Oh the places we will go
Posted by Jess | Filed under Jess
It was August when I applied to be on Other Voices. I had been battling with it for a week or two, and finally late one night just typed something up and hit send before I could edit myself out of it. Gail had responded by the time I got up the next morning (thank you time difference) so then I had between August and October to send off my second round of blogs and in that time hubby and I were very diligent with our jars. We saved our pennies and took ourselves on a 1year anniversary trip to Tofino. It was there that I got the official word from Gail that I would be writing in January. It was also on that trip that we experienced our first hiccup with budgeting—we over spent our trip money. And you know how the story goes from there with the shortage in student loans, the Quebec incident and so on and so forth. My how far we’ve come.
May has been an interesting month. We have stepped away from jar living, well, because we got tired. We haven’t been digging the debt hole deeper or anything, we just haven’t been counting our pennies at the grocery store. It has been nice to let that slide while we gear up for graduation in less than a year. So much planning is going into our carefully selected last few classes (Hubby registered for the LAST semester of his undergrad degree on Monday), that something had to give. So then you were introduced to the bandwagon, that one we fell off.
It is interesting being on this side of things however. We are not living by our own example, but we still have all the lessons and knowledge that came with this journey. Of course we will be going back to debt free forever in due time, but for now it seems we just have to keep it on the back burner while we reach for that end goal.
This will be my last blog here on Other Voices, but certainly not the end of my writing career. This process has reminded me why I write, not for myself, but for my audience and as a result has had a big part in inspiring me to move on to my masters degree in writing.
Where to now? Future planning is such a big thing when, for the last few years, we have only been looking to the end of our degrees. There’s a big fat world out there and we will be spilled into it before long. While we can plan ourselves stupid about grad school, there is still the better part of a year to wait before actually hitting the books again (maybe longer for me depending on application deadlines). That is a long time to kill with a big mound of debt staring us down. The next two years of our life are going to go by incredibly fast (faster than the undergrad did) and we are prepared to throw ourselves into it whole heartedly.
Thank you, my financially forward friends, for doing your part in inspiring me to reach higher than I thought I could. It’s been great bouncing advice off of each other, and I hope that you found help or support through my stories, as much as I did yours. Good luck to all of you, and to all the Other Voices, and to whoever makes Wednesday their day to share. It’s been a slice.
A twenty-something FT university student and wife from the wonderful west coast, Jess’s husband is also in school FT. They are both PT coffee slingers. Not surprising, they are in debt. As Jess says, “We love to say yes to each other.”
May 30, 2012 at 9:33 am
So sad to see you go! I love reading your posts!
May 30, 2012 at 4:04 pm
Thanks Tara! It’s been a wonderful experience.
May 30, 2012 at 9:53 am
I’m going to miss your weekly posts Jess. It was nice to see someone in a similar situation as myself, and I really enjoyed how honest and open you were in your blog. Best of luck in the future!
May 30, 2012 at 4:06 pm
Thanks Steph. That was the one thing I promised myself I would do when I started—not hold anything back. Glad you enjoyed it. I was honoured to be a part of the project for as long as I was.
May 30, 2012 at 11:49 am
Thanks for sharing with us. I wish you luck in the future and success both academically and financially. Bye.
May 30, 2012 at 4:07 pm
Thanks Chris. It was a pleasure to open up my world to people. Definitely kept me accountable for things!.
June 2, 2012 at 6:17 pm
hi jess, and good luck in that big fat world out there. been great reading your posts.
June 2, 2012 at 8:38 pm
Great job Jess! Way to have so many interesting posts!