by Ashley
Good morning, friends! I hope your Monday isn’t a Moan-day! (har har har)
In light of the recent happenings, I debated whether or not I would address or acknowledge what has gone on. I do think I have a unique perspective. Us bloggers did form somewhat of a “bond,” particularly in the early days when things were quite tough (there were some growing pains in the beginning!)
So, although I don’t want to go into a big, drawn out thing, I do want to say that I wish Jim and his family well. I enjoyed the diversity that his story brought to the table and wish him success in his debt-free journey. I agree with Jeffrey 100% when he talked about it being sad whenever a blogger leaves, regardless of the reason.
I hope that, in the end, this will be the best decision for Jim. I do think that, at his heart, he is a good person and I wish him the best. I hope that no longer having this blogging responsibility at BAD will lead to a calmer and more stress-free life.
That’s all I want to say about that – I just felt it would be strange or inauthentic to not even acknowledge this change, so I wanted to say something. And, because there is really no good segue from this topic to a regular debt-related topic, I’ll just leave it short and sweet. I’ll be back with a “normal” post in a couple hours.
Wish you all some peace, hugs, and happiness this Monday morning!
Hi, I’m Ashley! Arizonan on paper, Texan at heart. Lover of running, blogging, and all things cheeeeese. Freshly 40, married mother of two, working in academia. Trying to finally (finally!) pay off that ridiculous 6-digit student loan debt!
Very gracious post, Ashley. Hope Jim and his family complete their debt journey as planned. And since I’m here — I don’t always take the time to comment but I read all your posts and love them. Keep up the great work!
Thanks, Ashley, for this. I wish Jim and his family the best too. I am sure there is a lot of pressure on you bloggers to create and write posts for this blog. It must be difficult to come up with original material all the time! And the readers here seem to have really high expectations.
Woe to anyone who falls out of line here! Never in a million years would I be a blogger on this site, even if I had debt. Kudos to you who do it.
Love the idea of ‘Moan’day (haven’t seen that before!)
I’ve been enjoying watching you grow into this blogger position (just as so many of the original BAD bloggers did) and look forward to reading your posts.
I hope Stephanie and Hope can catch a few breaks and get back into a ‘normal’ life (I used to say that normal for me was a setting on my dryer, but now, even my new fangled dryer doesn’t have a normal setting, so the chances of me being normal are nil!)
It is hard to be bouncing from upheaval to disaster, to chaos and still make any kind of financial progress. I know because we recently moved and today’s challenge for me is to work on the finances and see just how big a hit the move took (and will continue to take since I haven’t managed to sell my house yet, so don’t have the income from that asset balancing the rent I have to pay.)
The difference for me is that I had stability and practiced frugality when our family was young and avoided all debt except for a mortgage (which we paid off as soon as we could.) So while I’m seeing my savings decrease, and will have to tighten spending soon, I don’t have to juggle debt payments during this time of uncertainty.
The lesson I hope all three bloggers can’t take away from my experience is to keep up the tough work now. The benefits 20 – 50 years from now will be worth all the struggle now.
Thanks, Kate! I’m definitely learning a TON from the commenters here so any/all advice is appreciated. I am certainly hoping that this process will forever change our family’s financial future. Good luck with your finances and with selling your old house. I hope the transition is smooth (as smooth as it can be) and that the house sells quickly!
Thank you for acknowledging the elephant in the “room”. Carry on.