Hello there and welcome to my about page. I only remember to update this page once every few years or so; what I’m writing is true as of February 2025. If a year has passed and I still haven’t updated it, then feel free to shoot me an email to remind me to update it. If you’ve been reading my blog a while you will probably know about most of these updates already, but for those that don’t know me, or those that need a refresher….

This blog was started 16 years ago when I was in a time of great financial crisis. I always liked writing and had various blogs over the years about a variety of different subjects. I had heard about an extremely frugal woman who blogged about her life and made money from it; I felt I had many ideas to share and hoped I’d be able to do the same. However, to do so meant spending $10 on a domain name, and those were $10 I didn’t have, I was penniless as the name of the blog. But I took a gamble, and, fortunately, my gamble paid off. I used blogger.com as the host of my blog, because it was free, even though it was less professional, because WordPress required paying for hosting, and that $50 or so yearly it was back then was money I couldn’t even dream of paying. This updated “About Me” section is after 16 years of my blog and when I finally bit the bullet, paid the money, and switched to WordPress, so I could finally have a professional looking website.

Back to my penniless days.

Because of this blog, I was able to get myself from the point of being unable to spare the $10 for a domain name to one where I have money to spend on some little luxuries, where I am able to focus my life on spending my money mindfully, where the money is being spent on things that align with my value. (I won’t credit myself entirely for this; getting disability for my children has also helped a lot, but it alone wouldn’t have fixed things.)

By getting my name out there as a resource for frugal living and building my reputation that way, this blog has worked as a resume of sorts, and I ended up with a magazine column on frugal living, published 4 books (3 ebooks and one print book), and started teaching foraging classes locally, after people saw my posts on the topic and asked me to teach foraging, which has been really rewarding and one of my favorite things to do. Because of my recipes on my site, I also built my reputation as someone who knows how to cook, and did some small time catering for a period of time. On top of that, I also make some money from sponsored posts on my blog.

When I started this blog, the focus was on where my life was at, extreme frugality, pinching pennies till they screamed, as they say. I was also homeschooling, cloth diapering, and home birthing. (I had two kids born since my blog started.) We were living in a teeny tiny home (484 square feet) and didn’t have a car. Life was really, really rough.

Over the years, and as my finances improved, thanks to this blog, my life evolved and the focus of my blog changed as my life did; I went gluten free, got first one, then two, then three kids diagnosed with autism, sent one, then three, then all four of my kids to school. We bought a house and moved from those teeny cramped living quarters to a larger, though still small home. I started therapy, went on psychiatric medication, got divorced, got diagnosed with various physical disabilities, notably Ehlers Danlos Syndrome and POTS. I got approved for disability and with that was able to buy a car. I started traveling abroad, both myself and with my children.

To say my life changed drastically since I started this blog is an understatement. And of course, since I write about my life, what I write on this blog also has changed. Things I did then as well as now- price comparing, shopping sales, stockpiling on cheaper items so you don’t need to spend full price, and making things from scratch when possible.

But while I went from living an extremely frugal life by necessity to one where I can spend a bit more on little luxuries and conveniences, my bottom line has been the same. Frugal living means different things for everyone. Frugal living means knowing where your money is going, making sure that you live within or beneath your means, and making sure that your money is spent on things that matter to you and not on the things that either you don’t need or don’t matter to you.

Back then, in the early stages of my blog, when I still was very broke, I still spent money on gluten free food, healthier ingredients, and home births, and then getting my son privately evaluated for autism. (I went off gluten when I was at the beginning of my pregnancy with my now 13 year old, and then had a home birth with both her and her younger sister).

Back when I first started therapy, I needed to accept charity to be able to get that therapy, but it was still money that I needed to spend, and then when I separated, I accepted charity to give my kids therapy, until I was able to afford it without charity. (Thank you disability payments.) While it was money that others certainly wouldn’t have spent, it was important enough for me that I made it a priority over everything else.

So old me wouldn’t recognize current me, and those who read my blog at the beginning might find that they don’t relate to it now. And that is ok.

To be honest, the name Penniless Parenting really doesn’t suit my blog now, but switching it isn’t an option, and I look at the name as a testament of how far I’ve grown. What I did, therefore, is switch the tag line on my blog, from “A Rich Life on a Minimum Wage” to “Money Mindfulness and More”, because that is what I focus on now, being mindful with my money.

I also use this platform to educate people about things that are important to me, such as mental health issues, Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, divorce, abuse, and more. Those things are not just part of my life, but are part of my parenting, as my kids also have Ehlers Danlos Syndrome and some also deal with mental health issues, and I try to raise my kids with healthy views on relationships. And if I can use this platform to help people, I will do that.

I hope you enjoy my blog, and if there are any topics you’d like me to write about, hit me up. Thanks for being my readers.

To learn more about me and my family, check out this post.