Friends. I wish I was returning from my unintended writing hiatus with a helpful how-to piece or an essay about what I’ve learned from four months of being an empty nester.

Someday, I’ll write you a quick, pithy article about how I trick myself into cleaning the kitchen before I go to bed. (I really do have a clever way to do this. A post for another time!)

But I live in Minnesota, so I don’t have the luxury of writing about things like that right now.

As you may have heard, last week in Minneapolis an ICE agent named Jonathan Ross shot a 37-year-old mother in the face three times as she tried to turn her minivan away from a crowd of ICE agents. Her name was Renee Good and her last words were “That’s fine, dude. I’m not mad at you.”

After he killed her, he called her a “fucking bitch.”

And if you can believe it, somehow things have gone downhill from there.

What’s happening right now in Minnesota

ICE kidnapped a 17-year-old U.S. citizen while he was working at Target. They abducted 4 Native Americans. They blocked in a car at a gas station near my house, broke the windows and pulled the man from his car. He was unconscious when they left - no update on how he is.

They intimidate and abduct legal observers who are following them and recording them - here they are pulling one from his car and kneeling on his neck. They are going door to door, presenting purposely misleading paperwork to gain entry. Observers have been detained, threatened, beaten, and offered bribes to share contact details of undocumented people or community organizers.

They are running protesters’ license plates and then using their personal information to intimidate them. Many of the public schools are offering online learning options because students and parents are afraid to leave their homes. They shoved a man taking a photo of their van in front of an oncoming bus.

It seems never ending. More agents are on their way. They now outnumber Minneapolis and St. Paul police force. Yesterday, the president posted in all caps: “FEAR NOT, GREAT PEOPLE OF MINNESOTA, THE DAY OF RECKONING & RETRIBUTION IS COMING!”

Why hasn’t the national guard been deployed to protect us? When they were deployed to protect buildings owned by multi-national conglomerates five years ago? GREAT QUESTION.

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What we’re doing and how you can help

Of course, it’s been lovely to see the outpouring of support and our community coming together. I’m glad that our attorney general has filed a lawsuit to block the deployment of more agents.

But things are awful and we need your help. If you’re reading this in New York or Brisbane or Derby, UK - Minnesota needs your help.

And if you’re here in the U.S. we’d love your help because, well, let’s not forget the “First They Came For” poem. If they can do this to us, they can (and will eventually) do it to you.

How you can help if you’re outside of Minnesota

• Keep sharing social media posts about what’s happening here.
  
  It’s already beginning to slip in the news. I’m currently in Arizona and 95% of people here aren’t aware that MSP is essentially under paramilitary occupation.
  
  Some social accounts from Minnesota you can follow: Women’s March Minnesota, Minnesota 50501, Indivisible Twin Cities.

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• Tell your senators and reps they need to abolish ICE or at least dramatically cut their funding
  
  Here’s a call script from Jess Craven (a Substack I highly recommend!)
  
  Hi, I’m a constituent calling from [zip]. My name is ______.

First, I’m calling because I’m horrified by what ICE is doing right now in Minneapolis. The violence, lawlessness, and unconstitutionality of their actions is appalling. Even worse is Congress’s failure to do anything about it. You’re a co-equal branch of government. Act like it! Rein this lawless agency in! ICE needs to be defunded and abolished, Kristi Noem needs to be impeached, and the officer who executed Renee Good needs to be arrested and charged. Americans don’t want this and we won’t accept it. Make it stop now!

• Donate to one of the many local organizations that are supporting our immigrant neighbors right now.
  
  Unidos MN
  
  Minnesota Immigrant Action Rights Committee
  
  CAIR MN
  
  The Urban Village
  
  Here is a much longer roundup of all organizations you can choose from.
  

• Check in on your friends who live here
  
  I’m sure your friends who live in Minneapolis, St. Paul or any of the surrounding suburbs would appreciate it if you texted them. We are not okay.
  

• Boycott Target
  
  In addition to rolling back their DEI policies and scaling back their Pride merch, Target is allowing ICE to stage in their parking lots, abduct their employees and customers, and they’re refusing to meet with local leaders who want to talk to them about this. To add insult to injury, Target was founded and is based in Minnesota!!!

How you can (safely) help if you’re in Minnesota

With how ICE is treating legal observers and protestors, I understand that it can feel suuuuuper scary to make yourself vulnerable. I, too, would prefer not to be beaten and abducted by a group of armed, unidentified men!

The good news is there are many things we can do that are safe-ish.

• Call your elected officials every god damn day
  
  You can call after hours and leave a voice mail if you don’t like to talk on the phone! 5calls.org and Jess Craven have call scripts you can use.
  

• Shop and eat at immigrant-owned businesses
  
  If they’re open 🫠 Many of their usual customers aren’t comfortable shopping or dining out - they need your business! In St. Paul, we love Dragon Star Oriental Foods, Trieu Chao, and Bangkok Thai Deli.
  

• Volunteer with ICOM AID
  
  You can help families impacted by ICE with material support, delivering basic needs, or accompanying families to immigration court. Contact aid@mnicom.org.
  

• CTUL is seeking drivers to accompany their members to meetings, legal appointments, doctor visits and other urgent needs
  
  If you are willing to be part of a group chat where folks can find rides or to be on a call shift schedule to support your neighbors, contact tre@ctul.net
  

• Download Signal and join your neighborhood rapid response team
  
  Even if you’re not doing observation activities, there are other ways to be helpful.
  

• If you have an Airbnb or a rental, donate your space for temporary housing
  

• Be present at your local school’s pick up and drop off
  
  Because we currently live in a world where our federal agents are somewhat less likely to abduct children if there are lots of witnesses. V cool!!!!
  

• Invite your neighbors over for a potluck
  
  Strengthening those connections, making sure everyone has each other’s phone numbers, and having a good gauge on who you can turn to in an emergency is always a good idea.

Friends who’ve lived through something like this, I’d love to hear your suggestions in the comments. And I look forward to returning to regularly scheduled programming sooner rather than later!

P.S. Americans can be in the U.K. and Canada for up to 180 days without a visa and the EU for 90 days. If you’re under 30, Australia’s working holiday visa lets you stay for a year; New Zealand has a similar program. The D.A.F.T. visa to The Netherlands is great for self-employed folks or people with an online business. There are lots of countries that offer “digital nomad visas” that allow you to stay for 1 - 2 years.

If you’re the direct descendant of a Holocaust survivor, Germany, Austria, and Poland all have relatively “easy” routes to citizenship. Luxembourg also has an ancestry path to citizenship.

I’m writing you from Tamworth, England where I’m “having a cuppa” in “the garden” (read: backyard) and enjoying a flawless summer day that I’ve been assured is “quite unusual.”

I’m in England for three weeks. I brought my mother-in-law to Glasgow to visit a dear friend, did an inn-to-inn hike in Northumberland, and now I’m hunkered down for 10 days in the midlands of England dogsitting two semi-well-mannered spaniels.*

The trip has been 85% lovely, 15% stressful and annoying - which I think is a pretty normal breakdown for any trip! But, as per the usual anytime I travel or have time to myself, it has led to what can only be cringe-ily called “personal epiphanies.”

This particular personal epiphany began with a travel day that would require changing trains three times, storing my luggage, and getting the timing on everything right so I could make it to a very specific museum with enough time to browse.

And, of course, my plans fell apart halfway through. When I arrived at the luggage storage office, a piece of paper taped to the window informed me that they were at lunch till 1:30, so I sat awkwardly on my suitcase in the sun and waited, missing my train.

The next train I took (after running through the station and jumping on as the doors were closing) was, in fact, the wrong train and took me 20 minutes in the wrong direction.

When I finally got back to York and recalibrated my plans, I headed towards a famous tourist destination that - surprise! - was so full of tourists as to be unenjoyable!** It started to rain and somehow after taking 47 photos and a 5 minute video of the interior of my pocket, my new phone froze and became unusable.

And God knows I don’t know how to do anything without Google maps.

When I finally got my phone working again and picked up my luggage and started walking towards my bed and breakfast, I discovered that - unbeknownst to me - a pebble had gotten lodged in one of my carryon’s wheels and I’d effectively dragged it down into an unfunctioning trapezoid.

Now, obviously I lived to tell this tale and - reading it all back - it’s funny. And I’ve traveled enough and lived enough to know that these things are annoying but survivable.

When I posted about this ridiculous day on my Instagram Stories, I joked that days like these “build my resilience muscle” - but y’all? I think that’s the truth.

Or at least that’s how I’m choosing to think about it.

When I think back on some of the truly bananas things I’ve done and lived through - moving internationally twice, traveling through a bunch of developing countries on my own (pre-smart phone), negotiating a lease in Chinese and a visit to the eye doctor in Spanish (again, pre-smart phone), accidentally buying a historic home previously owned by someone addicted to heroin, the joys and challenges of being a stepmom - all these things strengthened my resilience muscle.

Not that I thought of it like that at the time! Not that I would have opted into the experience of sitting in an internet cafe in Huaraz, Peru copying the Spanish words for “scratched cornea” into a tiny notebook with a pen I borrowed from my hotel!

But the truth is, these weird, hard experiences have made me a more resilient human.

They've made me - a Virgo, Type A, INTJ eldest daughter - significantly more capable of rolling with the proverbial punches, adapting, and just getting on with things.

So I’ve decided that I’m going to (try to) think about the hard stuff I inevitably encounter as a workout for my resilience muscle.

Moving two kids out + paying for two college educations simultaneously? Building my resilience muscle!

Sourcing pretty much everything for our basement remodeling project from Facebook Marketplace? Building my resilience muscle!

Juggling 5 paying clients and 1 pro bono client who collectively own 9 businesses between them? Building my resilience muscle!

This reframe doesn’t mean that it’s not hard or stressful or annoying to do these things. (If you’ve ever used Facebook Marketplace, you’re familiar with the very specific feeling of a seller ghosting you just when you’ve started rearranging your living room to accommodate that chair they’re selling!!) But it does help me view these hard things through a more positive lens.

What have been some of your most "resilience building” experiences? And did you find that, eventually, they really did benefit you in some way?

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* I will never, ever stop talking about how using Trusted Housesitters to find free lodging in exchange for pet sitting will change your travel life! It’s also one of the ways I save money that I feel sort of weird about.

