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Six Questions To Know More About You

Last Updated: BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 70 Comments

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Six Questions To Know More About YouHello everyone! I hope everyone is having a great week. I recently realized that I haven’t done a Question and Answer post with all of you in a long time.

As always, I love hearing more about all of you.

Answer the questions below (skip any if you would like) and lets all get to know each other a little bit better.

1. What’s your name, and what do you do for a living?

Well, I’ll start off with an easy question. In case you didn’t know, my name is Michelle. For some reason, people don’t think that’s my real name, but it is! Even though I started off “anonymously” blogging, I always used my real name.

I am currently a full-time freelancer.

I have been freelancing for a few years now, but I just recently switched to only freelancing in October of 2013 when I left my day job to pursue this full-time. I provide a wide range of services. These include: managing my own websites (I have several); managing websites for others; staff writing; social media management; and more.

2. Do you want to follow your passion? If so, what is your passion?

This is my passion. I really enjoy what I do and I’m still happy that I left my day job to do this full-time. I don’t ever see myself going back and working for someone else again! 🙂

Read Pursuing What I Love or What Brings in the (Stable) Money if you are interested in hearing more about this topic.

3. How much debt do you have?

My student loans are completely paid off (thanks to side hustling), but we do still have a mortgage.

We are not trying to pay it off quickly though because we do plan on buying a home within the next 2 years. I believe our mortgage right now sits at around $112,000. We live in St. Louis where housing is very cheap.

4. Where do you want to live? Do you live in your dream location?

Right now, we live in St. Louis. Around one year ago, we were looking to sell our current house and buy a second one in the St. Louis area, but we decided to stop.

While we do love the St. Louis area, we have been thinking a lot about moving to a different state.

At first, we were thinking about moving to Florida (Florida is still at the top of our list), but now we are really interested in Colorado. We went on a 2 week road trip and saw a lot of Colorado, and it made us really interested in moving to the state. There are just so many amazing outdoorsy things to do there and the weather is wonderful.

What’s your favorite town in Colorado? If any of you live there, where would you recommend?

We want a place with a nice view, a place that is safe, good schools in the area (we do plan on having children in the future), and somewhat nice weather. We’d prefer it to not be 30 or 40 degrees in the summer time! 🙂

5. What are your summer vacation plans?

We have done a good amount of traveling so far this summer. We went to Colorado for two weeks in June, and we just got back from an 8 day cruise to the Caribbean in July.

Wes is going on a week long hike with a friend on the Colorado Trail (they’re not doing the whole trail as it’s around 500 miles), but they do plan on doing as much of it as they can.

Then, we are going to Belize to meet with a potential client of mine in the next few weeks.

Lastly, we have FinCon which is in the middle of September in New Orleans. Wes is coming with me because he is in the beginning stages of creating his own website. I am excited to share his blogging journey with all of you and I can’t wait to share his website.

I’m loving all of the traveling that we have on our calendar for the next few months. We will be quite active. However, I am a homebody and I usually get home sick haha!

6. Would you rather have a part-time job or a side hustle?

The other day I published an article about why I started a side hustle over a part-time job. Different people have their own preferences, but for me, I am happy that I started a side hustle.

My side hustle eventually led to me freelancing online full-time, and I am now having the best time of my life. I wouldn’t change a thing!

Read my article on my other blog Why I’d Rather Have A Side Hustle Than A Part-Time Job.

Answer away!

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About Michelle Schroeder-Gardner

Michelle is the founder of Making Sense of Cents, a blog about personal finance and traveling. She discusses how her business has evolved in her side income series. She paid off $40,000 in student loans by the age of 24 mainly due to her freelancing side hustles. Click here to learn more about starting a blog!

Comments

  3. Nichole says

    I know I am biased on Florida, but I love it here! We have many friends that left Florida though and moved to CO, so obviously it’s a great place to live as well.

    Reply

  5. John @ Wise Dollar says

    Very cool idea Michelle, here’s my answers:

    John
    I’m doing it right now running our business as I’ve always wanted to work for myself.
    Other than our mortgage, no debt at all. Omaha is fairly cheap as well. 🙂
    That’s a tough one. My wife would likely say San Diego since she is from there. I’d likely say somewhere in Europe – either Germany or Ireland.
    We’re going on a 3 week trip to San Diego next month, FinCon in September and a family vacation to Chicago in October.
    Side hustle all the way!

