Issue 2149
Happy Monday!
I have been in France for the past week, in the south near Marseille. The rain and grey had been nonstop in the UK so I’ve been content to see the sun and go for walks around the countryside. My method of travel is the long slow roll, so I’ll be here for a month.
- Which brings me to my first random thought about traveling with others while maintaining a budget. I don’t actually have a full answer to this, these are just my thoughts and experiences and please feel free to write back with any advice. It can be hard at times when you’re not on the same page about budgets and goals from the beginning, especially with somebody who is terrible with money in general when I am great with it. I do my best to be very clear about being economical from the outset but even still I run into problems, like being told I’m no fun because I don’t want to spend $100 in one night at a bar or restaurant when that’s a week’s worth of groceries. I’ve become better about not letting people guilt-trip me in these situations (or in general) which was more of a problem in my younger years. I sometimes wonder, is it a self-fulfilling prophecy? The fact that I budget appropriately means I’m never the person who is late with bills so it seems like I have extra money so then people assume it’s okay to ask me for things? I’m working on how to better communicate stuff around money while travelling.
- Books! One great part of this trip is that my friend has a whole new set of books! To know me is to know that I will likely read at least one of your books if I’m staying with you. My reading goal for 2021 was 100 books and I’m currently at 78 done with 3 in progress. It’ll be a tight squeeze but I am optimistic it can be done. I’m currently reading The Japanese Lover by Isabelle Allende. I’m only 28 pages in and so far very intrigued and really like her writing style. My original goal was to read 100 books by female authors in 2021. I had decided this back in 2019 and had been in the process of curating a list and in 2020, reading any books at all was difficult in general with libraries closed for long stretches of time. I think I have about 70 percent female writers at this point which I’m happy about.
- I am over the humblebrag or the not brag at all. It seems like a message directed mainly at women and not at all to men. “Don’t draw attention to yourself.” “People don’t like a woman who shows off.” I’m done with that. This is a really good resource about how and why to break the cycle of not speaking up about your accomplishments. So I pushed myself to not put an apology as a preface to my accomplishments this week and it’s difficult because now that I’m aware of it, I notice I do it a LOT.
Those are all of my thoughts for this week. I hope to catch up on podcasts so I can start sharing my favorites ones again soon.
Have a great week!
Mandy
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