** Isn’t it funny how we all do this? Complain about there being “too many tourists” when we ourselves are part of that throng of tourists? HOW DARE THESE OTHER HUMANS HAVE THE SAME IDEA AS ME!!!!

Here is a short list of things I love:

• Repurposing and upcycling random pieces of, well, trash

• Doing things with friends beyond getting coffee

• Eating snacks

Sometimes this results in me badgering friends into taking a Community Ed wood burning class. Sometimes I make vegan meringue out of the water left in a can of chickpeas (it’s so much better than you’d think!)

Lately, it’s taking the shape of what I’ve been calling “Anti-Fascist Craft Nights” and y’all? IT IS HEALING MY SOUL.

Sure, I use 5calls.org to call my reps multiple times a week and I’ve been avoiding (and thus inadvertently boycotting) big box retailers for ages - but hanging out with friends? While I create something with my hands? It scratches a different itch than leaving angry voicemails for Amy Klobuchar.

And it has totally nudged me outside of my social comfort zone. You guys. I went to a book club where I only knew the host and by the end of the book club, I had invited all of these women over to my house for an Anti-Fascist Craft Night. And a week later - they came! And they brought friends!! And asked when I’d be hosting the next one!!!

I already have two more on the calendar and at least three more planned in my mind. I’m going to use these as an excuse to reach out to my “just say hi in passing” neighbors and local Instagram friends I’ve never met IRL. I’m even planning to eventually host one with a friend from high school in our tiny, conservative home town!

Whenever I post about these craft nights on my Instagram Stories, I get tons of questions and “that’s such a good idea!” DMs.

So if the idea of an Anti-Fascist Craft Night piques your interest, but you’re not sure where to start, here are my best tips.

First things first: I got the idea to flood the mailboxes of our elected officials with physical mail from Gina Luker. She is great and you should follow her!

Your Anti-Fascist Craft Night “shopping list” (You probably already have most of these things)

• Cereal boxes, snack boxes, frozen food boxes - any light weight cardboard

• Magazines and catalogs

• Glue sticks

• Paper for writing letters

• Scissors

• Markers and pens

• Stamps - postcard and letter

• Envelopes - I like the larger, legal size

• Print outs of elected officials mailing addresses

• Any other craft supplies that would make this more fun

• Snacks!

And if you plan on hosting a bunch of these and you’re worried it’ll get expensive to buy two sheets of stamps twice a month, just ask your guests to bring some!

Invite your friends + use Doodle to find a date / time that works for the most people

If you’re feeling shy or nervous about inviting people, I’ve found folks to be INCREDIBLY receptive. Most Americans are feeling overwhelmed, not sure what to do, or like they’re not doing enough.You’re giving them a fun, easy way to stay engaged!

Spending two hours crafting and connecting is fun! The concept of an Anti-Fascist Craft Night is weird enough to pique people’s interest and I think having an “activity” to do makes it much easier to navigate socially. Folks who are nervous about making small talk can just cut things out of magazines and use glue sticks!

Start stockpiling cereal boxes, snack boxes, frozen food boxes

Really, any lightweight cardboard boxes that aren’t corrugated; these are the right weight for postcards. Cut them into 4” x 6” postcards so they’re ready to go for your guests. And when my guests ask what they can bring to Anti-Fascist Craft Night, I tell them to dig through their recycling bin and bring all their cereal boxes!

Stockpile magazines and catalogs

I’ve found that it is really fun to make collage-style letters and to use images you find as an inspiration for what you’ll say in your letter.

Image of a dinosaur = “You’re responsible for the extinction of democracy.” Image of money = “Your tax cuts for billionaires are reprehensible.” One of my friends found an image from a cat litter ad and … I’m sure you can see where this is going.

People can cut out words or letters. I know some people like to cut magazine pages into tiny pieces of confetti and tuck them inside their letters, so they make a mess for the person who opens them.

Print out elected official mailing addresses

I make things easier by printing out the GOP addresses onto pink paper and the DFL addresses onto blue paper. Of course, you can just look up addresses on your phone, but it’s nice to have an analog option as well.

And fun fact: every Senator has multiple local offices. So if there’s a specific person you think deserves multiple letters, you could - just hypothetically - send letters to Amy Klobuchar’s offices in Minneapolis, Rochester, Moorhead, Virginia, and Washington, DC telling her what you think of her vote to spend millions of taxpayer dollars bombing Gaza.

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Hang up a few “examples”

This tip comes from my time as a classroom teacher. It seems silly, but if you hang up an example of a postcard or letter you wrote, it can really help people get unstuck and just start.

If they see that their postcard can just say “Stop allowing masked men without warrants to kidnap people” they can stop spiraling about writing a profound essay. Or if they see that your letter is just a series of photos you cut out of magazines and sharpie marker saying “Grow a spine! We need you!” they’ll stop overcomplicating things.

You can send positive letters of support

If someone doesn’t want to wallow in bad vibes, they can spend this time writing thank-you notes and letters of support and encouragement to elected officials they appreciate and support!

Obviously, be mindful of what you write

We’re not trying to write anything that will trigger an investigation or dusting for fingerprints.

I have zero qualms about reminding our elected officials that during the Nuremberg trials people who said they were “just following orders” were found guilty of war crimes. And I’m not afraid to tell elected officials who work for us and are paid with our tax dollars that they are useless, shameful nutbags.

But I’m not writing anything that could be construed as threatening or violent and you may want to remind your guests of that.

Have your friends leave their mail with you + mail it out in a big blue drop mailbox

The same way that a bag of Goodwill donations will rattle around in your trunk for seven months, these letters and postcards can get lost in the bottom of a bag or purse.

So make things easy by having your friends leave their postcards and letters with you and then you mail them off all at once from one of those old school blue drop mailboxes. If you’re not sure where the nearest one is, this website will tell you!

So many of us want to take action and connect with people, but we don’t know where to start. This is such a fun, easy way to do something while also seeing your friends and eating snacks. It’s a win/win/win!

How are y’all doing? Are you taking action in any ways I haven’t thought of?

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A weird thing that happens when you work with business owners: Their business-y vocabulary and frameworks trickle over into your daily life.

And - I regret to inform us - a lot of those frameworks are actually pretty useful outside of the cubicles.

While I’m not quiiiiiite saying synergy unironically to my friends at backyard barbecues, I can say that I see the wisdom in that “rocks, pebbles, sand” framework a lot of my clients use to plan their business projects.

Another one that’s surprisingly helpful? That “stop, start, continue” framework that lots of bosses use when running yearly performance reviews.

I thought it might be fun to start off the month with my own list, shared to create outer accountability. If I tell you I’m going to start taking yoga classes, now I have to do it! And I also weirdly always love to read other people’s lists like this.

Something I’m Going To Stop Doing:

• Consuming any caffeine after 11 am. 😭
  
  Like most 40+ women, the quality of my sleep is terrrrrrible. Even though I walk 4+ miles most days! Even though I read an actual, physical book before I go to sleep! Even though I sleep in a cool, quiet, completely dark room!
  
  Several times a week, I wake up at 3 am, toss and turn for an hour, get up and read on the sofa where I fall asleep around 5 am and wake up when Kenny gets up and I’m drooling and onto our not-really-meant-for-sleeping throw pillows. Fun! Here’s hoping that stopping caffeine even earlier in the day will help.

Things I’m Going To Start Doing:

• Taking free yoga classes at my co-working space
  
  I’m usually quite good about making the most of the stuff I’m already paying for but have I taken advantage of the three-times-a-week yoga classes at my coworking space? I have not.
  
  In late July, I’m doing a five-day, four-night inn-to-inn hike in Scotland so - in addition to taking longer hikes to train and doing some weight training - I know I need to work on my flexibility. Also, they’re freeeeeee.
  

• Working with a new retainer client!
  
  I’ve talked before about how I inadvertently designed my ideal work situation by being an easily dissatisfied so-and-so; I can’t say enough good things about the retainer model. You get the schedule flexibility of freelance with the financial stability of W2 work!
  
  This client is experimenting with launching a paid Substack that will feature the sort of content that people typically put into an online course. It’ll end up costing their subscribers just $180 (which is MUCH cheaper than most online courses) and since they meter it out weekly into small bites, people are a lot more likely to actually implement the things they’re teaching!
  
  Sidenote: If you’re an “accidental accountant” - you got roped into doing accounting and bookkeeping for the small business you work for or you're doing it for your family or spouse’s business, but you never actually … learned how to do bookkeeping, their Substack is for you!

Things I’m Going To Continue Doing:

• Eating “fake caprese” for breakfast
  
  I’m a) lazy b) never eating enough protein c) not that into sweet things, so “fake caprese” has been my go-to summer breakfast for a while now. It takes 45 seconds to put together and is legit delish.
  
  Aldi full cottage cheese (I’ve tried all the brands and this one is my favorite!) + cherry tomatoes cut in half + basil if you’ve got it + “Everything but the bagel” seasoning if you’ve got it. So good!

• Doing weekly themed meals + a tv show with my mother-in-law
  
  My MIL (who I like!!!) rents the lower unit in our duplex and once a week, we make a themed dinner and watch one or two episodes of a tv show. It’s so fun! We just finished Somebody, Somewhere (so, so good!) and made lots of Kansas-inspired food - barbecue, chili + cinnamon rolls, and many, many corn-centric dishes.
  
  We’re starting Outlander to prepare for our Scotland trip, but I’m not sure I can handle watching that level of, uh, spiciness with my MIL. We agreed to give it three episodes. I cannot handle three sex scenes and one attempted rape in every episode!!!
  

• NOT listening to anything while I walk to work
  
  I’ve been working with a health coach who encouraged me to find a version of mindfulness that works for me - a person who’s not great at meditating. I decided to experiment with not listening to anything on my four-ish mile walk to and from my co-working space every day and ohmygod I will never go back!
  
  I work through so many issues during those walks, write blog posts like this in my head, and am a lot more likely to chat with neighbors I encounter. I notice which flowers are blooming, how that big house remodel is coming along and arrive at my destination much calmer and more centered.

