolt themselves out of that (i.e., stepping out of that comfort). For many neurodivergent people, it’s the opposite. The world does not work the way our brains do. We are already – perpetually – out of our comfort zone. Pushing ourselves further out of it is more likely to result in burnout and shutdown rather than discovery. My learning process (and I suspect this is more often true than not for most ND folk) needs a soft space to land where my overactive brain can rest well enough to focus on the new thing I’m trying to do.
I need cozy.
And it starts at home.
Making my home cozy for myself inevitably means dampening the assault on my senses. My home right now? Chaos, which reflects my state of mind in this, the yearly Wild West Week that straddles the transition between the old and new year. The chaos in my home not only reflects but also contributes to my mental chaos, though, and I’d like to work on that this year. I can’t control most of what happens outside my home, and there are many elements of rental living that are likewise beyond my grasp. I can, however:
Declutter and adjust lighting and decor to make my space more visibly soothing
Cook amazing food and clean with non-smelly products so that my first reaction to walking in isn’t a shaking of the head and an exclaimed, “Oh! What is that smell!”
Marie-Kondo the textures of items in my home. Even if something is useful, if my first reaction to touching it is, “Nooooo, thank you,” I will not use (or wear) it very often, which means it’s not actually helpful to me.
Make playlists to mask/offset the 14,351 buzzing sounds and background noises that routinely plague apartment living. Green noise is my go-to for this purpose, but I’d like to mix it up a little this year. Maybe even compose something myself.
One thing I really like about cozy as a theme is that it has an element of preparedness to it. Yes, it’s nice to make physical and psychological spaces warm and comfortable for myself and others. That alone is valuable. But the practice of doing so also prepares the space for stressful situations. For example, making my home a cozy place was useful for times when I had to stay there longer than planned (ahem, pandemic and cancer diagnosis). Paying attention to and taking care of my body not only helps me feel more at home in it but also strengthens it for dealing with health issues and other physical challenges that arise. Working so hard on my financial stability this year really came in handy when it was suddenly time to qualify for a car loan in September. Effective therapy doesn’t just help me feel better; it helps me be better.
So this year, I am cultivating coziness in my life. And I am going to cozy up to the things that matter to me.
Cocoons may seem unimportant on the outside (and may just seem like a big blob of mindless goo on the inside). But these cozy little spaces are what help their inhabitants turn into exactly who they need to be to fly.
2025. The year I finished up cancer treatments (hopefully) for good. The year my dad had a stroke. The year my Aunt Gale died. The year my friend Des died. The year I bought my first new (not used, not traded with Dad to finish out his payments on the newer model in the family – actually new with 0 miles on the odometer when I took it for a test drive) car.
The year I turned 50.
The year I celebrated turning 50 with an excessive list of resolutions to accomplish 50 things in several categories:
50 home-cooked meals
50 books bought from indie bookshops
50 small financial goals set and met
50 thousand words written (not counting blogs or any writing I did for my day job – hey, perhaps I should have counted blogs and UNT trainings/memos/manuals!)
50 bucket list items to cross off by the time I’m 60
I enjoyed working toward everything on this list, but I think my favorite part was creating the bucket list. It ranges from small errands like “renew my passport” to big-deal rites of passage like “retire from UNT.” It contains goals about my career, music, writing, finances, and health. It reveals things I want to change about my home and so many things I want to learn. It includes a surprising amount of travel. I had no idea I wanted to go so many places, but looking at the list, I can’t think of anything I’d want to remove. Although admittedly, unless I win the lottery or become otherwise inexplicably wealthy, I probably won’t be able to take all the bigger trips in just 10 years’ time. I guess that leaves me something to look forward to in my 60s!
You’ll see some of these things when I post my 2026 resolutions in a couple of days. As with a couple of the other goals, I ended up with way more than 50 things for the next decade’s to-do list, and I’m hoping to knock out a lot of the small things next year so I can start taking steps to make the longer-term goals happen. At any rate, it gives me a solid picture of how much life I still have to look forward to.
Before this year, I was terrified to talk about money.
