Speech 10: Inspire Your Audience. The last speech of the Toastmasters Competent Communicator program challenges me to draw all my skills together to deliver a powerful inspirational message. I gave my Ice Breaker speech for Toastmasters on July 25, 2017. I started off that speech by saying, “I’ve spent most of my life fighting with…

As someone new to the world of personal finance, I’ve spent the last couple of years learning a lot of information. 401(k) rollovers, high-interest savings accounts, budgeting apps, side hustles, the list goes on. I’ve accomplished so much, but I didn’t get my hands fully around my financial strategy until earlier this year, when I…

I’ve had several financial successes this year, including funding my emergency savings and sticking to a real budget for the first time. Well, most of one. As it turns out, my husband and I are terrible at keeping to a dining-out budget. Read the rest at The Financial Diet. Photo by Realmac Dan on Unsplash

Speech 9: Persuade with Power. The ninth speech of the Toastmasters Competent Communicator program is meant to help me get comfortable using various forms of persuasion to encourage an audience to take a certain action. Earlier this year my mother and I took a girls’ trip to North Carolina. We were both looking forward to…

Speech 8: Get Comfortable with Visual Aids. The eighth speech of the Toastmasters Competent Communicator program is meant to help me get comfortable using slides, transparencies, flip charts, whiteboards, or props. Good afternoon everyone. Today I’m going to talk about a topic that’s near and dear to my heart: accessibility. “Accessibility” is a blanket term…