Where I've Been...

I blog about finally getting this personal finance discussion show on the road, and then disappear! Yeow! Sorry about that folks... Somehow I blogged, blinked, and opened my eyes to February just around the corner!

It hasn't been for a lack of desire that I haven't blogged lately, just a lack of time. We've taken an oddly adventurous turn since the calendar struck 2011...

We've gone hiking-



Explored downtown Phoenix and shopped the farmer's market-



Visited the Arizona Mining Museum


I took an intro to photography class to learn how to use my new DSLR camera in manual mode (check out my mad skills! haha)



Took a day-long road trip to tour mining towns and Indian reservations around Arizona





Broke out my sponge rollers for a little day of beauty while I cleaned-



I joined my first Bible study group... and to top all that off, the Mr. bought an old Volvo (huzzah for being a 2-car family for the first time!), signed up to study in Europe for part of this semester, and we're now moving this month!

Moving this month!!!!!!!

I'm excited as all get-out about the changes taking place... I just hope I can catch a breath long enough to recap the month for posterity, and share all the new goings-on with you!

Be back soon(ish)...

xoxo,
Lulu

Happy Birthday, Roey!

Today is January 19th, but in China - where my best friend Roey lives- it's January 20th. Do you know what that means?

It's Roey's birthday!!!!



We started out here- (she's the bride, I'm the... uh, gold lame space princess?)



Survived middle school (playing our classed-up version of 'strip poker'- first person back to their normal clothes wins)



And ended up as two happily married gals, in our 25th year of friendship-



Happy, happy birthday to my white wine drinkin', Lionel Richie dancin', uber-stylish best friend Roey!

We wish we were in Bejing to celebrate with you! Love you, and hope you have a wonderful day!

xoxo,
Lulu

Let's Talk Money, Honey

Stick with me here, friends- this may be a long one, but we're gonna get a little crazy and start something new here. I'd really love to start a dialogue and get your 2 cents on the topic.

(Heh Heh, get it? Cents? Money? Carry on.)

So there's a pretty big side to me that I have never written about on here before.

I have a serious, deep down, honest-to-goodness passion for personal finance.

I can spend hours on end analyzing spending patterns, retooling budgets, tweaking spreadsheets. Probably 50% of the books I own, and 95% of the books I actually read, are on the topic of personal finance. I'm sure some part of this comes from the fact that I'm a financial analyst by trade, but it goes way deeper than that.

Finance -money, really- can be this big, mysterious, overwhelming thing at times... Especially when you don't have any, or feel like you don't know what to do with it or don't have control over what money you do have.

I think that our generation really got short-changed in the financial education department. How many of you out there had classes in personal finance in high school? Learned about the perils of credit card debt? Knew what an amortization schedule was? Forget learning how to balance a checkbook- how many of you out there even use checks on a regular basis?

I think that most of us learned how to manage money by seeing the way our parents did- which could be a good thing or a bad thing, something you'd like to emulate or something you're trying to avoid at all costs.

After some great financial discussions with my Twitter friends today, I realized that on some level or another we're *all* trying to get this whole personal finance thing figured out. Maybe your big New Years resolution is to spend less and save more, maybe you're wondering if you should start saving for retirement already, or maybe you just want to start this whole personal finance thing from the beginning and figure out the answer to the "what the heck am I supposed to do with my money?!?!" question from square one.

I've decided to finally bring my passion for all things personal finance on to this little blog of mine. I'm going to start sharing with you some of the tips, tricks, gems, and major errors I've encountered along the way... I'm not a professional wealth manager or personal financial planner, remember... Just a girl with passion and a paycheck, some debt and some lofty goals, trying to set up a strong financial future.

I look forward to sharing with you, hearing from you, and having you along for the ride!

xoxo,
Lulu

Happy 2011!

The only decent photo we have of ourselves from our 3rd engage-iversary/3 night retro hotel staycation/Mad Men-themed New Year's Eve weekend, since we were too busy having one of the best weekends of our lives.

Here's hoping we have as much fun living 2011 as we did ringin' it in!

xoxo,

Lulu & The Mr.