Hi, Friends! I’m Stephanie. Thanks for stopping by my blog! Here are some quick facts about me:
- I’m married to an Insurance Adjuster, we’re going on eight years married, and he’s awesome.
- We have two kids: Evelyn is five years old and Liam is four. They’re awesome.
- I love singing. Mostly Disney music. I play the guitar, violin, and I plunk the piano. I have a degree in Theatre that I’m not using at all. Well, I sing on the Praise Team at our church.
- One year ago we relocated from Orlando, Florida to Upstate New York. I actually love it here, but I do miss Disney World (and our family members there, too!)
- I love coffee, peanut butter, whipped cream, Disney, Target, soft blankets, chick-flicks, Christmas (music, decor, celebrations, Jesus, not in that order), and excel sheets, budgeting, meal planning, nutrition, and so much more. And I plan to share all of it here with you!
So let’s dive into this blog already:
Using the principles of Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University my husband and I have paid off over $50,000 of debt in the last four years. We are officially Debt Free!!! In that time I’ve also spent hours days months years educating myself about nutrition. Unfortunately, the topics of finance and nutrition rarely go together. Finance, nutrition, parenting and personal growth almost never go together. Well, here, I aim to do just that. I aim to bring together all the things that I am passionate about in my life: my kids (motherhood, parenting, and autism), finance (our family’s financial peace and security, and dealing with medical bills), and wellness (which can include so much more than just nutrition or fitness, but also spirituality and faith, dealing with chronic illnesses, and this last one is so important, self-love.)
For my first blog, I wanted to share a little excerpt from a blog I wrote in January of 2011, pre-motherhood, and very full of youthful angst. Bear with me. I promise my writing and perspective have improved since then.
As a person who has been on a diet since I was twelve, I consider myself well informed about health and nutrition. I’ve had four personal trainers and been a member of a gym since I was 14 years old. I’ve repeatedly lost and gained weight back. I understand the science. I’m learning to understand the emotional side of “being healthy.”
As a young person in America, I’ve also had to learn about my finances. I’m twenty-four years old and I have roughly $50,000 in debt, thanks to my college education. I am ashamed to admit that I had no real awareness of my financial situation until about two or three years ago. I can now add “I’ve read books on budgets and finances” to my list as well.
Tonight, I had a startling revelation: Most health authors and most financial authors have messages that contrast with each other so much. Nutritionists and fitness experts write books about how to live healthier and to be more environmentally-friendly. Financial experts tell me that if I can’t afford it I shouldn’t buy it, period. Even if it adds value to my health?
I was browsing through Barnes & Noble this evening. I looked through the business books, the finance books, and the health & diet books. Don’t you love how health is always linked to diet? One minute I was reading about how to save a penny and the next minute I was reading about spending more on better quality foods.
I am the family accountant in our house. (I am also the family nutritionist, meal planner, and chef.) Currently we are striving to start a retirement fund (which a year ago would’ve sounded crazy to me and now seems like if I don’t start it today we’re going to get screwed in thirty years), an emergency fund (thanks, Dave Ramsey, it’s already helped a lot), a baby fund, and somehow pay down debts, have additional savings on top of that, and pay regular bills. By the time I put money away for the future our paycheck is slim. By the time I pay bills, it’s tight. By the time I buy groceries, it’s zero.
So these health books, for example, The Eat Clean Diet by Tosca Reno and Jillian Michael’s Metabolism Cookbook upset me a bit. Because not one of them tells you how to balance eating nutritionally with balancing your budget. By the time I would purchase the fresh, organic, all-natural, no preservatives, cage-free, Omega-3, no hormones, anti-biotic free food, I would probably spend double my grocery budget.
Some examples:
I shouldn’t eat real sugar, or even sugar substitutes, I should go to my local farmers’ market and get agave syrup which costs nearly four times more. That one gets me. Do you know how to cook with agave syrup? I don’t. They don’t tell you how in those books, either. They just spout out how good it is for you and how sugar is bad for your skin. Let’s face it, your standard-grocery-brand Cheerios cost $1.49 and Kashi cereal costs 4.59… which one is affordable? A dozen eggs are $2.49 but the cage-free, omega-3 (which is good if your planning for pregnancy) is $4.39. The same goes for cleaning products: bleach is cheaper than the non-toxic cleaners. Why does it cost more to be healthier?
My point in sharing that blog is to show you that I’m still working on the same issues I faced back then. But what you’ll find on this blog, is how I’m working through them, and how far I’ve come. Folks, I bought agave syrup for the very first time this week. Six years after I wrote that post. To be honest, I’m just going to use it in place of honey for a few recipes I’m trying this week, nothing fancy. But it was still difficult to pay that much money for something I could’ve gotten cheaper. I’m incredibly frugal (how do you think we paid off $50,000!) And here’s some more honesty for you, I probably won’t buy it again. Eating well and budgeting well is a balancing act. Choices must be made.
It still costs more to eat healthy, in general, but the good news is that the options for healthy, all-natural foods are more available than ever before. And the information is more readily available, too, whether you’re searching for meal plans on google, or recipes on Instagram, or quick workouts on Pinterest. Information is everywhere. What I hope to accomplish with my blog is to bring information from a variety of sources together in one place.
Join me, an average mom, on a journey towards being a healthier, wiser, and kinder mother, wife, friend, and woman. When I learn new things I’ll share them with you here. And when you learn new things please share them with me! Together we can create a community of women improving our own lives and those around us, one day at a time.