The 12th Annual Plutus Awards was held Thursday night in Austin, Texas at FinCon. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the Plutus Awards, they’re the Oscars/Grammys/etc of the Personal Finance Community. I was really honored to be nominated for four awards this year: Current Events Content, Community Builder, Blog of the Year, and Best Finance Content for Women (that last one specific to Women’s Personal Finance).

Women’s Personal Finance WON Best Finance Content for Women. Regina and I are still in shock, and so, so, so thrilled with this award. WPF as a business is new as of 2021, so winning a Plutus our first year feels freaking amazing and awesome and beyond our wildest dreams. Really, thank you all who nominated us. It feels super special and validating winning this award. Bestie, so, so glad to share this honor with you. Couldn’t ask for a better partner.

AND – I won Community Builder for the second year in a row!!! Clearly, community is my jam, so this is my favorite award. To win it the first two years in its existence feels really special and is what life is really about, in my opinion.

There aren’t too many moments that feel this good these last nineteen months or so, and so I’m soaking up the good vibes extra right now. Thrilled is an understatement.

Friday’s Frugal Five

1. We picked up two new hens from a “neighbor” (15-20 minutes away) over the weekend to replace the two roosters. I posted on a local chicken group, and they shared that they had a couple girls they wouldn’t be able to keep due to busy life and not having the time to integrate them into their flock.

We picked them up on Saturday, and one of the girls, Missy, has already laid FOUR eggs for us. She’s a Black Copper Maran, and she’s lovely. And Moonlight is a Lavender Orpington, a breed I’ve definitely had my eye on. We’re totally in love, and they’re starting to integrate themselves in with the rest of the flock now. And now we have eggs!!

2. My company had our annual flu shot clinic on Tuesday, and this year we were able to get the kiddo his flu shot there as well. We have a pharmacist come over from the store across the street and everyone gets their flu shots at the same time.

Lunch is provided, and everyone gets a thank you gift card as well. For me, just having the flu shot made easy at work is enough by itself, but the food and cash is definitely an awesome bonus. We have 100% vaccination for flu shots every year, and COVID-19 as well. Definitely appreciate the culture, and it makes me a lot more comfortable being around people a bit at work (even masked, and most of the time I’m in my own glassed off office).

3. As part of hyping up flu shots to the kiddo (and vaccinations in general), we have a deal that he gets to pick out a toy after his shot any time he gets one. He and I went over to our local Goodwill, and he was able to get a few Halloween items and a laser tag gun (without a laser tag game) – which he was excited about, nonetheless.

I also perused the book section, and found a first grade workbook that was almost completely untouched. After the first ten pages or so of a 250 page workbook, it was completely blank. And less than $2. Definitely a score, and one we used for homeschool work this week.

4. Thursday is my normal day off, but it ended being a hectic one with way too many meetings, plus a trip to the vet for the dogs (when we’d taken them in previously they were out of a vaccine so I had to take them back for just a short visit and a shot for each of them).

Since I have the kiddo home with me on Thursdays, I decided to ask Bob if he would come down for the day to help while I was stuck in front of my laptop. He lives about an hour north or so, which is much closer than his previous homes in Flagstaff and then Bend. A big part of moving back to Washington was to be there to help, and that help is so appreciated.

We got to head over to the park near us and play soccer/run around together, and then I left them to play in the sunshine while I headed home for one of my meetings. The kiddo adores his “Uncle” Bob, and that relationship is such a special one. All kids should have non-parent adults in their lives, and our kiddo is so, so lucky to have so many of them in his life.

5. While I sat in on meetings, they also made some homemade pizza dough for dinner (and did a great job!). Having pre-canned pizza sauce on the shelf for “quick” homemade pizza nights during the week is great.

We also added homemade candied jalapenos, homemade sausage, and garden veggies as pizza toppings. For a fraction of the cost of even cheap pizzas, we get to eat some pretty awesome ones.

Exercise Update

My ankle is still healing, so most of my exercise this past week has been slow walks or hikes with my ankle in a brace. I did do some dancing around with the kiddo though, and it’s slowly getting better.

Thursday, I *did* run a tiny bit – ten one minute runs with walk breaks in between. Maybe I should have waited a bit longer, but on the ball field at the park in the sunshine and I couldn’t help myself. Oops. But at least they were slow and short, and hopefully I won’t set myself back for it.