It’s easy to find negativity these days, especially on the heels of an election season and in the middle of football season. Some people are upset their candidate and party didn’t win. Others are distraught that they’re going to have to name their unborn son Chalupa Batman because their fantasy league team didn’t show up on the field this season. One glance at social media could convince you the entire world is burning down around you these days. Instead of giving into the online drama and negativity, today I wanted to share what I am thankful for.
Negativity breeds negativity, but the opposite is also true. I’ve learned from the school of hard knocks that when you hang out around optimistic people, you become more optimistic. If you spend your evenings around people who can’t help but express their gratitude, you’ll find yourself doing the same.
I started a gratitude journal this year, and it’s been one of the most impactful changes to help me through a really rough season. I’ll admit, there have been nights when I’ve looked at my pretty little journal covered in pastel flowers and thought, ‘I’ve got bupkis.’ But there weren’t many of them, even when it felt like it was raining like hell on my loser’s day parade. When I took the time and reflected, I could almost always find something to be thankful for.
Even if you don’t want to jump on the journaling train, use the holiday season as a time to reflect and appreciate what you have instead of focusing on what you want to show up under the tree for Christmas. With the ever increasing over commercialization of the holidays (Christmas decor before Halloween, y’all? Really? I’m judging), it’s easy to get lost in the grind and feel like you’re missing out. Instead, take the time to sit in the season and be thankful.
My favorite Thanksgiving tradition
Before we moved this year, we used to have holiday dinners with our neighbors. At Thanksgiving, when the dining room table was set and food overflowed the room from the windows to the walls, we would go around the table and everyone got to say what they were thankful for before we broke bread and then broke the elastic waistbands in our pants.
It was a simple tradition and only took a few minutes, but it’s something that has sat with me since our first Thanksgiving together. New Year’s gets all the love for clean slates and resolutions, but Thanksgiving can be a wonderful time to sit and reflect upon what you’re grateful and thankful for.
What I’m thankful for in this season of life
I will save you from all the mundane day-to-day gratitude I journal about, and share some of the overarching things I’ve been thankful for this year.
I am thankful for my health
And let me just say, this is a hard one this year because I’ve also been joking I would like a new body for Christmas whenever anyone asks me what’s on my wishlist.
My body has not been perfect. It hasn’t even been happy the past five years. My recent health scares and subsequent surgeries are nothing I would have asked for, and I can’t say I’m thankful I went through them, because I’d be able to pole vault with my Pinocchio nose if I did.
But I’m thankful I’m still here. I’m thankful each day I get to continue to fight the good fight. I’m thankful that, while my quality of life isn’t what I’d like for it to be, it’s enough to keep advocating for a better future.
I am thankful for my surgeon
He knows it, too. I made sure I went out and got a thank you card and mailed it to his office. (He also knows that, as thankful as I am, I hope I never have to see him again.)
My surgeon went out of his way with my not one but two surgeries. He even opened up his office on a Saturday to remove my drain tube so I wouldn’t have to deal with it all weekend. And when I almost threw up from nausea and stress as the tube came out, he personally wheeled me out to the curb to where my husband had the car pulled up, just to make sure I didn’t faint or topple over.
He didn’t have to do that, but it made all the difference in the world on a day where I felt like complete shit.
Do the little things for people. They add up. And you never know when that simple act will be the one shining moment in the other person’s day.
I am thankful we are doing well financially
When you go through a health scare and come out buried under an avalanche of medical bills, it’s hard to be grateful for the state of healthcare in this country. It makes it easy, though, to be thankful that we’ve been focused and disciplined with our financial planning over the last several years.
It was hard enough getting stabbed repeatedly for ten biopsy samples without having to worry about how I was going to find the money to pay for the procedure. And getting the drain tube pulled out was enough of a stressor for a day. I can’t imagine if I’d had to worry how I was going to pay for the priviledge of their torture.
Medical debt is one of the primary causes of bankruptcy in America, and I’m so thankful we didn’t have to deal with that stressor on top of surgeries and recovery. It was a blessing to get to focus on the act of getting through the current day and the next and finding my way through the darkness.
I am thankful for my husband
My husband was an absolute rock star this year. Not only did he have to deal with me not handling my anxiety well (at all) when we moved cross country, but he became a master at charades after surgeries one and two to take care of me during recovery. He never complained, and he supported me throughout the entire journey, just as he always has.
We both joke that we married up. And while it’s impossible, I think somehow it’s true. I try to never take him for granted.
I am thankful for the Budget Beagle
Though she sleeps on the job (literally) a lot, I’m thankful to have the Budget Beagle in my life. She is a cuddle bug to the extreme, which was nice the weeks I was laid up in recovery during my Big Thing. She forces me to get out of bed on days when I’m down. And she’s just so friggin’ cute that it’s hard not to be happier around her.
I am thankful for my brother
This is not something teenage me would have said, but our relationship has grown and matured as we’ve grown and kinda sorta matured ourselves. Either way, I’ve been especially thankful for my brother this year. He’s the one I call when I’m having a bad day and need a high concentrated dose of something good or funny. He can always make me laugh, even when I call him already crying and the shut-off valve on the waterworks is inop.
