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…

Do you remember how easy it was to make friends in high school? You were thrown together by circumstance or mutual interests. If you went to college, it was probably even easier; you were surrounded by people in your same major, and there were a seemingly unlimited number of clubs and sororities/fraternities to join. Read…

When I was in college, one of my professors informed us that people are more afraid of public speaking than they are of death — which means that most of us would rather be in the casket at a funeral than giving the eulogy. Read the rest at The Financial Diet. Photo by NEW DATA…