midlife - Surviving and Thriving

Midlife love rocks! (Ask me how I know.)

February 14, 2023 by Donna Freedman

(Happy Throwback Tuesday! I know it’s generally “Throwback Thursday,” but my playground, my rules. This post originally ran on Valentine’s Day in 2013. It’s a message that bears repeating, I think.)

I find myself in the middle of a Lifetime movie: Middle-aged woman leaves long-term abusive marriage, goes broke, wins a scholarship, stumbles into an unexpected career – and finds a man who’s perfect for her.

A man who’s smart, kind, funny, well-read, musically talented, astoundingly physical and – bonus! – extremely handy around the house.

A man who only gets her jokes but embroiders on them, and who wrote a smutty double dactyl in honor of her birthday.

A man who wants her for who she is, not for the person he thinks he can turn her into.

The experience has been startling, and humbling, and oh so gratifying. I never knew emotions came in this size.

Nope, I haven’t retired.

September 5, 2022 by Donna Freedman

It’s been way too long since I’ve published anything here, but that doesn’t mean I’ve retired from blogging. Blame a mix of deadlines and personal stuff, plus the need to enjoy the last days of summer; even though it’s been raining almost nonstop, I still love these days of near-nonstop light.

I’m also getting ready to go to the Financial Blogger Conference, which is in Orlando* this year. Hearing all the horror stories about flight delays or outright cancellations, I’m hoping for the best. But I am also planning to observe the mantra of the stranded seal hunter: Go with the floe.

Taken together, this has meant an undeclared sabbatical. I don’t want anyone to think I’ve given up on this site, because I haven’t retired either from it or from writing for a living. It’s just that other things get in the way of my wanting to post here regularly.

That whole work-life balance thing: If I could figure it out, I’d become a millionaire teaching other people how to do it. But I haven’t. And as far as I can tell, few people have.

That’s because we want to do it all – at least in theory.

Dr. Demento and the desecrated turkey

November 25, 2021 by Donna Freedman

(Happy Throwback Thursday! This article is from WAY back in the day: May 10, 2010. It was the eighth piece I published. Since the article has a Thanksgiving theme, sort of, I thought I’d re-run it in honor of turkey day.)

About five months ago I walked over to the Asian market to buy carrots and came home with a turkey. Yes, I know the difference between root vegetables and edible fowls. But the bird was on sale for 25 cents a pound. The whole thing cost only $2.65. I’ve paid more than that for a soft drink at a ballpark.

(What does this have to do with Dr. Demento? I’ll get to that.)

The bottle blonde at the DMV.

July 28, 2016 by Donna Freedman

(Recently a reader wrote to ask me to re-run this post. So I did. And a happy Throwback Thursday to you all.)

Yesterday I had the use of a car so I stopped at the Division of Motor Vehicles to get my driver’s license switched over. The clerk asked if I’d been licensed in Alaska previously, and was in fact able to find me in the system. Fill in form ABCXYZ, take the written test and you’re good to go.

Written test? Really? Couldn’t I be grandmothered in, based on the fact that I was once a licensed Alaska driver?

Nope. Moments later questions like “How much liability insurance is an Alaska driver required to carry?” were flashing before my eyes.

The answer is “$50,000/$100,000/$25,000.” Who knew? Not me, apparently, because I got four questions wrong and the testing system kicked me out.

I’ve been driving for 38 years and I flunked the blankety-blank written test. Still can’t quite believe that. The real surprise of the day, however, came from filling out the form.

How you gonna keep ’em down on the content farm?

November 23, 2012November 21, 2012 by Donna Freedman

Recently a commenter left this message:

“Donna, is it possible for you to write more thoughtful posts instead? All you are doing is writing simple posts on ways to try to make you money and giveaways.

“That’s nice and all, but the writing quality is really low. There’s not much insight or value added.”

My first response was, “Feel free to skip the stuff that doesn’t work for you.”

OK, that’s a lie. My first, visceral response was, “Feel free to kiss my ass! Even when I’m doing a quick-and-dirty piece the writing quality is higher than you’ll find just about anywhere else on the Internet.”***

My second response? She’s right. And I know it. Not about the low-quality part, but about the fact that I haven’t been doing enough substantive writing lately. That’s because the work-life balance continues to elude me.

Specifically: How do you balance work and life once you’ve gotten a glimpse of what life could be like if it didn’t have so much work in it?

The life I once led.

November 26, 2018March 12, 2012 by Donna Freedman

Eight years ago today I headed west. I had no idea what I might do, no idea that I was about to be reborn. In fact, I couldn’t see any kind of future for myself. The only thing I knew for sure was that the life I’d lived up until that moment was no longer bearable.

I left while my then-husband, also a writer, was covering an event several states away. The day before I’d flattened a rear tire in my Chevy Cavalier to keep him from driving it instead of his own vehicle. (Mine got better mileage.)

After getting the tire repaired, I packed what would fit into the little sedan, put Liz Phair’s “The Divorce Song” on the CD player and peeled out.

In less than three days I drove from Chicago to Seattle, a trip made notable by the fact that I somehow managed to get a speeding ticket in Montana.

Why I’m writing, and why you should read it.

January 24, 2016April 12, 2010 by Donna Freedman

In my late 40s, with about $130 to my name, I returned to college to get the degree that eluded me as a teenager. Frankly, that terrified me. But my life was already turned upside down: I’d left a long-term marriage and run through most of my savings to support myself and my disabled adult daughter. If I didn’t go then, I knew I’d never go.

That first year I survived on a crazy-quilt of gigs: babysitter, apartment house manager/handyma’am, work-study grunt, freelance writer, paid medical research volunteer, mystery shopper, oldest living cub reporter on the college paper. And I sank slowly into debt because divorce lawyers get paid by the minute.

An old acquaintance, now an editor with MSN Money, invited me to write an essay. “Surviving (and Thriving) on $12,000 a Year” appeared on Jan. 10, 2007. I figured it would be like any other article I’d ever written for newspapers or magazines: Some people would read it and agree, some would read it and get irritated, and the next day they’d all be thinking about something else.

Wrong. Thousands of readers e-mailed their reactions to the piece. Many others, especially personal-finance bloggers, discussed the article online. The folks at MSN Money realized this was a demographic that wasn’t getting heard: Folks living paycheck to paycheck, who couldn’t even think about retirement because day-to-day survival took all their financial and emotional resources.