Intentional Money Life

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Intentional Money Life Do you feel insecure and overwhelmed about finances because no one ever taught you about money?

Financial educator helping people build their investing knowledge and use 💰to reach their goals
Free resources to help you invest and retire sooner ⬇️
intentionalmoneylife.com/links Are you ready to face your fears and conquer money, so you can intentionally save, spend, and invest money in line with your values and goals? Do you want to provide your children with more opportunities and experiences than were available to you? You can conquer money and use it to achieve your goals, and you don't have to be a high earner to do it. If you’re ready to take control of your finances and create the life that you want for yourself and your family, then it’s time to check out my courses and programs. Remember that the longer you wait, the less compound interest can benefit you in the long run!

Family photos by Quinn Strickler Photography!! 😍😍😍This is something I really try to do every year because kids grow and ...
09/24/2026

Family photos by Quinn Strickler Photography!! 😍😍😍This is something I really try to do every year because kids grow and change so fast. $295 well spent for sure! Which one is your favorite?!

I’m relieved to share that I passed my CFP exam in July!! 🥳🤩🎉💃🧁I started the education in the summer of 2024, and the la...
08/18/2026

I’m relieved to share that I passed my CFP exam in July!! 🥳🤩🎉💃🧁

I started the education in the summer of 2024, and the last couple months before the test was putting most of my time and energy into studying. I felt bad being so unavailable for the kids (and for my Nectarine clients) but I really didn’t want to take a chance that I’d have to do it all over again. Luckily for me, it paid off!

I still have some experience hours to finish before I officially become a CFP, but I’ve done the hard part, and should be able to use the marks by the end of the year ❤️

Tomorrow I take my CFP test. So after months of studying, at 3:30 today I turned off my computer, put away my study mate...
07/16/2026

Tomorrow I take my CFP test. So after months of studying, at 3:30 today I turned off my computer, put away my study materials, and took my kids out for ice cream. We went to 2 different places for ice cream, because we’re difficult. Then we went down to the fountain and climbing structure for a bit. I’m taking the evening completely off, trying to get a good night of sleep, and hoping for a provisional pass tomorrow 🤞🏼🤞🏼 But even if I don’t pass, I know that I have worked hard and I have learned a lot. And while I don’t want to go through this (or put my family through this) again, it will be okay either way. Good luck to everyone testing this cycle!

Happy Juneteenth and happy Fun Friday for us! It’s still not hot enough for the swimming pool so we went on another wate...
06/28/2026

Happy Juneteenth and happy Fun Friday for us! It’s still not hot enough for the swimming pool so we went on another waterfall hike, this one to McDowell Creek Falls. Just a couple miles and a couple waterfalls, and I really enjoyed it. Then we went paddleboarding at Foster/South Santiam. It was another exhausting but fun day. And this one only cost us the gas to get there ($20, maybe less). What fun stuff are you getting into this summer?!?!

For this week’s Fun Friday we were contending with rain and weather in the 60s, so we took the opportunity to explore Po...
06/28/2026

For this week’s Fun Friday we were contending with rain and weather in the 60s, so we took the opportunity to explore Portland, Oregon. It’s a trip I had been thinking we should do for a while.

We mostly just took all sorts of transportation… Amtrak train, the MAX light rail, a city bus, the streetcar, and an aerial tram. We also visited OMSI (a kids science museum), ate lunch at some food carts (Portland is very known for this), went to Powell’s books (the bookstore that takes up a city block), and ate ice cream (not shocking to anyone that knows my kids). We left our house before 8 am and got home around 8:30pm, so it was a long, exhausting day. But it was fun too. We counted and we believe we crossed over the Willamette river 8 times that day.