But I want to hear from you! It’s always so interesting (and informative!) to read other people’s lists like this. I always get so many ideas for other things I want to try when I read what you’re up to. 😊

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If we’ve ever met in real life and you’ve complimented something I’m wearing, there is a 95% chance that I’m going to tell you that I thrifted it and how much it cost.

I do this for three reasons:

1. I am extremely proud of this Gucci jean jacket I got at Goodwill for $8!!!!!

2. If you want something like this, I want you to know that it’s accessible to you, too

3. I deeply, deeply believe in “showing your work” (Zero shade - but the “work” of thrifting is very different than the “work” of walking into an Anthropologie and buying something cute)

And, not to be your bossy internet big sister (too late!!!) but I think you should be “showing your work” in every arena of your life all the dang time.

Here’s why I “show my work”

I think it’s a disservice to others who want to achieve something similar to pretend that it was easy

If you ever ask me how I created a career that gives me financial security, geographic / time flexibility, and creative fulfillment I will never, ever tell you that it just “fell into my lap.” I will tell you about the 20+ years of getting it wrong and the framework I created to figure it out.

If someone compliments our (honestly very cute and stylish!) living room, I will tell you how I spent 3+ years training my Facebook Marketplace algorithm to show me very specific things and then slowly furnishing it for - and I’m not kidding - $300. (Not including the couch we bought new from Ikea because we needed something that came in boxes so we could get it up the stairs!)

And if you ask me about buying a duplex so we can enjoy the emotional, logistical, and financial benefits of intergenerational living? I’ll be very honest about how it took us a year to find our duplex, how we lost out on five other duplexes before this one, and the … challenges of buying our duplex from this specific seller.

It’s a reminder to myself of what I’ve actually accomplished

You know those weeks when you sit back and think “I’m completely exhausted but what do I have to show for it?”

When you’ve been “showing your work” to the members of your household, your coworkers or even just your Instagram followers, it’s a lot easier to give yourself credit for everything you’ve accomplished.

Frankly, I want credit for it!

I don’t struggle to delegate or say no. I don’t sit silently, waiting for people to appreciate me. I pretty regularly say to my husband “Will you come look at this and tell me I did a good job?” (And sometimes when someone asks me to do something I will literally say “No. I’ve done enough.” 😬😆)

But the reality is most humans only notice when things go wrong. We don’t notice when things are effective / clean / organized / go according to plan. When you show your work, people are more likely to recognize what goes into making these good things happen!

3 Ways I “Show My Work”

I literally tell people why I’m doing what I’m doing

Since I work in digital marketing, an enormous amount of my work is writing, editing videos, and creating graphics.

And if you don’t know what goes into writing an effective sales email or blog post that people read all the way to the end, it would be easy to look at something I wrote and think “This took how long?” and “She’s charging me how much?”

So I’m a constaaaaaantly adding comments to Google docs that say things like

• “Opening with this anecdote to draw people in”

• “This title got 88% in Headline Analyzer”

• “Putting this in bullet points to increase readability”

When I pull the lint out of the dryer and there are other family members nearby I say “I’m just going to empty the lint catcher because if it gets too full, it can start a fire.”

If my neighbor compliments our landscaping, I say “Thanks! We killed off the lawn and replaced it with native plants because they’re more drought tolerant and better for the pollinators. It was a ton of work but I’m so happy with how it turned out!”

When I take on a task, I mention what goes into getting the desired results

I know this might sound passive aggressive! I’m not suggesting you should say “DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW LONG THIS IS GOING TO TAKE?!!!”

I’m simply suggesting that you say out loud what happens next. It helps everyone involved* understand how much work goes into something and manage their expectations.

* “Everyone involved” includes you.

When someone sends me a video to edit into social media clips, I say something like:

“Awesome! I’ll get started auto-correcting his eye contact, dropping in the logo and subtitles, adding some stock video to increase watch time and putting some music behind it. And I’ll make a nice thumbnail for Youtube and write up an SEO-ed video description. I think this will turn out really nice!”

When I invite friends to get dinner and go see a show, I’ll say “Great! I’ll see if I can find us reservations somewhere within walking distance. Could you make a 6:00 pm reservation?”

If I’m trying to coordinate a group trip, I’ll say “I’m so excited to see all of you! I’ll put together a list of Airbnbs that look good and see what Instagram has to say about must-see stuff around Salt Lake City!”

(Sidenote: my yearly Girls’ Trip is heading to SLC this November and I welcome all recommendations!)

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I let people witness / understand my hard work

I do not “make moves in silence.” I’m not trying to hide how much goes into having your own business, keeping a home at-least-somewhat clean and organized, maintaining relationships, planning trips, etc. etc. etc.

All of it is a lot of work! And it’s okay if your kids, friends, clients, or partner witness this!

It’s okay to let people overhear you calling your reps - I love 5calls.org for scripts.

If you have kids, let them see you (and your partner if you have one), talking through budgets, planning meals, both doing house projects, both cleaning. It shows them what goes into maintaining a household. It’s not some weird mystery how the house stays clean or where meals come from.

And every weekday, I post my daily to-do list on Instagram Stories. It keeps me on task, accountable, and shows people what exactly I’m doing for this life that I’m sure sometimes looks like constant travel and adventure. (The “secret” is housesitting for friends and through Trusted Housesitters to make travel infinitely more affordable!)

I know being honest about the amount of work we put into, well, everything can feel uncomfortable for a lot of us.

Wouldn’t it be cool for someone to look at your life and wonder “How do they do it all?!” Isn’t it more fun to shrug and say “Oh, this old thing?” when someone compliments you?

You deserve credit for all the hard work you put into making your life awesome. It’s easier to give you credit when we can see that hard work. ❤️

If you’re good at “showing your work” in different areas of your life, tell us how you do it in the comments!

When I was 21, I landed what - at the time - felt like a dream internship writing for my local newspaper. Sure, the newspaper only came out once a week and I was making minimum wage but I was getting paid to write. I would have a byline. I was sure this was the first step on a professional ladder that would lead somewhere incredible.

And a lot of things about that internship were great; I learned skills I still use today! I learned how to write an enticing lede (yes, that’s how it’s spelled). I learned how to edit a story down to the best, most important bits and how to take a photo that made something boring look interesting. (It’s mostly about angles and cropping.)

I also learned that I didn’t want to be a journalist.

I didn’t like working evenings and weekends when stories broke or, more likely, when there was a city council meeting I had to cover. I didn’t enjoy it when my good ideas were held hostage by the newspaper owner’s mood. I didn’t want to ask people questions they didn’t want to answer or type up the court report and see friends’ and neighbors’ names.

I realized that as much as I enjoyed getting paid to write for that newspaper, the joy of seeing my name in print wasn’t enough to outweigh the unpleasant day-to-day realities of that gig.

Now, I wish I could tell you that I took this wisdom to the bank and cashed it to the tune of One Dream Job.

Instead, I spent the next, oh, 20+ years doing jobs that I liked … well enough. It sort of felt like dating. Each time I’d try something new, hoping that this would be the one. When it wasn’t, I tried to be honest with myself about what had worked and what hadn’t and choose better the next time.

There was the event planning job where I realized I loved working on projects with a concrete end date … and hated working for bosses who’d been gifted the company by their wealthy husband as “something to keep them busy.”

There was the ESL teaching job where I discovered how great it felt to come up with an idea and implement it the next day. I also discovered that I probably needed to earn more than $16 an hour.

And there was full time content creation. I learned the joys of setting my own hours. I also learned that unpredictable income, the content treadmill, and parasocial perfection trolling could decimate my wellbeing.

Sidenote! If you’re trying to juggle self-employment, fulfillment, and - ya know - actually making enough money, I think you’d love the Autonomous Creative Conference - it’s FREE! I recorded an interview for it about uncomplicating self-promotion and there are tons of other great talks about finding clients without cold calls, rebooting your relationship to social media, and so much more!

Increasingly, I realized that what I did was only one small piece of my personal career satisfaction puzzle. Just as important were where I did my work, when I was expected to do it, who I did it with, and how much I got paid to do it.

The awesome what of being a fulltime content creator couldn’t outweigh the who (hundreds of mean internet strangers in my DMs) or the how much ($15,000 one month, $1,500 the next.)

Being an ESL teacher came with a great who, what, and where - sweet, appreciative students, fun work, and jobs all over the world. But the how much and when? $34,000 a year and 8-to-5, not including prep? No thanks.

What happens when you make the when, where, who, and how much as important as the what

So what did I do with this epiphany? Well, I basically reverse engineered my way into a work situation that feels goooooood on a day-to-day basis.

I looked at my ideal when, where, who, and how much and THEN I looked at the what - the skills I had that would give me access to those.

My ideal when: Whenever the hell I wanted 💅 As long as I met my deadlines, I wanted to be able to set my own hours, whether that was 6 in the morning or 8 pm on Saturday night. Also? I don’t want to work more than 30 hours a week.

My ideal where: Anywhere with a wifi connection! I live in St. Paul, Minnesota but I’m currently typing this from a little yellow bungalow in Durham, North Carolina.

My ideal who: People who value my expertise and listen to me. People who can easily afford my services and pay on time. People and companies who do solid work that’s contributing to the world in some way - it doesn't have to be sexy or “cool,” but it can’t be problematic, exploitative, or slimy.

People who own their role in outcomes and don’t complain about results they don’t get from advice they didn’t take. (!!!!)

My ideal how much: $8,000 - $12,000 a month, consistently.

And the what? Once I got really honest about all of the above and looked at my skill set, I built out a business model that allows me to check all those when, where, who, and how much boxes.

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I realized that even though I looooved teaching, thrifting, planning road trips, and making surprisingly good recipes out of weird leftovers - none of those whats were likely to give me the where, when, who, and how much I wanted.

So I thought about all the skills I’d developed from being a content creator for 14 years: SEO, content strategy, social media, copywriting, launch strategy, Canva-level graphic design.

Then I bundled all those skills into a marketing retainer package that starts at $2,000 a month for a three month contract. I work with 3 - 5 clients at a time; they pay at the beginning of each month, and then we work through their allotted hours. I have the stability of knowing how much money I’ll make every month without having to work specific hours, drive into an office, or spend five years with a boss I hate.