I’m also thankful for the ridiculous voicemails he leaves me. During the rough season of my health, I saved them and replayed them when he wasn’t available to talk when I needed a little pick me up.
I’m thankful for my found family
I’ll start by throwing in a BOGO gratitude here to say I’m so thankful we had the neighbors we had. The hardest part of moving has been not living next to them anymore. But I’m so thankful we still have them in our lives, and I’m grateful I have the honor of calling them family.
So many people checked in on me while I was going through my Big Thing this summer (and I’m thankful for them all), but my neighbor has an uncanny ability to send a buddy check when I need it most. It’s a superpower. She’s a superhero. And I am super thankful.
She’s not the only one. We are #blessed to have an amazing found family of friends, and this year has taught me how fortunate I am to have them all in my life. We had so many random gifts arrive at our door and in my inbox, for DoorDash gift cards so my husband didn’t forget to eat while he took care of me to roses and Murdles. When I didn’t love myself or my situation, our family of friends blanketed me in their love and man, that made all the difference.
I’m thankful for my community
We’ve had a dream to move to Colorado since before we got married. And while it’s been everything I’d hoped for, it was hard. We left all our family and friends behind and moved halfway across the country to a town where we knew absolutely no one. Our closest friend was an hour away. It honestly made my husband nervous that I would throw in the towel and demand to move back to Florida.
Community is everything.
Without it, we’re untethered in the rolling waves of the ocean of life, fighting a rip tide trying to drag us under.
We’re thankful we’ve found a wonderful community of people here in our new town. Finding out I was sick two months after moving 1,800 miles away from our support system was what you would call “less than ideal.” But we found friends to play board games with to distract us from the slog that is recovery and even to sit with me so my husband could do something as simple as a grocery run without having to worry about me.
While we moved away from the place we’ve called home for almost two decades, we haven’t lost our community there either. As I mentioned above, our community is our found family, and they’ve weathered the storm with us this year. I’ll be forever thankful.
I’m thankful to the FI community
We stumbled into the financial independence, retire early lifestyle somewhat accidentally several years ago thanks to Dave Ramsey’s The Total Money Makeover. It’s been a journey joining the community since then as our knowledge and engagement have grown, and I’m forever thankful for the people we’ve met through this community.
Talking about money and finances is counterculture. If you don’t agree, ask everyone about their mortgages and income around the Thanksgiving table this year. See if you get invited back for Christmas or if they suddenly decide to break a ten year hosting tradition to “go skiing” in “Tahoe” this year instead.
It’s a shame we’re not comfortable talking about money, and I hope this becomes less of the norm as the financial independence movement grows.
I’m incredibly thankful to the Catching Up to FI community, who offered me my first podcast appearance to share my love for budgeting in our episode Dumpster FIRE and the FIRE Brigade. Their CutFI Facebook group is an amazing, supportive virtual community for people who are late to the saving for retirement game, but want to catch up and find financial freedom.
I’m also thankful to the Frugal Physician who ended up actually being my first podcast recording with the way scheduling worked out. I had a blast collaborating with Dr. Disha Spath for The Art of Frugal Finance as she helps spread the word of financial freedom for physicians.
I’m thankful for all my readers
Our brigade started with humble beginnings through word of mouth with my family and friends. In 2023, that was pretty much our entire audience, and that was fine with me. I love that my friends reach out with the questions and help me come up with ideas for content. I even bounce outlines and ideas off them for their invaluable feedback.
Our community has grown over the last year, and I’m thankful for the ride and dies who have been here from the beginning, as well as every other reader we’ve picked up since then. While I write because I’d probably go all Jack Torrance if I didn’t get the thoughts out of my head, what keeps me coming back is knowing there’s an audience. I hope we’ve been able to help you, even in a small way, this year.
I am thankful for those that make me laugh and smile
As Jerry Seinfeld said in his commencement speech at Duke: Don’t forget to laugh. When life is piling up and it’s hard to breathe because you feel like you’re underwater, sometimes laughter is the medicine the doctor doesn’t prescribe that makes the other ones work.
Laughter and comfort have been a magical duo in my life this year, and a lot of that has come from family and friends, but another large part of it has come from people I’ve never met.
I have never been good at expressing myself or my mood. Music has always been my way to channel that. When I’m angry or frustrated, I will rage sing along to Linkin Park. If I need to remind myself it’s okay to ask for help (which is hard for me but was needed this year), Jon McLaughlin will remind me we all need saving. When I need to find an extra dose of gratitude, Rob Thomas reminds me that I’m one less day from dying young. And when I need a comfort listen, I’ll let Starset or Smash Into Piece run the itinerary for the evening.
Movies and television have been a comfort this year too, and I’m thankful they reminded me how to relax during recovery, something else that does not come naturally to me at all. We rewatched a lot of feel good comedies like Liar, Liar and The Watch. My husband even agreed to binge watch Gilmore Girls with me.
The final word
Whether you’re reading this when it drops or you stumble across this in the summer, I hope you can take a moment and pause in this season of life to contemplate what you’re thankful for. Gratitude and thankfulness can help you find contentment with where you are in life and with your money, and that is perhaps one of the best gifts you can get in life.
I welcome you to share your reflections on what you’re thankful for in the comments.