Hi All!
I'm Nicki. I’m an artist and graphic designer living in North Carolina, which, for the record was progressive AF when I moved here and only decided to backslide once I unloaded the very last box from the U-haul. Tired from the cross country move, and not wanting to repack everything, I stayed.
I live in a recently purchased 1950s kit home that was originally built for immigrant textile workers—yeah, I know! hard to believe we were nice to immigrants once. I live there with my three cats and my wife. The hierarchy is unavoidable. We learned to accept it early on & have been all the happier for it. (My Instagram feed is mostly filled with pictures of my cats.)
Like a lot of people, I (on occasion) look for ideas on how to save money or tighten my budget. And, like a lot of people, I look to Google and Pinterest for those ideas. Which is informative until about the third hit, then it just becomes repetitive af. I wanted to learn more than the basics and WAY more than I already knew, but there wasn't a lot of that out there. I had to scour through far too many affiliate links and common sense stuff to find any nuggets of wisdom, so I thought I'd try to fill the gap of what was missing. (It's harder than it looks, and I have to admit to figuring it out as I go—but hopefully you'll find some nuggets in here somewhere.)
I'm not a prepper, homesteader, or survivalist. I'm a white lady with privilege who's trying to pay off student loans and a mortgage, and dig myself out of credit card debt (and navigate the world of freelance). I'm also learning to tread more lightly in and on this world.
My parents are of the generation who believe that if you work harder you get ahead. Having worked 3 jobs for most of my adult life, and then losing most of them to outsourcing, budget constraints, and restructuring, I am of the belief that sometimes hard work begets hard work. Sometimes it just pays the bills, and sometimes it doesn't even do that. I am very aware that there are people in this world who work *much* harder than me for much less, and I'm also aware that we can help one another learn to live more sustainably and with greater equity.
I learned early on to DIY & before Martha Stewart made Martha Stewart popular, I was baking, making, sewing, up-cycling, crafting, propagating (plants), and whatever else I needed to do to create my secure, happy place without spending a lot of money.
Oh, and I'm a bit of a smart ass, but you probably would've figured that out sooner or later.
That aside, thanks for being here and joining me on this journey. I hope something here helps.
Best!
-Nicki
