I’m a person who likes things wrapped up and neat. In my freelance life, that means knowing when I’m working for someone and when I’m not. For the longest time, I would “break up” officially with clients when I realized it wasn’t a good fit. Realistically, some of this was…

A little while back, I opened up the curtain about what my family’s finances have taught me. More so than ever, I know that every family and every person has to handle the money mindsets they’ve been dealt as well as their own personal luck and ambition. It’s not uncomplicated. …

I truly cannot recommend being a fraidy-cat. Being nervous and fearful and full of what-if scenarios is a real waste of brain space in the modern world. From what I’ve read, it’s an overactive part of my brain that would be quite useful in, say, an environment with lots of…

My husband and I have to work, at least some. We're not FIRE, financially independent, and retiring early, by any stretch. But we have a few things going for us that make me feel like we live a luxurious life, one that we're lucky to have. We have fully paid…

The 3 stages of transformation to become a successful writer — When people ask about my full-time freelancing career, they often follow up whatever questions they had first with, “What do you write about?” Depending on my mood, the answer can be very different. In one mood, I tell them about the cool work I’ve done on sustainability, personal finance, travel…

I’ll be real with you — I never expected to stop working an 8–5 job and be completely self-employed. I assumed it wouldn’t work. That very assumption, however, was probably why I took so much time to get ready: nearly 3 years were spent in the process of getting myself…

The numbers don’t lie — I’ve found my cheapest option for an office — I’ve been running my solopreneur small business out of a coworking space for almost a year now. I paid $140 per month, and I got some good perks: unlimited coffee and snacks, space to work that wasn’t full of reminders of all the laundry and dishes that awaited me after…

I’ve always liked the Henry David Thoreau quote, “I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself than be crowded on a velvet cushion.” It speaks to the fact that living the life that fits you best shouldn’t be about having what the rest of the…

Yet another new feature from Medium.