It’s been quite a while since I’ve written a blog post. I’m sure people have been wondering if I decided to hole up in a couch cushion fort, deciding against “adulting” for the rest of my life. The truth is, with the holidays approaching and the end of the year coming to a close, I knew life was going to get crazy and there were a lot of things I wanted to focus on before we said goodbye to 2016.
We had made a lot of financial progress in 2016, working towards becoming debt free, putting money back for those unexpected emergencies, family trips, and retirement. But financial planning is always a work in progress, you’re never just done with it. So my husband and I really wanted to sit down and take a look at our goals for 2017. While we were doing this, the annual “holiday slam” as I so lovingly like to call it was upon us. Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s. A glowing, glittering, magical, carbohydrated, sugar-coated marathon that you never train for throughout the year, but you run it, and when January 1st arrives you’re dragging yourself across the finish line asking, “did I make it??.
It’s a marathon I’m glad to run every year. It’s that time of the year that is truly magical for my kids and makes me remember just how magical it was for me. As I get older, I’m learning how to better prepare for these holidays. I’ve mentioned before that setting up Share accounts, Club Accounts and applying for Holiday Loans at Afena are great ways to put money back all year or be able to access it quickly when the holidays roll around. We’ve been working too hard to pay off credit cards and get out of debt to slip and fall right back in.
It’s a new year that I’m sure will be full of adventure, mishaps, enlightenment and fun. I hope you’ll rejoin me in my adventures of being a working mom with a husband, three kids and a dog. Speaking of which….2 of the kids and the dog are being too quiet for comfort right now. I better investigate. I’m Claire, the Afena Blog Mom. Thanks for reading.