Hi from Corrine in IL (now saguaro)
Hi everyone!
I was Corrine in IL over at the old boards but decided to change my name when registering here. I simply felt like changing the name; DH and I have done a lot of traveling in the Southwest and right now in the middle of a cold IL winter, being where the saguaros are doesn't seem real bad right now. :)
I like this idea of a journal, so I will share what brought me to SL. I discovered YMOYL back in the early '90s via an article on Joe and Vicki in the local newspaper. It was a timely discovery, since due to years of unconscious spending, DH and I had accumulated a high level of cc debt, plus an auto loan, and we pretty much had no savings of any kind. We also weren't making very much, so how we were get on top of the and develop savings was a source of some anxiety. I got the book shortly after and started the long road to paying off the debt and building savings.
Some years later, I discovered one of the earlier incarnations of the Simple Living discussion board. It was a list format, IIRC and while I didn't post, I lurked at times and got a lot of new ideas. It also helped me keep on track financially as by this time, DH and I landed better jobs with better pay which on one hand helped us with our goals, but at the same time, could have made it tempting to take on a bigger house or get a bigger car just because we had the money. Like a lot of SL'ers, we were viewed as somewhat odd by some of our spendthrift friends and relatives, especially because I had a job at a major corporation that was known to pay well. Why did we continue to live in our smaller home, drive our smaller cars, refuse to do crazy spending at Christmas? It was good to know that there were others out there that "got it" and they were dealing with similar issues.
I did, for some reason, lose track of the discussion board for a couple of years. The list that I was following, albeit sporadically, stopped around 2000. I rediscovered it in 2002 and have been posting since.
I see that this is a already fairly lengthy post, so will stop here. But one more thing....I am really glad that these boards can continue and I am personally grateful to Dave for his years of hosting SLN, to NRM for taking on this discussion board, the mods who had to scramble at the last minute, and of course, to all you fellow SLers.
