Loud, Bold, and
All Me
“I’ve moved 34 times in my life. And no, that’s not an exaggeration.”
Born in Illinois, I moved to Wisconsin before I even started kindergarten. Then my parents divorced when I was in fourth grade—and that’s when the moves really began. First with Mom. Then with Dad. Move in, move out. New partner, new place. Get engaged, move in. Break up, move out. Again, and again. I didn’t grow up with a sense of permanence. I grew up with boxes.
Even when I went away to college in Indiana, the pattern didn’t stop. I moved every single year—for all five years I was there—and even in the summers when I went “home,” it was never the same house twice. After college, I landed in Texas in 2008, and surprise! I kept moving there too. For jobs, for roommates, for life changes. If there was one thing I knew how to do, it was start over. So, it probably makes sense that the most constant home I ever knew—despite moving in and out of it several times—was my grandparents’ house in Wisconsin.
In 2005, a few years after my grandmother passed away and my grandfather couldn’t afford the mortgage on Social Security alone, my dad took over the payments. It was a modest 3-bedroom, 1-bathroom home, though if you count what my dad built in the basement, it was more like 5 bedrooms and 2 living spaces. Still—eight people under one roof, with just one bathroom? Chaos. But it was our chaos. We had a barn. We had 40 acres of wood and land out back. We had bonfires and reunions and years of memories.
That house was supposed to stay in our family forever. My brother had even claimed a patch of land he planned to build on one day.
But in 2006, everything changed.
I was in college at Indiana University when I got the call that my cousin Barry had passed away. I drove to Illinois for the funeral, and afterward, I found my dad crying alone in the parking lot. At first, I thought he was just mourning Barry—but then he told me something that hit even deeper. Through tears, he confessed that if he didn’t come up with the money the bank was demanding by Friday… we were going to lose the house. It was Saturday.
I can still feel the weight of that moment, the house where so many of my childhood memories were made, the only place that ever really felt like home, was slipping away. And we lost it. And I didn’t know it then, but that was the moment my entire relationship with money began to change.
I didn’t grow up learning how money worked. I didn’t understand interest rates or budgets or emergency funds. All I knew was that money seemed to control everything—where we lived, how we felt, what we could hold onto—and we never had enough of it.
Fast forward to 2013. I graduated, had a degree in sociology (with a minor in human sexuality—but we’ll come back to that), and was working three jobs. One of them was in accounting, but despite all the hustle, I was barely surviving. I was paying for gas and groceries with credit cards just so I could make my student loan payments—which were about the same as a mortgage.
I was exhausted, disconnected, and ashamed. I didn’t feel proud of the work I was doing—even though I was working hard. I pulled away from friends, skipped social events, and when I did splurge, I felt guilty. Like I didn’t deserve joy. I felt trapped in a life that wasn’t mine.
I’ve struggled with depression since I was a kid. But during those years? It was darker than I’d ever known.
Eventually, I filed for bankruptcy. I didn’t know what else to do. And while I wouldn’t make the same decision again (because now I do know other options), at the time, it gave me something I hadn’t had in a long time: peace of mind. A clean slate. A chance to rebuild.
And I took that chance seriously. For the next four years, I didn’t touch a credit card. I learned how to live within my means—even while traveling. I surrounded myself with financially successful people. I read books, paid coaches, and asked a million questions. I was determined to never feel helpless again.
In 2016, my financial advisor said, “You should become a financial coach.” I laughed. I didn’t even know what that was. He said, “You’re already doing it. Helping people budget. Pay off debt. Understand their money. You’ve lived it. Teach it.”
So, I gave it a shot. My first year in business was… messy. I presented at a networking event, excited to share my passion. Afterward, three-quarters of the room told me I needed to raise my prices. And someone actually told me not to use my headshot—because I looked too young to be taken seriously or have the experience I claimed. That stung. But it also lit a fire in me.
People started asking me to help with bookkeeping. I had the skills—I was still working full time as a staff accountant—so I said yes. And that income ended up funding my first year in business. I was throwing spaghetti at the wall (messier than mud, honestly), trying to see what would stick.
By 2019, I realized I needed to understand business money better. It’s not the same as personal finance. I kept asking, “How much should I pay myself?” Everyone said, “Read Profit First.” I didn’t want to—because I’m a slow reader and had a pile of books I hadn’t finished. But I picked it up and read it cover to cover in two days. That never happens.
I implemented the Profit First method immediately. Within three months, I had savings for taxes, consistent profit, a system for paying myself, and a new awareness of how money really moved in my business. I became a certified Profit First Professional and wanted to bring this to my clients, too.
But I was stuck working in my business, not on it. I had no time to coach, no one to outsource to, and no idea how to scale.
At the end of 2019, I had a gut-check moment: I didn’t start this business to just do books for the IRS. I wanted to help people thrive. In 2020, I let go of every client who didn’t want to implement Profit First. I took a sabbatical, restructured everything, and returned as a Profit Strategist. Eventually, I brought bookkeeping back—but this time with a team, so I could focus on the coaching and consulting that lit me up.
And now here I am married, running a business that’s nearly a decade old, and raising a beautifully blended family with kids spanning over two decades apart. I’m a homeowner, and we have a plan to create a generational home and land that’s truly ours. I finally feel aligned.