Sometimes I fantasize about using my thrifting skills to become a reseller, but then I think about the who (neverending strangers asking me for information clearly given in the item description or who try to haggle down an already reasonable price) or the when (scheduling my day around Facebook Marketplace pick ups who no-show.)

Or I dream of owning a yurt glampground. And then I think of the where (probably needing to be nearby to help guests) and the high overhead that would dramatically impact the how much.

Now, I'm not saying you shouldn't follow your passion or base your career on what you love to do. What I am saying is that if you’re currently dissatisfied with your work situation, you might be amazed by how much you can improve your day-to-day life by switching the where, when, who or how much.

How are you feeling about your career these days? If you’ve built a work situation that feels really good - logistically, financially, emotionally - tell us how you did it!

P.S. Don’t forget about the free Autonomous Creative Conference!

Has someone ever described something to you as “life changing” and then - when you dig deeper - you realize that the “life changing” thing in question costs five figures and takes 10 hours a week?

Like, yes Makinzie, I’m sure that going to reformer pilates four times a week changed your life. Just like having a personal chef or housekeeping staff would change mine. But we don’t all have unlimited time or money, right?

To that end, I thought I’d share three comically small (and free!) things I’ve started doing in the last six months that have had an outsized positive impact on my day-to-day life. (And one less-small thing that’s also been great!)

1. I count out - like, literally on the my fingers - five “nice things” things that have happened in the last 24 hours every morning as I walk the dog

I find the concept of gratitude practices sort of … overwhelming? It seems like the sort of thing I need to take Very Seriously and even the word gratitude can feel a bit heavy to me. And if I’m being honest, I’d probably just keep cycling through the same 10 things I’m grateful for every few days.

But when I switched to saying to myself “Isn’t it nice …..” and then naming five things that have happened in the past 24 hours? It gets a lot easier to appreciate that my sister-in-law brought really good lemon bars to the birthday dinner and that the hardware store restocked my favorite, hard-to-find sour gummy bears.

And counting these blessings on my fingers like a kindergartener while I walk the dog? It creates muscle memory and keeps me on track. I walk out the front door with the dog, my body remembers that this is what we do now.

When I’m counting on my fingers, I’m less likely to get distracted thinking about sour gummy bears -> why do Sour Patch Kids tear up your mouth? -> Cap’n Crunch also tears up your mouth -> cereal is so expensive these days -> we’re out of Greek yogurt.

2. I stopped listening to music or podcasts while I’m walking outside

Most days I walk four miles round trip to my co-working space. It ends up being about 60 - 90 minutes of walking every day and when I started, I thought “This will be boring and kind of hard! Surely, I need to distract myself with music and podcasts!!”

I burned through every episode of Normal Gossip ever published, but when my health coach nudged me toward incorporating more mindfulness into my day, my thoughts were:

• Boring!

• Every time I try to meditate, I just end up making lists in my mind

• Can I count it as “mindfulness” if I just … don’t listen to things while I walk to work? WHATEVER I’M COUNTING IT

Y’all, I’m never going back. I am so much more centered and calm and ready for the other part of my day by the end of the walk.

I’m not doing anything particularly zen on these headphone-free walks. I route myself past the house with the good magnolia tree and the house with all the blooming Siberian squill in the front yard. I check on the progress of that big remodeling job. I hope the two Scottish Fold kittens are sitting in their window.

I write these posts in my head, I wonder about the plot of whatever book I’m reading, I let my mind wander. Without the never-ending input, my brain quiets down.

3. I started actually taking advantage of our walkable neighborhood

When we bought our duplex, we paid more to live in a walkable neighborhood. And I have mostly used this walkable neighborhood to walk our elderly, stubborn dog around the same two blocks.

But now that we have completely forsaken Amazon and Target, we’ve been making more purchases at neighborhood stores and - glory be! - many of them are within walking distance of our house! (Especially now that I’m used to walking four miles a day.)

This doesn’t always look like buying a beautiful, artisan-made whatever at an impeccably curated, locally-owned boutique. Sometimes I’m walking to CVS to buy a humidifier filter or Walgreens to buy my very specific vitamin c gummies. But I’m seeing my neighbors, getting outside, and (slightly) reducing the carbon footprint of the things I buy because they’re not being shipped from an Amazon fulfillment center.

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4. I joined a co-working space

Those things I listed above? They cost zero dollars. My co-working space? It’s $160 a month and it’s - like those old Mastercard commercials - priceless.

I get exercise walking there every day. I have to put on real clothes - like with buttons and zippers and everything! I can’t avoid work I need to do by wiping down the baseboards or touching up the paint on the front door.

And most importantly, I have those “weak ties” friendships again - people I say good morning to in the stairwell or chit chat with at the coffee station. We make small talk about our weekends or did you see they finally did something about the flooring on the second floor landing? Deliciously, I even have “work gossip” to share at dinner, something that hasn’t happened for almost 15 years.

It took me aaaaaages to convince myself to spring for a co-working space. Why pay for a space work when I could do it for free from my (small, dark, hot-in-the-summer, cold-in-the-winter) office? Why pay for a space where I’d have to wear real clothes and be around people when I could be alone all day, rotting in the same half-dirty oversized metal t-shirt and stretched out yoga pants?

Why indeed.

Looking over these, it’s not exactly a mystery why these things would add up to a day-to-day life that feels better - gratitude, mindfulness, movement, community.

When I started doing them, I wasn’t quite clever enough to realize that’s what was missing in my life or that’s what I pursuing by taking out my headphones or buying my kitchen sponges at the little shop down the street instead of ordering them from the Amazon.

But now that I have, in fact, figured it out, I wanted to pass it along in case you, too, would like to add more gratitude, mindfulness, movement, or community to your life!

But I want to hear from you! What are the tiny things that have made a surprisingly big positive impact on your day-to-day life?

Listen. I would like very much to be the sort of Cool Girl who’s always having some completely spontaneous adventure.

Inviting her neighbors over for a 7 pm dinner party and 6:30, jumping on a plane to Nova Scotia because she found a cheap flight, or swinging by the beach for a quick swim on her way home just because it was hot that day.

Regrettably, that’s not really how my brain works and that’s not really my current “season of life.”

I am more likely to wipe down the kitchen counter and then, three hours later, realize that I’ve just deep-cleaned the kitchen and somehow skipped lunch.

Or I “just open my laptop real quick” to read Walton Goggin’s Wikipedia page (he had a photography blog that chronicled his sabbatical in India!) … and then check my work email … and now I’ve been working for 1.5 hours.

All this to say: Fun stuff doesn’t particularly fall into my lap. For me, a day-to-day life that I truly enjoy takes planning and effort.

And the best way I’ve found to make sure I’m having enough fun is to, well, literally schedule it.

Why you might want to schedule fun

If you don’t schedule fun, it probably won’t happen

I’m sure you’ve witnessed this in your own life, right?

Somehow, it’s been six months since you saw that friend and the art exhibit you were looking forward to has been and gone. You have yet to visit the new bakery down the street you were so excited about. You waited for months to get that library book and now it’s due and you haven’t cracked it.

I know scheduling fun doesn’t feel particularly sexy. Fun should be spontaneous! Wonderful experiences should fall into your lap as though life were a musical montage in a rom com!

That would be awesome. And it might even happen sometimes! You’re a lot more likely to have fun if you make time for it and commit to making it happen.

Scheduling fun gives you something to look forward to

Did you know that 30% of the happiness you get from a given experience comes from anticipating it?

You can suck 30% more happiness from the fun stuff you’re already doing just by putting it on your calendar. When you scribble a reminder into your planner, you’ll see it every day. You’ll get a little jolt of joy thinking about how much fun you’re going to have at that dinner party, concert, beach day, or camping trip.

These scheduled bits of fun can also give you the push you need to get through that interminable meeting, big project, or long commute. It’s a lot easier to pay attention to Dana from Accounting when there’s a food truck festival in your immediate future.

When you schedule fun, you’re less likely to over-spend, over-eat, over-drink, or over-Netflix

When we feel deprived or bored, it comes out in all sorts of super cool ways!

True Story: scheduling fun was part of the curriculum of my beloved “Bank Boost” course and many people found that scheduling fun dramatically decreased their spending!

When we don’t schedule time with our friends, we might try to get our social fix via Facebook or Instagram, falling down a rabbit hole of less-than feelings and the comparison trap.

When we don’t make time to eat delicious food at restaurants we’re excited about, we might stand in front of the fridge eating leftovers and chips, every hour on the hour. And we’re not even enjoying ourselves or our food!

When we don’t make deliberate space for seeing fun movies, time in nature, trying new things, or moving our bodies, we scratch that itch with shopping, food, alcohol, binge-watching or doom scrolling.

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So how do you schedule fun?

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A few weeks ago I met a longtime professional acquaintance for lunch.

(When I say “longtime professional acquaintance” I worry you think we met at a conference while wearing blazers and using words like “synergy.” But what I mean is we came up together during the golden days of blogging - 2008 - 2016 - and have supported each other’s work for ages. We’re “work friends” in as much as self-employed professional internet-ers can be “work friends.”)

Since the last time we saw each other IRL, she has launched and sold a company for gobs of money. Then she started a second company that - based exclusively on said company’s 200,000+ Instagram followers and professionally photographed products - is doing very, very well.

And what have I done since the last time my friend and I saw each other?

I launched an online course that people loved and literally changed lives (and that I wildly undercharged for). I burnt allllll the way out and quit the internet for 3 years. I inadvertently bought a duplex where the previous owner had used the basement to shoot up and leave his needles scattered in the corners. I decided to use the skills I’d developed writing and marketing my own offerings for retainer clients, as a temporary “stop gap solution” to the problem that was my burnt-to-a-crisp professional life.

My last five years felt somewhat less ambitious and impressive than hers.

As we sat in the booth of the hip restaurant and rubbed the complimentary bread around in a pool of golden olive oil, I caught her up on all this.

“I mean, it’s not sexy but I really like it.” I said. “I know how much I’ll earn every month, but I can still set my own hours and work from anywhere. I like all my clients and they like me and they’re happy with the work I do.”

“That’s great!” my friend said, taking a sip of her coffee. “And I bet it’d be pretty easy for you to bring on subcontractors or expand to offer, like, Facebook ads and website design. You could have a whole marketing agency before you know it!”