Don’t get me wrong. I was responsible. I paid my bills. I had an average credit score. And to be clear, it was only merely average because I had a lot of credit card debt and a high credit utilization ratio – i.e., the amount of credit you have vs. use (if you use a lot/max out your cards, your utilization is high). And that happens to be one of the top factors that determine credit score. All my other factors were good to exceptional, even before this year.
But I still hated talking about it. And I still felt guilty about it.
Part of that is that my family is so good at managing money, and I felt bad that I wasn’t better at it.
A bigger part of it, though, was that I’ve often taken financial literacy courses and read financial literacy books, and most of them come overcast with a large dose of shame that I don’t already know or haven’t been able to do what they’re teaching me. The prevailing message from experts is that if you are struggling, it’s because you suck at money and it’s all your fault. Because the prevailing agenda of most people who have excelled under capitalism is to uphold capitalism as the ideal at all costs. And they can’t do that if they actually admit the system doesn’t work as well as it should for everyone.
But every system has weaknesses. Every. System. *cough*especiallyAmericancapitalism*cough*
Yet that is the system where I live. So this year, I decided to face my fear. I resolved to set and meet 50 small financial goals to point me in a better direction. I met that goal by the end of May and just kept going. By committing to small, incremental changes, I have:
Raised my credit score by 40+ points
Built an emergency fund
Financed a car without a cosigner
Had some important financial discussions with my dad that I had been avoiding
Stopped feeling guilty about spending according to my values. In fact, I made value spending a whole budget category
Shameless plug time – I did this with the support of Tori Dunlap’s 100K Club. This community was the real MVP when it came to getting past my financial shame and trauma so I could even think about goals. The community is not currently open, but you can get on her email list and get a lot of the same information from the resources on her website and from her book Financial Feminist (which is actually a workbook, so get your own copy or make sure you have a journal handy to write in if you borrow it from the library).
Another resource I like is Moving Beyond Broke by Dasha Kennedy (aka @thebrokeblackgirl). If you are new to budgeting or new to saving or nervous about saving or need regular encouragement, get this book and follow her account.
Just as important as the practical goals I met, here are some things I learned this year that I want to pass on:
I’m actually really great at managing money. I was good at it before this year, and I’m even better at it now. I’ve had to be, because I have never in my adult life made what was considered a livable wage for my area. And yet, I have lived. I have always had food to eat and a home to live in and managed to pay all my bills (even if sometimes the way I had to do it was credit and then find another little temp odd job to pay it off). Turns out, I can squeeze blood from a turnip.
As proud as I am of what I have accomplished, I did not do it alone. I have resources I can reach out to when unexpected things happen, and I have a solid community support system. This is essential. This is non-negotiable. Get yourself in community.
So does anyone who is financially successful. If they try to tell you their success is 100% self-made, they are either incredibly lacking in self-awareness or they are flat out lying to you.
If you are struggling financially and making less than $50,000 a year in most places (more in places with a high cost of living), I guarantee your struggles are not your fault. You are working your ass off in a system that was not designed for even your survival, much less your success – a system that rewards greed and treachery instead of the actual hard work it claims to reward. Let go of your shame, and get mad instead.
You’re probably already mad about it. Focus that mad where it’s deserved – toward the manipulative system and the greedy assholes who blindly uphold it without question – and fight back. This anger has become excellent motivation for me. Every time I want to slack in my goals or spend money on some nonsense that I don’t really want or that doesn’t match my values, I have a little voice in my head that says, “That’s how the oppressors win.” And then I make a better choice. Works like a charm.
Greed is rampant in our society, but if you’re actually worried about being too greedy, you’re probably not. In fact, you’re probably settling for way less than your work is worth. And by you, I do mean I. I am settling for less than my work is worth, and the financial goals I’m currently working on are to help me remedy that.
When I am struggling, it is easy to fall into the trap of trying to find ways to monetize the things I do that bring me joy. It is essential for my mental health and that of my community not to do this. Most things need to remain as gifts to yourself and the world around you. Cultivate generosity and protect it.
Well, that’s more than I planned to share, but hey – I’m clearly less scared of talking about money now. So that’s a win!
M. Suzanne Terry 