It was our most expensive Fun Friday by far:

- Amtrak $52
- Omsi $53.50
- Lunch $38.75
- Aerial tram $17.50
- Ice cream $19
- $180.75 in total

I took my kids on an epic 3 week adventure to Costa Rica last month! I started planning this trip over 2 years ago, and ...
04/02/2026

I took my kids on an epic 3 week adventure to Costa Rica last month! I started planning this trip over 2 years ago, and I knew it was likely to be the longest and most expensive trip we’ll take for a while. So we went all out. We spent a week in Samara so my kids could do Spanish school. Then we went to Monteverde for 4 days to do some adventures… ziplining, horseback riding, hiking around the cloud forest, butterflies, night tours, etc. Then we headed south for a couple nights in Uvita followed by 6 nights in Drake Bay, where I was most looking forward to. We did an overnight in Corcovado National Park, hung out with some dolphins for a day, and ended with a super fun floating tour down the Rio Claro. It was a trip full of tons of memorable moments, fun adventures, and of course some epic meltdowns. I suspect we’ll be talking about this trip for a while though, and while it was expensive, I spent that longer very intentionally and am very happy with how it all turned out.

It ended up costing us $12,200, which was slightly less than my estimates showed. We spent close to 30% each on lodging, adventures, and transportation and the other 10% on everything else.

What’s something you look forward to spending money on, something you think will be worth the price because the memories will pay dividends?

I finally passed all 7 of my CFP courses!!!! 🥳🎉🎊👏🏼🙌🏼Now I get to stop thinking about CFP stuff for a bit while I take my...
02/18/2026

I finally passed all 7 of my CFP courses!!!! 🥳🎉🎊👏🏼🙌🏼

Now I get to stop thinking about CFP stuff for a bit while I take my kids to Costa Rica next month, then when I get back I have to get serious about studying for the 6 hour exam, which I’ll likely attempt in July. I’m so excited to not think about this for a month at least!!!

02/08/2026

Maybe one day I’ll invest in some weights…

2025 Cash Flow Info! I never dug into this last year so finally did for 2025. This was a big year for us, in terms of in...
01/04/2026

2025 Cash Flow Info! I never dug into this last year so finally did for 2025.

This was a big year for us, in terms of income, investing, and expenses!

Some of our biggest (not normal) expenses include Jade's (5) sleep study and tonsillectomy, Kana's (dog) surgery, and the laser hair removal for me.

In our travel category, we paid some money towards the cruise we went on in January, our trip to Kauai in July, and our trip to Costa Rica coming up in March of 2026.

I was actually surprised, because our food and dining spending was fairly low. Partially, that's because most of our food spending is while on vacation, and I classify food on vacation as a vacation expense (not a food expense).

This is my first time using Monarch Money and it took me a while to figure out how to use it to get what I wanted out of it. I spent a bunch of time tagging things only to find out that tagging doesn't show up in the reports, so I broke out medical expenses by person so it would show up. I also ended up adding in the investing as an expense so it would show up too, and I had to get creative to add paycheck info in so all our taxes and investments are more accurate.

Did you dig into your cash-flow/spending data for 2025? What themes did you find?

My annual net worth and invested total chart updates! For background, I just turned 39 and my husband will turn 38 in Ma...
01/03/2026

My annual net worth and invested total chart updates! For background, I just turned 39 and my husband will turn 38 in March. I'm a financial planner (I used to work in higher education) and he's a welder/machinist. We have 5 and 8 year olds, and bought our house in Oregon in 2016. We're working towards financial freedom, and look forward to one day not HAVING to work. I suspect our "Financial Independence Number" is around $2,000,000 so I'm especially watching that "invested for us" total number (now at $600,000). I update my charts twice a year, but go much more in depth in January.

Some of my takeaways:

- Net worth and invested assets go up much faster when you already have significant numbers, and when the market is performing well!
- This was the first year we had a net worth increase of over $100,000 in any particular category (it was in retirement + HSA).
- Our house equity no longer makes up large increases in our net worth.
- Our investments hit $600,00! I can't wait to see this hit $1,000,000!
- We contributed (plus matches) $54,037 this year!! That's up from $39,352 last year! Which was up from the year before that, and likely the year before that. I don't anticipate this to continue going up for 2026, in fact it may go down.
- The accounts that we've previously contributed to the most (Roth retirement and taxable brokerage) continue to experience the most growth, because of course there's more money already there.
- Invested assets in my own name hit $300,000! That's pretty exciting.

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Corvallis, OR

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