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About Me

Hello! I'm a stay-at-home mom with a passion for personal finance and healthy living. Join me as a I explore budgetting, eco-friendly brands, gluten-free recipes, capsule wardrobes, and everything in between! Want to learn more about me? Subscribe below and check out the About tab!

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There is this awesome hashtag movement makes its way around the femme financial community, so here’s me incorporating it into my #fridayintroductions spiel. My name is Lauren, and #ilooklikeaninvestor. I am a wife and mother. I left my job and moved to another state to support my husband’s career and stay home full-time with our 9 month old twins. I’m 32 and back in college, pursuing my first undergraduate degree because I failed the first time around, leaving college with no degrees and lots of student debt. I work part-time as a fitness instructor. Here I am taking a selfie in my happy place, the Pure Barre Madison studio 🥰🤳 My investments include a 401k, Roth IRA, mutual funds, and a few strategic stocks. But my biggest investment is in....plot twist....MYSELF. I want to ensure I am investing enough to support mine & my family’s future and all that it will bring. But I also don’t want to sacrifice my health and wellness now for the benefit of future Lauren to have this huge nest egg she may never use up. I’m also not on the FIRE bandwagon for similar reasons. I am not in this life for the hustle. I will always put sleep, healthy food, fitness, rest, and time with my loved ones above stacks on stacks on stacks. My financial strategy is to pay off my family’s mortgage leaving us with zero debt so we can divert resources towards retirement investments, hobbies, travel, and a home renovation. That might not sound very aspirational, but that’s why personal finance is personal. As part of my hustle-free lifestyle, I take a break from social media almost every weekend. Sometimes I sneak a peak on my work group FB page or reply to an IG message, but the scroll is on lockdown. Weekends are making more IRL connections, preparing for the upcoming week, and lots of R&R. If slow living appeals to you, I encourage you to try these #weekendsoffline along with me and share your experience.

Not gonna lie, I loved how many of y’all were entertained by my fall decor transformation 😂 But I must say, this room right here is a better representation of the average amount of work I put into seasonal decor. Fancy copies of TLOTR trilogy and The Hobbit that I have dreams of reading on the couch in the evenings when instead I’m either immersed in studying or watching an episode (or two) of Carnival Row. The previously mentioned pie pumpkin and cinnamon EO scented pine cones, the latter of which double as my Christmas tree ornaments. And the former of which will end up as a part of my pumpkin curry recipe on weekly rotation during the cooler months. A sustainable wood wick candle from @blokeanddamecandleco which is vanilla & grapefruit scented because I can’t bring myself to buy my beloved, but phlatate-ridden Leaves candle. And a cozy blanket that my husband says is too small, but is perfect to lay across my lap, catching crumbs from a post-dinner snack. Are you seeing the trend? Everything is very intentional, has a use, or is multi-purpose. It’s not just there because it looks good or because I needed something to fill the space. I can understand the agreement of wanting something for aesthetic purposes, but to what end? Y’all, we got better things to do than spend money on, clean, and store a thing just because it looks cute. Keep it purposeful. Keep it intentional. Keep it simple.

Time for a monthly budget check-in! As a self-described “person who loves to talk about money”, I don’t talk about money nearly enough on here. We are in a really great place financially right now. We are maxing out our 401k contribution, and are on track to match 70% of our income at retirement from this account alone. We have had automatic savings contributions towards the kids’ college funds for years, projecting to have all tuition and housing covered for an undergraduate in-state program. Our emergency fund is large enough to cover a full year of living expenses. We front-loading the account for tuition costs so that the remaining need can come fully from my part-time income. But we could even pull from add’l savings and still be able to cover the rest of my degree if I lost my job. Our only debt is our mortgage, and that payment is well below 20% of our disposable income. But I don’t feel we are saving enough, and our monthly expenses are too high. We had a plan to start contributing more towards the mortgage once we had proven we can consistently save the equivalent of a mortgage payment, and that just isn’t happening. Part of me wants to just set that add’l payment towards the principal and just force ourselves to hit that budget goal each month. But I have another person to consider, and he doesn’t seek to be as aggressive in paying down the mortgage debt as I do. This is my conundrum - when there isn’t a sense of urgency to spend less & pay down debt, how do you get motivated? What do you tell yourself that lights that “motivational fire”?

We go all out on the fall decor in this house. Swipe for the transformation. 😂 Do you expect any less from me? Although I guess YES because I’m a minimalist so I’m expected to do less of everything. This year’s decorations are pretty much exactly the same as last years. A few scattered cinnamon essential oil coated pine cones, a flannel throw that is normally tucked away, and a couple pumpkins that become delicious, delicious food as the season comes to an end. We don’t have much by way of year-round decor so when you put these little touches into the mix, it instantly feels cozier. With the leaves falling off the trees outside you might be fooled into thinking it’s breezy and 60 degrees, not 90 degrees in the middle of a drought. All jokes aside, I know that this the right amount of decorations for me because: (1) I’m not going into debt or outside my preferred budget to get these items, (2) they require very limited storage space or will be repurposed, (3) there’s no additional cleaning time because of these things, and (4) I still feel a sense of calm when I look at my space. Do you decorate in a way that reflects your values and goals or are your trinkets detracting from your life’s purpose. Maybe it’s time to think about how all those little things are adding up to too much.