I laughed and shrugged. “Oh, I’m not trying to build some huge thing. I hate managing people. And honestly, I earn the amount I want to earn and work the amount I want to work and I’m totally happy with that.”

“What kind of Virgo are you?!” my friend laughed and slapped my arm. We flagged down the server to order and changed the subject.

But I’ve been chewing on this conversation ever since. My friend is uncommonly driven and I think there was a time in my life when I could have been described that way, too.

I got good grades, got into good undergrad and graduate programs, filled my passport, got a do-goodery job that was impressive in a karmic way if not in a financial way. As I built my blog, I got the podcast interviews, the tv spots, the literary agent blah blah blah.

But somewhere along the way I stopped being driven to build an impressive career. I stopped feeling passionate about almost any sort of professional achievement.

Now, I should add this is not something I accomplished through therapy or enlightenment or a lot of meditation. I don’t have a replicable system I can coach you through. I certainly don’t think I’m “better” or more evolved than someone who feels passionate about their professional life. I am married to someone who feels passionate about their professional life!

But after the last five years we’ve collectively lived through, I am simply driven by other things.

I’m not driven to create an impressive career. I’m driven to create an enjoyable day-to-day life.

I like the work I do! I am good at it and it comes easily to me! Annnnnd I am not driven to scale it to 7 figures and become “famous” in the world of digital marketing.

I’m not even sure I’m driven to build a particularly “impressive” life! I don’t want to climb Mount Everest (there are dead bodies and frozen poop littering the trail???). I don’t need a 4,000 square foot house. I don’t need my 45-year-old body to look like a 22-year-old body. I don’t need to name-drop celebrities I count as my friends.

Mostly, I’m driven to create a day-to-day life that I enjoy living. Even if that day-to-day life doesn’t look particularly “impressive” from the outside.

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And in most ways - that’s what I’m currently doing! With my unsexy-but-successful business model and our 123-year-old duplex in a (lovely!) city most people couldn’t find on a map.

• I can wake up without an alarm and sleep in when I need to
  

• I can afford a membership at a lovely co-working space that’s walking distance from our house
  

• I can take time off to help friends and family when they need it
  

• I don’t have to share every aspect of my life on social media to convince people to buy my course, click this affiliate link, or DM for more info
  

• When the weather’s nice, I can kick off early. And when the weather’s bad, I can hunker down in my sweats, drink a gallon of coffee, and bang out three days of work in one day.
  

• If someone’s an asshole, I don’t have to work with them
  

• I can work from anywhere with an internet connection. I’m currently writing this from a log cabin on a river in a Hallmark Movie-eque small town in Wisconsin! Last week’s post was written from Fort Collins, Colorado where I was visiting a friend I’ve known for 20 years. (Here’s how I afford to travel so much without going broke.)

I’m not sure if the disappearance of my professional ambition is permanent or temporary, but - for now - it sort of feels like a blessing. As the economy flounders and AI remakes, well, most things, having an identity that’s largely separate from how I make money feels like a relief.

I like the work I do for my clients and I’m good at it! And if AI eats my career I’ll be okay. I have faith that I’ll find another way to make money that supports the day-to-day life I’ve been driven to build for myself.

Has your relationship with professional ambition changed at all over the last five years or as you’ve aged? If you’re not directing your drive and ambition towards your career these days, where are you directing it?

A year and a half ago, we celebrated my husband’s 50th with a rare luxury: Taking a vacation anywhere we wanted.

See, 90% of the time our vacations are adding a long weekend in upstate New York after the family reunion in New Jersey. Or taking the boys to Anchorage while we cat sit for my cousin. Or finding the best Radisson hotel so we can use that voucher.

It is pretty rare that we just …take a vacation somewhere?

Y’all, it took us four months to decide on California. And California is lovely! We had a great time! But when faced with the semi-overwhelming prospect of going almost anywhere, it took us four months and a surprising amount of research and false starts to choose.

And I don’t think I’m alone in this. Studies show that an abundance of options can counterintuitively lead to less happiness, less satisfaction, and hamper the ability to make a decision.

Beyond that, for me and my brain, constraints breed creativity. If you tell me I have to build a wedding-appropriate outfit from clothes I already own or plan a date night with $20 or find the best things to do in Cincinnati, Ohio - I will rise to the occasion!

But if you give me unlimited options, I will flounder and sulk and turn my proverbial homework in late.

So over the years, I’ve inadvertently developed a bunch of methods (or personal policies) that help me reduce decision fatigue. I make the decision one time and then it frees my brain and time up for other, more interesting things.

And if I start to feel like I’m in a rut? I just change things up!

19 Tiny Ways I Reduce Decision Fatigue

1. I eat the same thing for breakfast most mornings: In the summer, full fat cottage cheese with cherry tomatoes. In the winter, a sweet carrot / apple high protein souffle situation I “invented.”
   

2. 90% of the books I read either come from my neighborhood's tiny free libraries or they’re set in my upcoming travel destination. I find it sort of exhausting to keep track of book recommendations and then hunt them down or wander around a library or book store with nearly unlimited options.
   
   I like the challenge of opening a tiny free library and finding the best book of the, like, twelve that are in there. This also nudges me to read writers and books I normally wouldn’t!
   

3. Almost all my meal planning and cooking is based on what we already have. The same way that tracking book recommendations can feel overwhelming, saving recipes, buying a bunch of expensive ingredients I’ll only use in one dish - it’s a bit much for me.
   
   So pretty much every meal starts by looking in the fridge and pantry and going off that. When I do make a new recipe, it’s much more likely to be on a Friday or Saturday and it’s sort of an activity or event unto itself!
   

4. When I travel, almost all my souvenirs are consumable items or things I’ll use in my everyday life. I love candles, spices, local food, bath or body products, socks, tea towels, etc. But I’m pretty maxed out on tchotchkes (UNLESS they would add to my Weird Rich Aunt mystique.)

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Last year I attended my first funeral for a friend who died of natural causes.

Standing around afterward, drinking our weak funeral coffee and looking at photos, we shared stories about our friend. We talked about her dress at the last kickball prom and what a devoted dog mom she’d been. Her quick smile, her curly hair that was somehow never frizzy, and how she’d show up to every party she was invited to.

One of her childhood friends said something that I’ve been thinking about ever since. She said, essentially, this:

Most of us spend our 20s accruing things, adding to our lives

We make tons of new friends - in our college dorms, on the softball team, at that summer job waiting tables. We learn new skills, try on different jobs, date lots of people. Our calendars are full. Our brains are full. There’s always something to do, somewhere to go, someone to hang out with.

Sure, it’s a stressful time - we might be broke, we’re not sure if we’ll ever find a career or a partner - but we don’t lack for things to do or people to do them with.

If we’re lucky, things level out during our 30s

If we’re fortunate, somewhere in our 30s we find our people. Maybe we’ve found a partner (or decided we’re happier solo.) Maybe we’ve started a family (or decided we’re more interested in raising pets or plants.) We’ve found a place we want to live longer term - whether that’s a city, a neighborhood, or house we’ve bought. If we’re lucky, we’ve found a career path we like well-enough that pays the bills.

Things are - hopefully - stable. They might even be Goldilocks-like “just right.”

In our 40s, things start to fall away

We start to attend friends’ funerals. Our parents might die. Our aunts and uncles might die. Our friends move to the suburbs with their kids or get a Serious Promotion and are too busy to hang out. Or we’re the ones who move to the suburbs with kids and get too busy to hang out!

We might be too busy for the hobbies we once loved. Or our knees and ACLs don’t love those hobbies anymore. The lawn needs to be mowed, the college applications need to be overseen, those very important doctor’s appointments need to be made.

And it’s easy to look up one day and realize that many of the good things in our lives - the big group of friends, the fulfilling hobbies, the three-generation family gatherings - have fallen away.

“That’s where I am right now,” said the friend-of-a-friend at this funeral.

“So I’m making a very active decision to fill my life back up. I don’t want to die with an empty life.”

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Now, the title of this post would indicate that I have some clever, five-point framework to help you do this. It would indicate that I have this figured out.

I do not!

But ever since I had this conversation I’ve been so much more aware of this phenomenon. I notice the simultaneous overstimulation (so many meetings and house projects and adult responsibilities!) and understimulation (scrolling and meeting people for dinner and having to make plans six weeks out) of mid-life.

So I’m doing my best to fill my life back up, to replace the hobbies I abandoned and the friends who moved away. (Or revitalize those friendships via voice notes and trips.)

I’m attending (almost) everything I’m invited to. I’m going to gatherings full of people I don’t know, who are different from my “usual” friend group. I’m hosting the yearly block party even when only 30% of the block attends.

I’m prioritizing seeing friends and family even when it’s a bit inconvenient or stressful or not-super-exciting.

I’m trying to pick life back up as it falls away.

Have you experienced this? And if you’ve successfully “filled your life back up,” please tell us how you did it in the comments!

P.S. Related: I love you too much to just grab coffee.

You probably don’t need me to quote FDA statistics to know that food prices have increased by almost 25% since 2020. And I’m not sure that’s changing anytime soon?? 🫠🫠

For years now, I’ve been joking-not-jokingly referring to myself as a Depression Era Grandmother. My desire to save veggie scraps for broth and to mend those jeans a third time doesn’t always feel very twenty-first century, but good news / bad news - this is a skill set that will probably serve me very well over the next four years!!!

So in light of already high grocery prices potentially increasing even further - thanks, tariffs! - I thought I’d share everything I’ve learned about reducing both grocery bills and food waste.

But first, my credentials:

• I have been eating a 99% meat-free diet since I was 12. You learn a lot about cooking and grocery shopping when you live in Minnesota and don’t eat meat. (My “hallpass meats” are EXTREMELY crisp bacon, crab legs on Christmas, and chicken strips, like, three times a year.)
  

• I paid off $50,000 in school debt while earning $34,000 a year as an ESL teacher.
  

• Later, I saved $84,000 in 1.5 years for a downpayment on our duplex. I was earning about $100,000 a year at the time.

Now, there are a lot of things I did to spend less and earn more and I’ll be the first to say nobody can budget their way out of true poverty.

All that is true and estimates suggest that 30 - 40% of the American food supply is wasted. An average three-person American household spends $940 a month on groceries. That means they could be tossing up to $4,500 of food every year!

