I suppose it’s 2023

We all have that friend. 

The one that was just on the outer rim of our nearest and dearest. Maybe you reached out to them 3-4 times during the worst of the pandemic. But now that things are opening up, you want to reach out, but the truth of the matter is plain. You don’t really know what to say or where to start. 

That’s how I feel with this blog.

It is that friend. Dearly missed, but to be honest, it’s been nice reserving my energy for the needs and not feeling pressured by the wants. And so much has happened since we last spoke that I don’t really know what to say. 

But, let’s pretend we’re at the party of a mutual friend and we’ve spied each other across the room. We hastily wrap up the convo that we’re in and walk towards each other, share a hug, bemoan the fact that we’ve been out of touch and press for updates. 

Here, I’ll go first. 

We have an incredible new website done by our friends over at Eye Like Design. I think it does a great job really outlining the work that we do and who we do it for. We have two incredible new budget coaches on our team, Kara Fuhlbrugge and Nina Sloan. Both of them were clients once upon a time and loved our budgeting course so much, they wanted to learn how to teach others. I (Julia) now have not one but two podcasts. Your Money Mamas, a financial Dear Abby meets irreverent musical buddy comedy, and Too Good to be True, a podcast focused on financial grifts in the post-social-media age. I was approached about a year ago by the amazing team over at The Financial Diet to create it alongside them and it was a blast to make. 

Also, can I just be real for a second? Shit is crazy out there, economically speaking. Inflation. Student loan forgiveness. Boy howdy do people have some feelings on that! The Fed did what everyone thought it would and raised interest rates. Now money is almost doubly expensive to borrow. I don’t have answers on these things, merely a jumble of feelings and factoids. And the fact is, they affect individuals in wildly different ways. 

The economic weather has changed and we are all out to sea. Some of us in yachts, some in dinghies. All of us want the same thing: a forecast that can be relied upon and the sense of control that accompanies it. But, as we all know, predicting the weather is easiest the closest to the time you’re predicting. I feel like so much of my work revolves around trying to convince people that being great with your money has nothing to do with prediction. Your job is not to become some economic or budgetary soothsayer. Neither is mine. Our job is to create a boat that’s designed for resiliency and stability, no matter what life throws into your path on the way to your vision. That’s the work that we do here. We help create emotional space and systems to make those dreams a reality. 

Whew… ok… enough about me. How about you? What has happened to you over the past few years? What are you excited about or terrified of? I genuinely want to know. 

And for what it’s worth, I’ve missed you.