CassandraDISCLOSURE: THIS POST MAY CONTAIN AFFILIATE LINKS. I MAY RECEIVE A COMMISSION FOR ANY CLICKING AND PURCHASE MADE THROUGH ANY LINK WITHIN THIS PAGE. PLEASE READ MY DISCLOSURE FOR MORE INFO
I was never the litte girl who dreamed about having a wedding and family one day. And while certaintly, I knew I wanted a family one day. My biggest aspirations were moving away to the city on the beach, traveling the world and building multiple businesses.
Let’s just say my life circumstances and the decisions and choices I made led me down an opposite path to those dreams. Overtime, no matter how far I got down different pathways; the dream of building a business still remained and would burn deep within. The desire was never being fully forgotten. Was this my calling?
I have written down countless business ideas over the years and yet the one that spoke the loudes took some form of coaching, teaching, or guidance. It wasn’t long after that I was introduced to the world of blogging as business. You are telling me that I can potentially earn an income and build a business while sharing my story. I can help others by guiding and teaching them about my life lessons? It felt like a no brainer.
At this time, I had completed a life assestment and realized how much debt we had. Despite how much I had learned about money management through the years, I still had some work to do. The overarching need to overcome debt and build financial resilience was prominent if I wanted to change the trajectory of my life.
And so it begins…
So, back in March 2018, I published my first blog post to this website. The same website that you are most likely reading from now. Except now, it has a new name and new vision.
Cultivating The Money Tree was my first big and scary passion project that I felt called to create. A project that would require me to be vulnerable as f*ck with strangers on the internet.
Oddly, it wasn’t as scary as imagining my friends and family finding out about my little passion project and what they would think when I bared all.
The shame, guilt and fear of letting them down felt crippling. I didn’t want their vision of who I was to be shattered. I wanted to keep them impressed (says the ego), and ultimately not disappoint them. So as time went on I would be brave and talk about the articles I was writing. I was preparing for input or questions but many seemed indifferent and never really asked to see my work. Was I off the hook for fear of judgement? 🙂
Interestingly enough it gave me relief and the courage to begin sharing my blog post more to different audiences. Through these efforts I found a community of individuals and families also fighting for the same dream. A dream to overcome debt and build financial resilience for their family.
What seemed so uncomfortable and taboo to talk to with friends and family, became a way to connection and relate with complete strangers from all over the world.
This kept me inspired and motivated to keep going and pursue this mission of becoming debt free and overcoming a life of poverty and paycheck to paycheck living.
Lessons learned along the way.
For two years, I consistently worked on writing blog posts and growing my website. During this time I was also expanding my family, working full-time and becoming a postgraduate student. Life got busy and as time went on, and while we were continuing to crush our goals the momentum slowed down as it got harder to balance it all. Unfortunately, writing blog posts would end up taking a back seat position when family and work life became high demand.
Regardless, I continued to maintain our financial progress reports and stayed focused on our long term financial goals. At this point in our lives, it was to pay off debt, increase income and build savings so that we could buy a new home.
And Guess What?
That is exactly what we were able to accomplish by the end of 2020!
Within 24 months, we were able to pay off over $20,000 in debt between our credit cards and auto loans. We grew our savings by $15,000. Not to mention we started this journey making less than $50,000 a year.
Overtime we were awarded promotions or changed careers that allowed us to begin earning $72,000 a year. This helped tremendously with our goals and I couldn’t have predicted those changes even if I tried. Lastly, I got very intentional about finding ways to bring in extra income. Over the course of this time, I was able to successfully bring in an additional $13,000 with some just being luck.
This whole process truly opened my eyes to what can happen when you get laser focused, hold yourself accountable and stay consistent over a longer period of time.
This whole process truly opened my eyes to what can happen when you get laser focused, hold yourself accountable and stay consistent over a longer period of time. It was a catalyst in changing our family finances for years to come. It gave us the tools necessary to overcome debt and build financial resilience.
I am very grateful to the past version of myself and for taking the leap to build this website. It served its purpose for us and helped us achieve our goal of buying our first house.
are we still able to overcome debt and build financial resilience?
Times have changed for us tremendously since buying our first home and through these changes and expansions, my dreams and goals have to.
We are now a family of six, with a mortgage and chickens roaming our yard. I am now dreaming of ways to enrich our lives more deeply. How to incorporate more travel as well as fund our children’s future and our retirement. All the while we are still working on paying off debt, building our savings and growing our income.
Even after everything that I have learned and accomplished over the years, I have found that my mindset around money still had some roots and beliefs to examine. Old habits die hard but my capacity to redirect has grown so much.
I am proud of what I have accomplished so far and I am excited for this new chapter to begin.
I am not good with Goodbyes.
Before moving on, I want to honor the website this once was and the younger former version of myself.
(You will still be able to find all the original articles and posts that were birthed through this journey but the branding will no longer be the same.)
- Thank you for the countless hours that you spent coming up with a name for your idea.
- Thank you for using your artistic abilities and bringing to life the logo you envisioned for months.
- Thank you for being vulnerable and sharing your personal finance journey as you work towards breaking the family cycle of poverty.
- Thank you for your love of research and writing. This awarded you many hours of intentionally in writing articles that would answer questions and an outlet to share your personal perspective.
- Thank you for never giving up on yourself even when the projects took longer than anticipated or when the unexpected happened.
And most importantly, Thank you for not being afraid to start over again and again.
It has been an honor to be able to create cutlivatingthemoneytree.com. It is a gift to witness the way it transformed the earlier versions of myself and prepared me for this next part of my journey.
Are you ready for it?
XOXO