Even if we’re incredibly intentional about food waste, most of us would prefer to spend less on groceries rather than more, right?

Intro level tips for saving money on groceries + reducing food waste

Plan meals based on what you already have

We’ve already bought it, so we might as well use it, right? When you’ve been cooking long enough, you can usually look at what’s in the fridge and pantry and plan a meal. But if you’re not an experienced home cook the SuperCook website is a God-send.

You just type in the ingredients you have and it’ll provide recipes!

Buy as much as you can at Aldi

If you’ve never shopped at Aldi before, it can be … an experience.

The parking lot is small. You need to bring a quarter so you can unlock a grocery cart. You’ll want to bring your own bags, otherwise you’ll be buying them or awkwardly packing your groceries into the previously used, weirdly-sized boxes they provide.

The checkout experience is unlike any other grocery store. Maybe there’s an elderly security guard watching over the whole shebang?

Regardless!! Aldi is cheaper than pretty much any other grocery store - cheaper than Walmart and even cheaper than CostCo (and you don’t have to buy in bulk.) Tofu is $1.29! Ready-to-bake pizza dough is 99 cents! The quality of the food is similar to what you find anywhere else and some of it I actually prefer to “higher end” brands - their full fat cottage cheese is my favorite.

You might not be able to find absolutely every single item you need there, but you should be able to find the basics. And if you don’t want to deal with the carts-for-a-quarter and packing your groceries into cat food boxes, they offer grocery delivery and curbside pick up!

Experiment with non-meat protein sources

I promise I’m not trying to convert all of you to vegetarianism! It’s just that non-meat protein sources are exponentially cheaper.

A pound of ground beef: $6

A pound of dried black beans: $1.76

A pound of tofu: $2.00

A pound of lentils: $1.92

Especially if you’re cooking for a family and / or anyone between the ages of 15 - 25, appetites are huge and the protein budget can pretty quickly get out of control!

Red lentil dal and black beans + rice are crowd-pleasers that are easy to make in bulk and then freeze. No joke, I make this crispy air fryer tofu multiple times a week and the guys in my house eat it as fast as I can make it.

Buy in-season and / or local produce

In the upper Midwest, oranges are cheaper in the winter; apples are cheaper in August and September, and tomatoes are cheaper in July. Obviously, produce that’s grown nearby is usually cheaper than something that needs to be shipped thousands of miles.

Beyond that, January strawberries and tomatoes just … aren’t very good.

Find cheap recipes you genuinely love

Change isn’t sustainable when it feels deprivational or “overly virtuous.” But if you find 10 - 15 recipes that you legitimately enjoy that also just happen to use cheap ingredients, you’ll also reduce your grocery bill in a way that feels pretty painless.

Budget Bytes is a long-time favorite for cheap recipes; she even breaks each recipe down into total cost and cost per serving! Cooking For Peanuts shares affordable vegan recipes.

Some of my favorite cheap, delicious recipes: Chinese egg and tomato, Sauteed garlicky cabbage with rice, Cold tofu with green onions and sweet, spicy sauce, Savory Dutch baby.

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Intermediate tips for saving money on groceries + reducing food waste

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I’ve wanted to be 55 years old since I was 22.

Hand to God, if you asked my college boyfriend or roommate, they could tell you about this dream of mine.

Since my senior year in college, I’ve had an extremely specific fantasy.

In this fantasy, I have an expensive, blunt bob. I’m wearing a matching linen set with chunky bangles and oversized sunglasses. I have two rescue greyhounds with clever matching names (Bonnie and Clyde? Franny and Zooey? Bill and Ted?) I drive a vintage jaguar.

Over the years, this fantasy has evolved into what I call Weird Rich Aunt and for quite a while I thought of it only in terms of aesthetic or lifestyle.

A Weird Rich Aunt has a smoking jacket and a signature, hard-to-find perfume. Her clothing is fascinating and well-made. She eats her meals on The Good China.

But as I get closer to the age where (at least in my mind) I can achieve my final form as Weird Rich Aunt, I started to think about the other, deeper aspects of a WRA.

Where did she buy that smoking jacket?

Does she tailor those fascinating clothes herself?

Does it bother her that people think her favorite perfume smells like “fancy dirt”?

Is she actually, factually wealthy? Or does she just, like, seem wealthy?

And because I do believe that you have to “name it to claim it,” I put myself through the thought exercise of defining what a Weird Rich Aunt truly is. Because I can’t become one if I haven’t identified her qualities, right?

A Weird Rich Aunt May Or May Not Actually Be “Rich”

Now, WRA isn’t actively worried about money. She has enough money to do all the things she wants to do: buy bottles of her obscure signature perfume, stay stocked up on Manchego and forbidden rice, book a last minute flight to Ottawa to ice skate on the Rideau Canal.

But WRA doesn’t necessarily have 4 million dollars in the bank or live in a waterside mansion. She might live in an impeccably decorated studio apartment in an historic building in Miami or a perfectly restored craftsman bungalow in South Minneapolis. She might drive a BMW … that’s 25 years old.

WRA has freedom, though. Freedom to buy things she loves, to take a vacation when her neighbors do a noisy home project, or to hire cleaners before she hosts her famous May Day party.

A Weird Rich Aunt Is Generous - In Whatever Form That Takes

WRA knows generosity comes in many forms. Maybe she writes her local library a check that helps them meet their end-of-year fundraising goal. When you’re in the hospital, she swings by with $150 worth of your favorite sushi. When your daughter is trying to get into that competitive MFA program, she makes a call to the chair of the department. (They dated ages ago and he owes her a favor.)

When you need someone to read the first draft of your novel, she’ll read it and write insightful comments in the margin with her fountain pen. While she won’t help you move, she will come over and drink martinis and keep you company while you go through everything in your closet.

And then she’ll drop everything you don’t want at the thrift store on her way home because she knows those bags will sit in your trunk for eight months.

A Weird Rich Aunt Is Incredibly Intentional About The People, Things, And Ideas She Fills Her Life With

The things in WRA’s life? They didn’t end up there by accident. Or rather, maybe she found that armchair on the side of the road or she met that friend in the bathroom at a Chappel Roan show in early 2023, but she made a very active decision to keep them.

WRA doesn’t just buy things from the sale end cap at Target because they were cheap or stay friends with that person from two jobs ago out of habit. She doesn’t blindly accept that a woman needs to dye her hair when she goes grey or that adults shouldn’t have roommates or she needs to buy new jeans every time the trends change.

Everything in WRA’s home is there on purpose; it has a story, it’s well made and functional. She adores the people that are in her life and her mind is a good, safe space to be, filled with thoughts and ideas that support the life she wants for herself.

A Weird Rich Aunt Is The Hero + Main Character Of Her Own Story

WRA might be partnered up. She might have kids. She might have a traditional 9-to-5 office job.

But WRA does not define herself exclusively through her relationship to any of these things.

When you ask her what she’s been up to, yes, she might mention her kid’s school play or a big project at work. But more often, she’ll tell you about a new hobby she’s obsessed with - glass blowing or making tofu from scratch or training her neighborhood crows to bring her things. She’s training to hike the PTC or planning a trip with her college friends to Chile.

Sure, she loves her family and her job but she is more than any of these. She understands that each of these identities - wife, mom, job title - is finite and the most important relationship is the one she has with herself.

(Not everyone in WRA’s life will appreciate this mindset, but the good news is: She doesn’t care whether they like it or not!!)

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A Weird Rich Aunt Knows Things

Need a lock picked? WRA knows how to do that. She can drive a manual, haggle prices in a second language, make a cheese souffle, and tile a backsplash. When you come to her for advice, she’ll give you a no-bullshit answer that all your friends were too polite to give you.

She reads great books you’ve never heard of and she watched all the movies up for best foreign film. She knows how to do most things and if she doesn’t, she’s happy to watch a few Youtube videos and figure it out.

A Weird Rich Aunt Is The Cutest Version Of Herself Without Totally Bowing To Societal Beauty Norms

Though she was tempted, WRA never changed the nose she shares with 5 generations of her family. She’s decided that 7,000 steps a day and the occasional yoga class are “good enough” she’ll just let her body do what it wants to do. WRA has made peace with that stripe of grey in her hair and is even slooooowly starting to embrace it.

She does, of course, love her lotions and potions and sitting at her Hollywood-style vanity in a silk robe she bought on her way through Hong Kong. But she wants to look like the best version of herself, not an AI generated image of Western beauty standards.

A Weird Rich Aunt Is Deeply, Deeply Herself

WRA knows who she is and who she’s not. And while she’s happy to work on herself and rein in traits that offend or hurt others, she’s also very much who she is.

If you invite her to do something she doesn’t like, she’ll politely turn you down but invite you to do something else. If you make a joke she finds offensive or distasteful, she’ll tell you so. If you make a reference she doesn’t get, she’ll tell you she doesn’t get it. She doesn’t dampen her loud laugh or her love of puns. If you tell her she’s too much, she’ll tell you to go find less.

Now, to be clear, I’m not a Weird Rich Aunt … yet. Not age-wise, money-wise, or character-wise.

But as I get closer to the age when women become societally invisible, it feels empowering and exciting to lean into this potential version of myself - weird and rich and full of life.

My personal list of Weird Rich Aunts

• Mrs. Basil E. from Dash & Lily

• Jane Fonda

• Lily Tomlin

• Carla Rockmore

• Katherine Hepburn

• Cher

• Iris Apfel

• Jenna Lyons

While I don’t know if they’re weird enough to be Weird Rich Aunts, I would argue that Martha Stewart and Ina Garten are WRA-adjecent.

What about you? Do you have a vision for your life in your 50s? What other character traits would you assign to a Weird Rich Aunt? And who are your favorite WRAs?

Everything feels painfully expensive these days, doesn’t it?

I went to buy a pack of 2” x 4” mailing labels last week and they were $21?! Guess I’ll be handwriting addresses on printer paper and attaching them with that old roll of packing tape I found in the basement?!

