your-money

As our diseased tree languishes on the front porch waiting for pick up day, I realize I am suffering from the post-Christmas-excess blues. Which of course I thought I wouldn’t have, especially because we managed to stick to our debt diet over the holidays (mostly). But I still feel like we overdid it ...

In the last two weeks I’ve eaten my weight in shortbread cookies and Quality Street - and I’m sporting a charming muffin top to boot. It happens to the best of us and it’s probably why so many fitness centres are pushing gym memberships to the overstuffed survivors of the holiday season.

My husband and I are hosting Christmas this year - 13 people (including 4 kids) in our tiny Toronto row house. By the 26th, I’m pretty sure we’ll be flat out exhausted.

A study released a few weeks ago challenges the stereotype of the shopping bag princess. Called Financial Lives of Girls and Women, it shows that in fact women - not men - hold the purse strings: 89% say that the final decision about how to spend household money rests with them.

A few years ago I made a major life change - I quit my secure, full-time job to become a freelance writer. It was a risky move but I had managed to scrape together enough to pay my bills for the first few months. I was excited about the future and terrified at the same time. What if no one hired me? What if I couldn’t pay my bills?