As a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step (Chinese Proverb), your journey to financial wellness starts with a single coin.

I started this blog because I found that a lot of the financial advice out there didn’t resonate with me. A lot of the articles I read were written for an audience in their 30s to 50s, and most of the advice was really similar. How to get out of debt and saving for retirement are among the most popular topics that I see.

What about providing college students with advice on how to stay out of debt in the first place, rather than assuming you’re already saddled with student loans? What about sharing creative ideas for frugal living so that, even in this cost-of-living crisis, we can all avoid credit card debt and car loans? What about the people in their 60s who have nothing saved for retirement?

As the cost of living rises, the number of people looking for side-hustles and passive income streams is growing. But a lot of the advice out there in the wild west of the internet either:

     1) Seems scammy (enter, the multi-level marketing gig or the drop-shipping scheme — the list could go on)

     2) Claims that you need to buy their course or ebook or other digital product in order to be successful at X

Or,

     3) It is just plain overwhelming because there is so much conflicting information out there. 

I don’t know about you, but when my brain hits the overwhelm threshold, I just shut down. Motivation goes out the window, and I end up not making any real progress toward my professional and financial goals. Then, I feel discouraged, and it’s a whole negative cycle. I think many can relate.

My goal with Jar of Coins is to help you (and myself!) avoid that feeling of overwhelm when it comes to financial well-being. I hope that this will be your place to find simple, actionable tips and tools that can help you reach YOUR financial goals, without getting bombarded by too much information. 

I aim for 100% transparency, and will never claim that you need to buy a certain product in order to be successful at something nor will I ever tout a get-rich-quick scheme as something worth spending time on.

This isn’t the site that you should come to for complex investing advice or what stocks to buy. Instead, you’ll find ways a regular ol’ person like you and me can save money, earn more based on the skill-sets we already have (you don’t necessarily need to go back to school to level up your income!), and ways to live frugally and widen the gap between what we spend and what we earn.

Because in the end, having that gap (aka, living below our means), is what will give us the financial freedom of choice: how we choose to spend our time, the work that we choose to take on, and what our priorities in this life truly are.

Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor! Take my advice as you would take a friend’s. I like to envision that we’re having a casual chat over a cup of coffee.

I earned a bachelor’s degree in Entrepreneurship Management from Boise State University. I grew up in a snowy mountain town with only one stoplight! Now, I live in a suburb of one of the fastest-growing cities in the U.S. with my husband, Cameron and my golden retriever, Lewis.

I worked a variety of jobs and side hustles throughout my teens and twenties, including working as an ice-cream scooper (my right bicep got a big bigger than my left that summer), a maid, a hostess, a receptionist, a lawn-mower, an antiques dealer, a salesperson, a wedding photographer, and a teaching assistant (to name a few!) I’ve tried a lot of things. My current in-person side-hustle is private tutoring. 

One of my proudest financial accomplishments is graduating college debt-free, having gotten no financial assistance from parents. I hope I can help other young adults out there do the same thing!

Now, my husband and I are home-owners at 28 years old, with zero debt aside from our mortgage. We’re not perfect by any means, and we’ve had a lot of help along the way, but I hope that sharing what we’ve learned could help others out there who are trying to navigate their finances. I don’t claim to know it all (actually, I’m leery to take advice from anyone who does claim to). Rather, I’m on a journey of learning more about budgeting, creating streams of income, and growing the money that we save. My goal with this website is to keep learning and sharing together as a community.

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