About Me and SHL

A little bit more about me and my journey to this point. Well, I was fortunate to complete my education with a Bachelor’s degree and no student debt, but quickly found out how little currency a liberal arts degree provided in the wake of the Great Recession compared to others. While my college’s career center trumpeted that I could do so many things with my degree, I graduated without a career in hand or much direction. After moving back home, I made the best of it by trying unpaid internships and retail, but a few months in I discovered temping, the best-kept secret to getting my foot in the door at some pretty big companies. Despite the name, I was actually able to work at companies for months at a time and with permanent positions being offered in recognition of my hard work. Plus, I made considerably more than anything else I had tried. However, I had finally started processing for a position that would use my degree and had considerable benefits, which seemed logical, so I bided my time until that chapter began.

I started my new stable job but it was a bit of a mess. Once again operating with little to no guidance, I ran out of paid time off because I didn’t want to be there. Don’t get me wrong, I do not shy away from putting in the work; but not being integrated into the team or understanding what I was doing was a sure path to disengagement. Fast forward 10 years, and it’s been a rollercoaster of thinking that to make everything better I just needed to “lean in” to wanting to give up and do something, anything, else. I coped with fantasies of a way out, learned about personal finance, and found minimalism. I started by concentrating my efforts on easing my financial burden by reducing expenses. I figured if I needed to earn less I could reduce the risk of pivoting to something else, and I made considerable progress from where I started. I proved I could make sacrifices and get creative in pursuit of that goal. I cut cable, changed my diet, decluttered, sold a bunch of stuff, and temporarily moved my family of four and a dog into a 450 sq. ft. studio, for example. But you can only get so far by relying on cutting expenses. I would need to generate more income.

An avid HGTV watcher, I was drawn to real estate where I could combine my love for home transformation with the many tax advantages of rental properties. Through buying and moving from owner-occupied home after home, we now have a few rentals. Everything comes down to the choices we make and for now, we prioritized a tolerable work commute, a good school district, privacy, and some land to start ramping up our growing practices. So while we could have rented out rooms (house hacked), lived in a cheaper area, or settled for a smaller yard in order to make bigger progress toward our financial freedom, we decided our priorities were more important at this stage in life and would allow us to achieve more in the long term than the alternatives. But all is not lost. We are finding ways to create bandwidth to leverage these assets into further income generation.

Now I admit I have conceived and initiated a few blog sites over the last seven years but never published anything until now. Here’s to combatting fear and trying something new! (Finally.) Cue SHL. Here I intend to share lessons and strategies I’ve learned while highlighting knowledge from others on various topics related to personal finance, home-making, and wellness. I don’t pretend to have all the answers and I have benefited greatly by learning from others’ hacks. But strategies and systems in many cases help us achieve more and/or better, so thank you for your attention and I hope for you positive progress toward wherever it is you are trying to go!