It’s very easy to get stuck in a loop of doomscrolling and calling our reps. And while the latter is important, I’m also reminding both myself and you that

a) this is a marathon not a sprint
b) we can enjoy ourselves and refill our proverbial cups without spending a ton of money

1. Take a nap

But, like, a really good one. Turn on some white noise, change your pillow case (it gives you that ‘new sheet’ feeling with less work), take off your bra and spray a bit of lavender or eucalyptus essential oil onto your pillow.

Sidenote: rest can be a revolutionary act - credit to Audre Lorde!

2. Give yourself a mani or pedi

Add a few drops of essential oil and body wash to a pretty bowl of warm water and soak your extremities while you watch an episode of Only Murders In The Building. If you don’t have a manicure or pedicure set, push your cuticles back with a wet washcloth. If you’re feeling fancy, exfoliate with a brown sugar body scrub and slick on a few coats of a color you love.

3. Re-read a favorite book or rewatch a favorite movie

Resist the urge to treat yourself to a new book purchase! Trawl your local library the way you’d trawl a used bookstore or just re-read one of your favorite ‘comfort reading’ books. If you still have a dvd player, see what DVDs your library has - so vintage!

4. Make a complicated, decadent recipe with ingredients you already have on hand

This homemade pasta doesn’t require a pasta machine and I bet you already have the ingredients for this chocolate souffle, these meringue cookies, or these homemade crackers.

5. Take a hot bath

Add powdered milk. Or real milk. Or flower petals. Or Epsom salts or bubble bath. Turn on your favorite mellow music, light a few candles, and stay in the tub so long you wrinkle and raisin.

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Nine years ago, the summer before Kenny and I got married, I took a six-week, 9,000 mile road trip as a “honeymoon of myself.”

Kenny had just started a new job and didn’t have much time off accrued and I was going from a two-bedroom apartment of my own to a three-bedroom house to be shared with two tween boys, a husband, and a dog.

Taking some time on my own, to do something I loved, before embarking on this enormous life change seemed like a … good idea. (Understatement.)

On this road trip - Minneapolis to Portland to L.A. to D.C. to Ottawa and back - I stopped to see friends. I picked up a few buddies who joined me for a leg of the journey. All along my route, I ask people who were married or in long-term relationships for their best advice.

And here is the best piece of advice I received and, yes, it applies to pretty much everything:

Rather than arguing about using coasters on the wood coffee table, get a glass coffee table.

🤯🤯🤯 I interpreted this to mean two things:

1. Rather than trying to force someone else to change their behavior or habits, change the environment. And by “someone” I also mean “you” and “me.”
   

2. Wherever possible, remove opportunities for friction and disagreement.

   Yes & Yes is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

   “Glass coffee table” solutions at home:
   

• Get a robot vacuum and schedule it to run at the same time every day. (Used Roombas are all over FB Marketplace for $40)
  

• Sign your kids up for hot lunch at school - you do not have to make their lunches every day!!!
  

• Sign up for a meal delivery service or just buy a bunch of Trader Joe / Aldi frozen entrees.
  

• Get an automatic feeder for your pets (These are also all over FB Marketplace for $25)
  

• Buy a sofa that has removable, machine washable cushion covers and use throw pillows with machine washable pillow shams. You will spend so much less time yelling at your kids / pet / partner about putting their feet on the sofa, eating on the sofa, etc. We have the Ikea Finnala sofa and I wash the cushion covers every three months!
  
  Or just get a machine washable slip cover for your sofa!
  

• If there’s a specific type of food or alcohol that someone in your household shouldn’t have - for whatever reason - just don’t buy that type of food. Don’t expect them to exert self-control and then get mad when they don’t.
  
  (This also includes getting mad at yourself.)

“Glass coffee table” solutions at work:

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When you’re 23, it is totally normal to eat Top Ramen and ride your bike everywhere and exclusively drink 2 Buck Chuck. You’re young and scrappy and living on a shoe-string budget! Everybody you know is in the same boat

But once you’re over 35 or earning “real” money, it can feel like the only socially-endorsed ways to save money are, like, using credit card points to fly to Europe or getting a meal kit subscription for $250 a month rather than eating out three times a week.

It can feel gauche to bring lunch to your fancy office or go camping for your vacation.

Sometimes it feels like once you’ve “made it” - you own a home, you have a stable job, you’ve FINALLY paid off your school loans - it’s sort of … strange to keep shopping at the thrift store or splitting the entree with your partner.

If you don’t “have to” be super mindful with your money, isn’t it sort of tacky to think about it so much?

I don’t think so. No matter your age or income it’s okay if you’d like to save more of the money you earn. In fact, I would argue that it is a good idea!

And in case you need permission to do a few “weird” things to save money - this is it!

I truly buy almost everything secondhand (and sometimes I get things for free)

No joke, we buy so few things brand new I could point them out - we bought our sofa and our kitchen island new. That’s it. And that’s because we needed to buy something flatpack in order to get them up the stairs!

Almost every other thing in our house is second hand. A lot of it I got from the free section of Nextdoor or Craigslist! Our living room rug, the rug in my office, several of the picture frames in our gallery wall - zero dollars.

And I’m not talking about cool, curated consignment shops! A lot of our stuff came from Goodwill, yard sales, or - and I’m not kidding - dug out of a dumpster and then meticulously steam cleaned.

We only have one car and it’s 14 years old

Do I get a little jealous when a friend picks me up in their 2024 European SUV with heated leather seats? Yes.

Am I jealous enough to take on a bunch of debt to have a vehicle like that? I am not!

Our 2012 Prius is not particularly cool. It has fabric seats and no backup camera. But it gets incredible mileage, we bought it with cash, and it’s in mint condition. (Hint: if you live somewhere it snows, try to buy a used car from somewhere warm! They’re often totally rust-free and look brand new!)

Of course, it’s relatively easy for us to be a one-car family - Kenny bike commutes to work and I can walk to my co-working space or work from home. But if it’s possible for you or your family to get down to one car, it’s something worth considering. According to AAA, the true yearly cost of owning a car is $12,000!

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If you’re a human with a pulse and / or a conscience, I imagine the last three weeks have been … a lot for you. They certainly have been for me!

I’ve been fluctuating between:

a) “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for! This is our opportunity to be heroes!”

b) Buying water filters and books about foraging

c) Navigating the path to Austrian citizenship that’s available to us through my husband’s family. (FYI, if you’re a direct descendant of a Holocaust survivor, this is available to you, too!)

When I asked all of you on Instagram how you were planning on navigating the next four years you had SO 👏 MANY 👏 GOOD 👏 IDEAS. (I turned them into this post.)

Which got me to thinking - Carrie Bradshaw like - about all the other important topics we could crowdsource from this community.

So I’d like to introduce you to what will hopefully become a monthly feature here on the Yes & Yes Substack: Groupchat.

Every month, I’ll choose a topic, share any tips, tools, resources, or reframes I have and then open the floor to y’all to share your best stuff in the comments!

🗓️ Literally schedule happy-making things into your day / week / month

Like the Type-A tryhard I am, I have a recurring event set for every Sunday to schedule fun things into my week. I color code all the tasks on my calendar - purple for self-directed tasks, yellow for things that involve other people, green for fun.

I can see at a glance if I have too much “other people” stuff in a given day, or if I don’t have any fun planned. I aim for at least three fun things every week!

😃 Revisit the stuff you loved in third grade

I hear from sooooo many readers that they don’t actually know what makes them happy! A good place to start is revisiting what you liked before you were concerned about

• monetizing your hobbies

• how they’d look on a resume

• if they were a good networking opportunity

• if you were good enough to do them professionally

Whatever it is you used to like, there’s probably an adult version of it. Join your community choir! Play on your company’s softball team! Find a D & D group!

I’ve started attending live theater productions every few months and - after years of avoiding them - I’ve started going to concerts again. (Turns out concerts are a lot more fun when you use your Grown Up Money to pay for valet parking and actual seats with a good view!!)

I’ve also attended two “pop up choir” events - delightful!! - and I’m looking for a good dance class to take.

📱 Ruthlessly curate the content you consume

I imagine you know this already, but you can teach your social media algorithm to show you more of what makes you happy and less of what doesn’t; here’s how.

Here’s a short list of content I’ve removed from my life because I realized it tanks my happiness*:

• Shows where people yell at each other all the time
  

• Content where the women have a ton of plastic surgery (I’d like to feel good or neutral about my 45-year-old face!!)
  

• Content where the women complain / make disparaging jokes about their bodies or age
  

• Content where SA is used as a plot point (You would be AMAZED how many books, movies, and tv shows do this without mentioning it in the synopsis!!)
  

• “Haul” content where people showcase what they bought from Amazon, Target, Shein, etc
  

• 90% of home renovation content where someone spends $100,000 renovating a perfectly functional kitchen / bathrooom / etc.

What do I fill my eyeballs and brain with?

• Anything about gardening - particularly Zone 5 and native plant gardening content
  

• Every piece of funny animal content ever
  

• Vegetarian and vegan recipes
  

• Pretty much everything here on Substack - it feels like 2012 Google Reader in the best possible way!
  

• Home content where people improve a space without major renovations or find most of the stuff secondhand
  

• Any show by Mike Schur - Man On The Inside, Parks And Rec, The Good Place, etc.

* If this content doesn’t bother you - great! You are allowed to watch The Real Housewives! I am not policing your content consumption. It simply is not for me.

Now, over to you! In the comments, please share any tips, tools, resources, or reframes that help you feel happier on a day-to-day basis.

Sometimes when people compliment me on how organized / driven / prompt / intentional I am, I say “I’m an INTJ Virgo eldest child of Germanic and Scandinavian heritage. It’s the software that came installed.”

Which is to say: This is the brain I was born with AND I only want to do things I’m immediately good at. I want most things I do to be - if not perfect - then very, very good.

This is, of course, a recipe for:

• procrastination

• disappointment

• a small life where you only do a few variations of the same thing, over and over

Not awesome, right? Though I don’t have a 100% success rate, I’ve been able to rein in my perfectionist tendencies pretty significantly with these three mantras.

“I’m not good at this and I’m doing it anyway.”

Here’s the thing: 90% of the time it doesn’t really matter if you’re actually “good” at something.

Your cardiovascular health doesn’t care if you’re the best dancer in the Zumba class, as long as you’re moving.

The friend who’s hosting the barbecue doesn’t care if your brownies are Ina Garten-calibar. She cares that you a) showed up b) brought something to share.

