Welcome to another week of the Women’s Personal Finance Wednesdays roundup. I started this series after months of debate because I wasn’t certain I wanted to up the ante and commit to publishing three posts a week. However, now that I’ve started sharing these posts, I’m so glad I started.

There are so many fabulous women writing about personal finance online, and yet there is still a perception that women aren’t good with money, don’t care about money, or don’t understand it on a granular level beyond perhaps knowing how to coupon and score a good shopping deal. These roundups are my way of doing a small part to change that perception. There are no shortage of women online doing their part to make it clear that they DO understand money, and these posts are meant to amplify that fact.

The hardest part of this post every week always is narrowing it down to my favorites, because there is just so much good content out there. If you’re ever interested in what else I’m reading, I share quite a few other posts on Twitter (and that’s also where I read most of the content to begin with these days).

Our Women’s Personal Finance Facebook group also has a sharing thread on Fridays, and that’s the place to read all the blog posts written by members over the previous week. If you’re looking for more articles written by women, that’s a great place to continue reading (plus we have plenty of great discussions on finances the rest of the week as well!).

If you don’t have the time or inclination to go searching down myriad posts, though, I will be continuing this series every week to showcase some of the best of the new content I read. If you ever read a post you thing I absolutely need to consider for this roundup, please let me know! I am always open to reading new blogs (and posts of blogs I do know, because I miss some).

Women’s Personal Finance Wednesdays – Week 23

1. Good Things Friday (1) A Gai Shan Life

As should be pretty clear at this point through my Frugal Five series, I love celebrating the small, positive pieces in our lives, money related and otherwise. While the big things are so awesome and absolutely worth celebrating, there can be weeks and months and even years that go by without something “big enough” to celebrate.

I love that this will be a new series by Revanche, and I hope she keeps it up for the long run. Anything that can be used to celebrate us and our small victories and positive parts of our lives should be a priority. There’s a lot of hard out there, and there’s a lot of not good out there that we also need to speak up and rally against, but that can feel really draining at times and just a little pick me up can go a long way.

2. Real Life; Not Fantasy Disabled Girl on FIRE

I first heard from Tami on FIRE Drill Podcast before she started writing her own blog, and I thought then that she was a voice we needed in the personal finance space, specifically within the financial independence subgroup. She is doing some amazing things, and doing them while dealing with hurdles that most of us will never face or even think about.

That said, this is her real life story, and not everything goes smoothly or according to plan. I so appreciate her honesty and willingness to share the not so great on her blog as well as the fantastic, because it tells a much fuller picture of what life is actually like.

3. Never Forever Home Montana Money Adventures

As someone whose parents are currently in their third “forever” home, I think this is an important conversation to have. Too many people make choices with their living situation expecting their lives to never change from the track they have planned, be it from outside forces or simply a change in priorities and wants.

My husband and I bought our “forever home” just shy of eight years ago, and we expect to be here for a long time yet. But does that mean it will be our forever and ever home? I won’t say that for sure. Life changes in ways we can never expect and I don’t ever want to be locked into one path because it’s what my twenty three year old self thought she wanted forever. In my opinion, a better way to look at things is to judge whether you expect to be in a home for maybe twenty years, not “forever.” And even twenty years may be too long.

Growing up in a construction family also meant that I’ve always considered resale value, even if the idea of reselling is twenty years in the future or never. Too many people get stuck in homes they upgraded too far or have to take a much lower selling price because they’ve customized in a way they wanted to live – but that no one else is likely to appreciate.

It generally doesn’t change the way a home is remodeled that intensely, but it’s definitely worth paying attention to. You never know when the time will come that you do want or need to sell, and without that possibility in mind, that process can go very differently than expected.

I  hope you enjoy the posts this week as much as I did. I read a ton of content and it was hard to narrow down my favorites. I’m looking forward to sharing some new ones with you again next week!

As always, if you’re looking for a categorized list of self identified women writing and speaking about personal finance, here is my comprehensive guide to the Women of the Finance Independence Community.