Hailing from southwestern Pennsylvania, where the Rust Belt meets Appalachia, I was raised in frugal household, making ends meet by bargain shopping, couponing, and getting hand-me-downs. While we were most certainly loved and never went without, it’s been in my adult life that I’ve been able to reflect on and appreciate the grit, tenacity, and ingenuity of how we grew up.

My grandparents were children of the Great Depression, and my grandfathers worked in the peak industries of the time: the coal mines and the steel mills. My grandmothers were the homemakers, caring for the children and the homes and making life possible.

I come from a line of makers: quilters, knitters, and the like. Plastic butter containers were reused to keep buttons in. Cookie tins held sewing supplies. My great grandfather rescued things from the trash and repaired them to make them useful again.

My mom spent Sundays with the newspaper, meticulously going through all the circulars to find the deals of the week and clipping coupons. She taught us to find the best bargains when we went back-to-school shopping, and we always immediately went to the sale rack. (This was devastating to my teenage soul as I desperately wanted to fit in and not worry about cost. I did, however, get my beloved messenger bag from Candies when I went to high school.)

My late teens and into my 20s were defined by working in retail, going out, and overspending on just about everything. The pendulum had swung from a tight budget upbringing to never checking my bank account + maxing out credit cards. I was thrifting regularly, fully embracing the hipster alternative identity of the mid-aughts, and still overspending - even on secondhand items.

I exhausted myself from corporate retail in 2014, and I shifted to working in a secondhand buy-sell-trade store. My mindset began to shift, yet I continued my overspending and overconsumption.

i left retail in 2017 and pursued two graduate degrees, eventually becoming a public health social worker. As I dove into community and public health, I began to unpack our society’s obsession with stuff and its impact on the environment and the community.

This blog is a space for me to continue to unpack these things, share ways I’ve shifted my consumption patterns, share thrifting and styling tips, and unpack capitalism in general, as I make my way back to my roots.

Community is the answer. And this is my attempt at community online.

Hello and thanks for being here.