When Melanie from the blog Dear Debt reached out and invited me to the 2017 Co-op Think Influencer kickoff event that she and Tonya Rapley of My Fab Finance were hosting back in May, I was ecstatic. The Co-op Think Conference is an event bringing professionals in the Credit Union industry together. Not only would I get the chance to network with fellow bloggers in the personal finance space, I’d get to learn about something I knew very little about, Credit Unions.
In the past, I’ve only banked with Traditional Banks. While I was aware that Credit Unions existed, I didn’t know much about them.
A few weeks after the event, I got the chance to speak with Samira Rajan, CEO of Brooklyn Cooperative FCU & CO-OP Financial Services Member. Through our conversation and in doing more research, I was able to “debunk” some of my own Credit Union myths and learn the benefits of banking with Credit Unions.
[Read more…] about Credit Union Myths Debunked + 4 Reasons To Bank at a Credit Union
Early in my career, I had no idea how important investing in retirement accounts were to building real wealth and securing my future. I was only concerned with the money I got in that moment. After all, I was told that the money I contributed to my retirement accounts couldn’t be accessed without penalty until I was 59 years old (which is not entirely true). 
In a perfect world, we all want to improve our finances by saving more, spending less and avoiding debt. Often, what holds us back from making trans-formative changes to our finances, is the fear that we will be in essence giving up the things we enjoy the most. The perception of an all or nothing approach scares many people away from even starting on their journey to financial freedom. But, it doesn’t have to be all or nothing, it doesn’t have to be so radical, and the changes don’t have to happen overnight.
I’ve been putting off index investing all year. I’d made a bunch of reasons up about why it wasn’t the right time to start. They were all lies I told myself, just so that I could mask the intense fear I felt about doing something I had never done before. But, isn’t that always the reason we choose to not go after what we know we should, the fear of the unknown. Well the excuses stop now, because I finally did it and I am now the proud owner of index funds. *slow clap* 
Wow 2016 has been quite a year! I gave birth to a beautiful baby boy and took 5 months of maternity leave to bond with him and my 2 1/2-year-old. It was a year of transitions, going from one to two children and the year I decided to start this blog. It was also the year that I set my retire by 40 goal which meant I had to get laser focused and specific on what it would take to get there. I set some 