Your paint job in the spare bathroom? You don’t have to fool people into thinking you hired a professional.

There are times in your life where it truly matters if you’re actively bad at something, but most of the time? To quote the youths: It’s just not that serious.

You know that Pinterest-y quote “Do it scared”?

Do it mediocre.

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On October 29th, 2021 I posted - rather dramatically - that I was “quitting the internet.”

After 14 years of content creation I was buuuuuuuurrrrrnt out.

It took me 3+ years to recover from that burn out and during that time I’ve talked to soooo many people who went through something similar - with their careers, with a hobby they’d gone all in on, or even with the pace of their social life. (I talked about it on this podcast episode!)

At the peak of my burn out I spent an inordinate amount of time googling “Burn out cure” and “I hate everything now what” and “How to quit everything.”

Most of the answers I found were some variation of

• Try meditation

• Journal about your frustrations

• Get a therapist

And, like, yes sure. But also: I suspected that meditation wasn’t going to “cure” 14 years of overwork.

Now that I’m on the other side of burn out I can see what actually helped (Spoiler alert: it wasn’t meditation.) If you’re burnt out - or just lightly exhausted or unusually grumpy! - this might help.

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Why I burnt out

2020 ate me for breakfast

Did you know that when you look at a tree’s rings, you can track not only the tree’s age but the years the tree experienced something traumatizing? If you sawed open my femur, I think you’d be able to see the scars of 2020.

There were some big custody changes with my stepsons and all the legal entanglements that go with something like that.

There was that whole worldwide pandemic thing.

We lived in South Minneapolis when George Floyd was murdered - there were two nights in a row when my husband and eldest stepson sat up all night on the porch with baseball bats. Our post office burnt down. Our gas station burnt down. Our pharmacy burnt down.

We bought a 123-year-old duplex. 8 days before we closed on said duplex we learned that the seller had used the basement to shoot up and would leave his needles around. And also? He had hepatitis.

We bought it anyway and moved in. While we waited for my mother-in-law to sell her condo and move into the lower unit, we figured out how to be landlords. We rented the lower unit as a furnished month-to-month rental and over the course of the next year we rented to four different sets of tenants.

It was a lot.

I was exhausted by the “perfection trolling”

Is this a real term? I don’t know, I made it up! If you’ve ever posted something on social media, I imagine you’ve encountered this.

It looks like …

Posting about a $5 mascara that isn’t tested on animals and getting DMs about how that mascara has bee’s wax in it so it’s not actually animal-friendly.

Sharing that the Capital One Venture Card reimburses you for TSA Precheck and getting chastised for encouraging people to fly.

Mentioning that you try to buy things second hand and being taken to task because not everyone has time to shop second hand and some of us really need to be able to order things from Amazon, okay?!

All of this added up to, honestly, being afraid to post.

My business model decimated my mental health

I know I’m not the first person to say this but self-employment and entrepreneurship isn’t for everyone (because it’s incredibly difficult mentally, emotionally, logistically, and financially.)

By 2021, I’d be supporting myself exclusively through online means for 11 years. As the internet changed, the way I made money changed - I sold ad space on my blog, I sold $15 ebooks, I did sponsored posts, I consulted and coached, I sold online courses.

But every year the algorithms changed and old platforms disappeared while new ones popped up - along with new learning curves and different algorithms.

I put most of my eggs in the “online course basket” and pulled everything I knew from 7+ years of classroom teaching and a M.A. in Applied Linguistics into creating truly helpful courses about things like money, habits, and goal setting. I ran my courses live and priced them at $95 - $125 for 6 weeks of live teaching and support.

And here’s the thing about launching any product: You can create a product you’re proud of and do your absolute best to promote it … and that doesn’t it mean it will sell well.

Not having stable, reliable income? That shit is stressful. It keeps you awake at night and eats into your confidence. It prevents you from planning for the future because who knows if you’ll be able to afford that vacation or even that haircut?

The unpredictabilty of my income was the nail in the coffin during an already challenging time. I was done.

What helped “cure” my burn out

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Friends, I’m writing you from beneath a pile of cheese, YA novels, pet cuddles, and trip-planning-as-an-escapist-coping-mechanism.

If you live in the U.S., you’re probably living beneath your own pile of self-soothing practices. If you don’t live in the U.S. you’re probably counting your blessings.

I think we all knew that things were going to be not-great, but I’m not sure any of us expected, well, this.

Last week, I asked the smartest, kindest people I know (all of you) to share your plans for getting through the next four years, via Instagram Story question box.

Unsurprisingly, your answers were helpful, insightful, and immediately soothing. So good that I thought they deserved to be shared beyond a Instagram carousel.

8 Ways Make The Next 4 Years Vaguely Tolerable

1. Control the controllables

So many of y’all are committed to being mindful of the media you consume, the conversations you have (and who you have them with), and how you’ll be spending your time, money, and energy over the next four years. It’s a marathon not a sprint, right?

Perhaps now is the time to stop arguing with Weird Uncle Dave and his conspiracy theories. Maybe this is when we finally stop shopping at the big box store that a) is chronically understaffed b) locks up the $5 lipstick. This could be an opportunity to set screentime limits and get a subscription to a real, physical, local newspaper. So vintage!

2. Double down on city and state politics

I bet you were already planning on doing this, you kind, thoughtful person, you! Our school board members, city councils, and state elected officials have a huge impact on our day-to-day lives. (Please consider this popular and painfully accurate t-shirt about how my very own city navigates snow removal!!)

My favorite ways to do this:

• Follow my elected officials on social media

• Subscribe to my ultra-local neighborhood newspaper

• Get involved in my community council (I volunteer to run their social media and I’ve already learned so much and met so many people!)

• Follow local non-profits and organizations that address causes I care about and subscribe to their newsletters. They’ll tell you exactly how to help!

  ---

3. Doing hands-on volunteer work, not “just” donating and making phone calls

Setting up monthly autopayments to organizations is great - it’s literally better for them than one-off donations! Annnnnd - I don’t know about you - but I set up a bunch of recurring donations in 2016 and I couldn’t tell you the names of those organizations to save my life. I know I’m giving $10 a month to lots of different orgs … and that’s about it.

My favorite hands-on project is picking up litter because you can’t screw it up, nobody will argue with you about if it’s “good,” I can do it anytime I want, and there’s a tangible before / after difference. (Vaguely related: this David Sedaris essay about picking up garbage while wearing a fitbit is one of my favorite pieces of writing ever.)

Other more “hands-on” volunteer ideas:

• Planning Parenthood clinic escort

• Build a house with Habitat For Humanity

• ESL tutoring

• Big Brothers / Big Sisters

I’m sure y’all have tons of great ideas - I’d love to hear them in the comments!

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4. Volunteer with + donate to communities most impacted by new policies

This was such a great suggestion! With the onslaught of executive orders, life currently feels like a game of Worst Case Scenario Whack-a-mole. I think a sustainable way to navigate this is to ask yourself:

• What vulnerable group is being impacted by this policy?

• Is there a local organization that already works with these folks?

• How can I get involved with an existing organization in a way that’s sustainable for the long-term?

And because my fellow over-achievers might need to hear this (I do): It’s okay if you “just” choose one cause and one local organization you really care about and devote yourself to that. We won’t think you care less about climate change because you’re volunteering once a week with trans kids who are unhoused.

5. Cancel your Amazon subscription + spend more at local businesses

But you knew that already, right? There are a million reasons why it can be hard to cancel Amazon - you live somewhere remote, you have an incredibly busy life and don’t have time to shop at four different local stores, you can’t find what you need in traditional stores.

I get it! It can also be a both / and situation. You can keep the subscription for automated monthly deliveries of dog food, paper towels, and tampons, but shop locally for clothes, books, and home goods.

6. Practice great self-care

Because it bears repeating (for myself as much as anyone), it’s a marathon not a sprint and you can’t pour from an empty cup. So make time for whatever self-care looks like for you - yoga, therapy, rom-com novels, knitting, going to one of those places where you pay to smash plates.

7. Lower your “personal overhead”

True story: In August, I booked myself a month’s worth of Airbnbs in my favorite city in Mexico for January 2025. I had grand visions of 70 degree days, improving my Spanish, and eating my weight in that roasted pumpkin seed dip.

In late November, I thought “It reallllly feels like there’s a financial crisis looming. Perhaps now is not the time to spend $3,500 on a totally optional vacation.”

So, instead, I used Trusted Housesitters to find a 2.5 week dog sitting gig in Santa Fe. 17 days of free lodging in exchange for cuddling a very handsome Bernese Mountain Dog in a beautiful home with incredible views.

It would be wonderful if all of the new policies magically reversed inflation and decades of salary stagnation. It does not seem like that is going to happen.

Spending less + saving more is never, ever a bad idea. In fact, it feels like a good idea when our economic future feels so unstable.

A few of my favorite ways to “reduce personal overhead”

• Review and cancel subscriptions

• Delete the Doordash, Amazon, and Ubereats apps from your phone

• Spend any unused gift cards you have (in 2024 the average value of unused gift cards in the United States was $244 per person!)

• Use your library

• Join your local Buy Nothing Group, or check out the “free” sections of Facebook Marketplace, Nextdoor, and good ol’ Craigslist

• If you’re not shopping for groceries at Aldi, start!

• Whenever you need / want something, try to find it secondhand before you buy new

8. Make space for fun, joy, and connection no matter who is in office

Right? Right.

Like the extremely Type-A person I am, I actually have a recurring event in my Google calendar for Sunday nights to “schedule fun” into the coming week. I color code all my plans so I can see - at a glance - if I have enough fun tucked in there between the client meetings and dentist appointments.

Thank you to everyone who shared their ideas with me on Instagram. I’d love to hear from you in the comments! How are you doing? What are your plans for the next 4 years? What soothing tv show / book / podcast are you using for distraction?

P.S. I still earn 95% of my income doing writing and marketing work for private clients. How lovely not to force my creativity to pay my bills!

I have one spot open for a new retainer client some February; if you need help with marketing strategy, newsletters, blog posts, or social media, you can learn more about my work here. Or you can grab a spot on my calendar for a quick, no-pressure chat to see if we’d be a good fit!