Debt Reduction 101

SavingAdvice.com has a new blogger that’s been writing for them lately – her name is Sadie Morris and her “niche” in blogging is writing about a debt-free life. Check out her blog here.

I’ll be honest – reading her blog is like watching a feel-good movie. I do aspire someday to live like this person. And it’s nice to see someone like that out there when so many other things that I read these days are about people who don’t have jobs or are struggling to make ends meet in this economy.

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On another note – and I wasn’t originally going to say anything because I’m not searching for pity or anything – but my grandma died yesterday. And while this is not a surprise (she’s been battling Alzheimer’s for the past five years or so, she had a stroke on Friday that left her unable to eat and an end-of-life directive specifying no feeding tubes or other means of artificially prolonging her life), I’m having a bit of a hard time functioning this week. (Then again, it’s Tuesday – I just found out yesterday and I’m notoriously diligent about processing every detail until it make sense in my jumbled mess of a head.) And I’m having a hard time blogging because thoughts of my grandma are prevalent in my head right now.

So here’s a remembrance of my grandma – frugal-style since this is a debt blog … a) My grandparents didn’t have debt that I remember. Or at least they didn’t have debt in my lifetime and they lived well, which is an example to me. And b) I was talking to my cousin (and future maid of honor) yesterday and she asked me if I would go shopping with her tonight. “Don’t you need a dress for grandma’s funeral?” she asked. And that made me remember a conversation I had about 10 years ago with my grandma: Right after college, I was going to a college friends’ wedding (and of course, this was like the fifth wedding I had been too for college buddies) and I mentioned to my grandma that I needed to find a new outfit for this shindig.

“Well, what’s wrong with the dresses you’ve already bought? If this wedding is for a different set of friends, they’re not going to know if you’re wearing a new dress or not.”

I won’t say that I haven’t bought a new dress since then, but what she said changed my shopping point-of-view. So I’ll be wearing a dress that my mom gave me to grandma’s funeral. Somehow I think that she’d approve.