And So It Begins
I did something wild early this morning, something I’ve never done before. I cracked open my laptop, logged into my bank account, and transferred $200 into my savings account. Here, I took a screenshot:
Friends, I’m 46 years old, and I’ve finally turned a very significant page.
I’ve always lived on the edge, financially. Every dollar I’ve ever earned has had at least three different places it needed to go immediately, so it was always a rush to prioritize which need to fill first before the money got nickel-and-dimed away. One calamity led to the next emergency, and so on. It’s been adventurous and uncomfortable.
Here’s what led me to take a hard look at my situation and make some changes:
Long story short, I got a dog. I was living the nomadic life and then I got a dog who doesn’t like to travel. This was strategic.
I was getting tired of moving around and needed someone to ground me, and I had heard dogs will do that. At around the same time I remarried my first husband, who likes to be pretty stationery too. But he was on a fixed income and his rent had tripled in eight years, so it was time for him to move.
Because we had no money saved when the pandemic hit and everything changed, it was impossible to find a place to rent that was suitable for Adella. Adella likes wide open spaces, and being a guardian dog she’s happiest when she has a herd to look after.
All we found was a plot of twenty undeveloped acres on eBay for $500 down. We found an aging camper for $1500, set up some solar panels, got Adella some goats and a partner, and raised a flock of chickens.
People think living off the grid is romantic. Chopping wood and carrying water is fine, but melting snow for water is pretty tedious, especially when you can’t keep your camper warm enough to melt the snow, and you’re sitting around wrapped in blankets all the time.
I had never thought of myself as someone who had a lot of earning power. But then I fell into a line of work that I love (ghostwriting!), and it became clear that in order to find clients who value what I do for them and are happy to give me the space and time it takes to produce quality work, I was going to have to start charging a living wage.
Bjarne Viken was the one who convinced me this was possible. He got me dreaming of all kinds of fancy things like a well so we won’t have to haul water and a furnace so we don’t have to resort to dangerous and dirty methods to keep warm.
The lovely Beth Raps has taught me a lot about mending my relationship with money. I’ve been more afraid of having money than not, but that’s changing. Depositing that first $200 into my savings account felt brave and crazy, but I know it will get easier.
