My husband was raised in a very different financial and social climate than I was. He was taught that leveraging was the path to the American dream. I was raised to use cash for everything and had budgeted and tracked every cent since I was 8-years-old. Come ask us how we navigated that!

We also had very polarizing dreams. Patrick dreamed of being a trauma surgeon, a soldier, and owning a gentleman's farm; I dreamed of being a millionaire before age 40 and owning a studio apartment next to an international airport so I could back-pack across the globe.

It has been a challenge to create our own financial and social methodology, and chase our dreams in harmony with the other things that are important. Come ask us what we have done with that!

While my husband met the insane demands of becoming a trauma surgeon, I became a stay-at-home/homeschool-mom of our growing family while running the household on our VERY tight budget – $2-3k BEFORE tithing and insurance. Our pursuits to make and save money could certainly fill a book–-maybe I will write one someday–-and I was GREAT at budgeting and frugality. We rarely fought about money. In fact, we rarely fought about anything for about a decade....

Bless our hearts! Come ask us what we learned about THAT approach!

It wasn't all peaches and roses. I cried myself to sleep a number of times, and Patrick spent MANY nights without getting to sleep at all.

The years were ROUGH, but they taught us each IMPORTANT lessons that are essential for creating a life of abundance. Also, the total trust and unity in our marriage is something I wouldn't trade for anything.