Doesn’t this scene look idyllic? Just the perfect fall family outing. Except it was SO HOT, I was dripping with sweat, we missed lunch because it took forever to get everyone out the door, it was basically a dust bowl because it hasn’t rained in a month, the kids were more interested in eating the ice from their drinks than all the other activities, and there was definitely a lot of crying and exclamations that “today is the worst day!” when we left. But the picture looks good, right! I showed this photo of us to the kids this morning, and they were immediately reminiscing about how much fun they had, and how they couldn’t wait to go back. I’m not sure what point I’m meandering towards in this description of our experience at the annual company picnic, but I think it’s something along the lines of - your kids’ are not going to remember the small, dysfunctional parts of your family activities so just get out there and do the things. They might not go perfect....scratch that....they WILL NOT go perfect. But I even look at this photo now and think about how we ran into our favorite people at this huge event, Emma kept her hands in the air during the entire slow motion train ride as if she was experiencing the thrill of her life, Ryan was the biggest “kid” in a sea of littles jumping on the trampoline, and James got to do his most favorite thing with abandon - eat crushed ice. I’ve got a whole list of fun activities planned for the season as we kick off fall, and I’m gonna do my best to not let the lack of “perfect” conditions prevent me from enjoying all the pumpkin spice, cozy sweater, crunchy leaf goodness the next few months have to offer. And I hope y’all do the same.

@miss.minimalist shared this message today, and I couldn’t help, but put it up on my letterboard to share with y’all. I LOVE using this space to influence others to be intentional with their lives. My hope, in sharing images of my home, my family, and myself is that I’m not influencing you to buy more stuff, but to be a better version of yourself; a happier, more content person. I can’t say I’ve been doing much “influencing” lately because I find myself in a particularly occupied period of my life. School, work, and my loved ones having been doing a great job of keeping my cup full. Though I have to mention I find myself constantly thinking aloud of things I wanna say and share with “my people” <—— that’s y’all, cause calling you “followers” just sounds like I’m full of myself I’m gonna be spending some time editing my follow list today, removing all the accounts that might be influencing me towards more stuff. I encourage y’all to do the same. If it that includes my own account. Have a wonderful #weekendsoffline friends! 💖

My fav type of multitasking? Covering two IG series with one photo! It’s #lesswastewednesday and I’ve got an update for #laurenreadinglately 🙌🏻🙌🏻 I’ve been sloooooowly making my way through @going.zero.waste’s awesome book “101 Ways to Go Zero Waste” since it was released, and it is truly packed with easy to implement tips for creating less waste in daily life. 1 of the 101 tips Kathryn brings up and one of my favorite to implement is shopping secondhand. Everything I wore today (pictured) was purchased used, both locally and online. Style Encore and Poshmark are always the first places I check when I need a new item of clothing, and 99% of the time with a little patience and perseverance I find the piece that meets my needs. I encourage you to take a trip to your local thrift store or scour Poshmark/ThredUp/eBay the next time you need a new item of clothing! Are you some one who has embraced less waste? What is one of your favorite tips? Or if you haven’t jumped on the ZW bandwagon, what is something you’re willing to try in the next week?

Kicking off #weekendsoffline with slushies from the produce stand 🍑🍓🍋💦 We’ve got a really fun weekend ahead of us. Soccer games/jamboree, birthday parties, THE RETURN OF GATOR FOOTBALL, barre, and some homework. With a lot of popsicles, swing set fun, and cuddles on the couch sprinkled in for good measure. What are you excited about heading into the weekend? Will you be supporting all the fun and rest with a break from social media?

Borrowed the kids’ clothing rack and snake plant to stage this photo of my spring/summer wardrobe from this year. As we head towards the end of August, the promise of crunchy leaves, football, and PSLs in the air (but not literally in the air, it’s in the upper 80’s right now 😓) I have a renewed excitement for the warm weather and all it brings. I’m still all about the bright colors, the sandals, and shorts & tank top uniform I inhabit most days. And if you’re not new around here, this capsule might be looking pretty familiar to you because besides a new swing dress, tank top, and sandals (YAY for #secondhand), this is all the same stuff I wore last year. And the year before. And the year before. My #colorfulcapsule and #preppycapsule tags are just an assault of Lilly and J.Crew and Jack Rogers that I found secondhand or at least seven years old. I feel like a bit of an outlier in the capsule realm and I LOVE IT THAT WAY. Because it means I’m still being true to my style, avoiding trends that don’t suit me (although the higher the waist, the better for workout apparel), and being content with what I already own. And, in keeping with being true to myself and asked #butwhatdoesitcost, my estimates for all the clothing, shoes, and accessories shown (minus the DIY clothing rack $20 and snake plant $16) the number is around $1150 purchased intentionally over the past 12 years 😊

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