Sunday Summary - 03.06.22
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Website Launch Weekend
A little back story - in late Fall 2021, I saw The Everygirl was looking for a part-time writer to contribute to the Finance and Career section of their website. I started prepping articles to apply for this role, because I wanted another crack at it after being declined from a writing position for their Lifestyle section 4 or so years earlier. While I was drafting the finance focused articles, I had this light bulb moment where I realized “You don’t need someone else’s platform to write.”
I immediately abandoned the idea of working on someone else’s timeline for someone else’s vision and started creating the website that was launched today. It took hours of research to choose the right platform, months filled with writing and editing, a lot of “focus groups” to ensure I was headed in the right direction, and…I’m just so excited it’s finally “out there!”
The three categories on the website - Spend Smarter, Save Smarter, and Travel Smarter - are broad enough to provide me with some creative freedom and specific enough to provide me with direction to write about topics that we’re all passionate about in this community. I took into account feedback from YouTube comments, Instagram messages, and Instagram polls to create these categories, and I hope you see your requests reflected in the website over time. Remember that what you see today is just the start! More articles will be released each week, and I welcome any requests you may have that fall into these categories!
The personal finance articles on the website have been video ideas living in a notebook for years, but I never felt a video format was the right way to approach these more detailed and figure-oriented topics. I know many of you have been the top requestors of personal finance content, and I hope you’re happy to see those requests come to life in a new format.
If you missed a Sunday Summary on Instagram or via newsletter, you can access those archives on the Summaries page of the website.
Oh, one more thing! I’ve changed my name on both YouTube (Maggie’sTwoCents) and Instagram (@maggies.two.cents) to align with the website name. “This or That” served me well for the last several years, but I’m excited to “rebrand” with a name that’s more inclusive of the varied content I create and for the new direction in which we’re headed.
My hope is that the articles are interesting, entertaining, and helpful, and I’m extremely excited about the future of this platform. THANK YOU for the support, as always, now get to reading!
Reading
Still working on The Soulmate Equation. I’ve been staying up late editing the site all week, so reading for pleasure took a back seat. The Kindle version is still on sale for $1.99, too!
Watching
Rock the Block is back with Season 3! This season is set in Charleston, SC, and 4 teams of designers have $225,000 to transform their identical new-builds into homes with beautiful, livable spaces. The couple with the highest home value at the end of the competition wins.
Right now I’m rooting for Egypt & Mike and the Maars family (the two pairs on the ends of this group photo.) If you’re into home reno and design, don’t sleep on this show. It has the usual cheesy drama/commentary as every other HGTV show, but it’s really good nonetheless.
Bryan and I also had a movie date last night! We went to our favorite theater and watched Death on the Nile. It was a great whodunnit, but I was kind of distracted (in the best way) by how pretty the set was!
Cooking
This week we cooked exclusively from The Comfortable Kitchen, but some of the recipes we made can be found online! I also had an insane allergic reaction one night and ended up just eating mashed potatoes, and we forgot to buy the tortillas for the fried avocado tacos. It was a weird eating week, but here is the list of what we intended to cook:
Italian White Bean Soup - in the new cookbook and on her blog!
Salmon Fish Taco Bowls - cookbook exclusive, but the recipe is featured on Amazon. Click the additional images to view the recipe.
Fried Avocado Tacos with Spicy Crema - cookbook exclusive, but the recipe is featured on Amazon. Click the additional images to view the recipe.
Listening & Honesty Hour
Am I still loyal to Armchair Expert? Yes. Here are the two episodes I listened to this week:
This week I also wanted to feature Money with Katie. She used to be a spin instructor at the gym where I was member pre-pandemic, and she recently quit her full time job to focus on Money with Katie and her new role on The Morning Brew team. In short, she’s doing fantastic things for women and personal finance.
Honesty hour: I’ve been envious of her success for months and even hesitated sharing her podcast episodes out of an irrational competitive feeling I had since we were writing within the same space(ish.) Enough of that - she is doing great things and breaking down barriers in the world of personal finance, and I’d much rather be a supporter than an adversary. We all know there’s enough of that in this world already without my additional contributions.
I’ve learned so much from her, and even though I have two degrees in Accounting and am a licensed CPA, her content goes over my head sometimes. I found her blog while I was researching a topic for my own site and was hooked (and intimidated all at once!) She offers insanely helpful tips for tax-advantaged saving and provides investing insights for high earners. The complexity of her topics made my site, and what I thought was a unique idea (women in personal finance) feel a little rudimentary and uninspired. I was down about it for a while, until…
I had a lengthy, honest conversation with some friends about personal finance, their struggles, and their questions. During those conversations I realized that while my articles aren’t going to wow an economist, they could be hugely important for someone who didn’t grow up in a home that incorporated personal finance into their upbringing or for someone who didn’t take any business classes in college. Rather than wasting time being envious of someone else’s success, I reallocated that time to the articles you’ll find on the website and started appreciating the different contributions and perspectives that Katie and I were offering in the same space.
Lesson learned: Someone else’s success doesn’t come at a cost to your own, and it’s way more fun to be a cheerleader for other people than a naysayer. Whew, Brené Brown really did a number on me with all her vulnerability talks, so uhh…thanks for still being my friend with all of my flaws. Cheers to admitting when we’re being ridiculous.
In Kacey Musgraves’ song Miserable, she had a line that struck me on the way home from the movies last night that said “You can’t set sail with your anchor down.” Deciding to stray away from the comfortable format and topics that my original YouTube channel was founded on has lead to many, huge steps outside of my comfort zone.
This website is a leap and I’m not sure what I even hope this leads to, but change and growth require you to get a little uncomfy sometimes.
Here’s to sailing, friends!
MAGGIE