    Reply

  6. Retired by 40 says

    1. Name and What you do for a living: Well, my name is Gretchen and I am an Accountant.
    2. I have passion for many things, and am slowly working on following them. I love writing, especially about anything money-related, and I love being an accountant. It seems strange, but I love being able to be my perfectionist self at work.
    3. How much debt do you have? Right now we’re sitting at about $107,000. In just under 3 years, we’ll be debt-free, and then pushing towards retiring by 40
    4. Where do you live and want to live? Right now we live in St. Louis, but I would really love to get out of the Midwest at some point. Not sure exactly where, yet.
    5.Summer Vacation Plans? Ahhhh, summer vacation is kind of this unreachable dream, because I lost all of my time with my company with I had my daughter. So, we’re taking a 3-day mini vacation to Tennessee in September.
    6. Definitely part-time job and side-hustle. I need the structure that my day-job gives me, but my side hustle is where my passion is at 🙂

    Reply

  7. kammi says

    Michelle, you are so CLOSE to me! Haha! I love your blog! I currently work for a tech company in LA that focuses on entertainment (movie stuff) and the military/ auto industries (that’s NOT Louisiana btw LOL), and am honing my design skills by also studying everything from carpentry to welding/machining, coding and architecture/robotics in my spare time, with the intention of eventually moving to San Francisco. Somewhere in there, I’d like to move to Geneva, Switzerland (my brother is already a UK citizen so it’s not completely crazy). I have NO debt (quite the opposite). For vacation, the only place I’d like to go would be to my home country in the Caribbean (I’m actually from there, have a house, etc!), to visit my family and those I love, but I’d have to wait till January because I have to renew my passport then, in the midst of Carnival (which is craziness itself because the whole ISLAND is on holiday and no work gets done because everyone is DRUNK or hung over from too much partying); for summer I’m visiting the Jet Propulsion Lab, though, which I”m really excited about! I would probably want both; the side hustle and the part time, even though I do hustle a lot and have several extra sources of income here and there.

    Reply

  8. Wade @ DestinationFinancialWisdom.com says

    1. Name/occupation? – Wade, I am currently a Support Consultant for an accounting firm based out of the San Francisco area. I work remotely from our house in Fargo, ND. I support a large accounting/financial software package we sell/implement.

    2. Passion? Tough question. I continue to work for someone. So I have some “work” to do. I don’t hate/enjoy what I do. It is pretty flexible and the pay is ok. My hours are reasonable. I would love for us to adopt a more simple lifestyle so we didn’t have to work so much. Spend less, make less, live more. This is my goal, but my wife loves to work and we have 3 kids (14, 11 and 6), so any change that I want is not necessarily what the whole family wants.

    3. Debt? – We have been debt free including the mortgage since 2007. We worked very hard to get rid of the mortgage. Our house is currently worth about $330k or so. We could down-house if needed. Being debt free does give us flexibility, but we aren’t really taking advantage of it right now. We are just saving at a high rate.

    4. My dream location is just NW of Phoenix, AZ. We love the smaller community Anthem. Amazing weather, reasonable house prices, reasonable cost of living, proximity to Phoenix. We live in Fargo, ND which has pretty horrible weather 7-8 months of the year. The contrast between here and Florida, S. California, Arizona is pretty drastic. I can easily handle 3 “warmer” months and 9 very nice months of weather.

    5. We vacationed in Anthem for 8 days. Poeple think it is too hot in the summer, but 100 in Phoenix is not 100 most places. Dry heat, low humidity. It is perfect swimming and relaxation weather. We can swim at 5am or 11pm. We went to Sedona and the Grand Canyon. Very fun and relaxing. Beautiful mountains surrounding you.

    6. I work from home, but my goal would be to find ways to work for myself instead of for a company with set hours. I am thinking and planning ways to do this that could generate similar income. I am very impressed with your income and creativity.

    Thanks for asking these great questions!

    Reply

  9. MomCents says

    1. What’s your name, and what do you do for a living?
    My name is Mom Cents, you can call me MC — or Daria Bartlett (which I pretty much only use on FB). Both the first and the last name are loosely interpreted to mean wealth.

    2. Do you want to follow your passion? If so, what is your passion?
    Of course I WANT to follow my passion! Am I? Not so much right now…
    I would love to be able to serve in the ministry full time

    3. How much debt do you have?
    A little over $30,000

    4. Where do you want to live? Do you live in your dream location?
    Wow another St. Louisian! There are a lot of us STL bloggers — maybe we should have a STL bloggers meetup in the future…but I digress. I don’t know that I really have a dream vacation. I would LOVE to live in Germany for a few years…don’t know why…I’ve never been there.

    5. What are your summer vacation plans?
    Nothing too spectacular….working mostly
    I do have a stay-cation planned next month with a couple of friends
    Got my son in Mom & Me swim lessons

    6. Would you rather have a part-time job or a side hustle?
    Side hustle – It has more potential and flexibility. And since it is a SIDE hustle…I wouldn’t be worried about the security of the income.

    Great idea!

    Reply

  12. Aldo@MillionDollarNinja says

    1. My name is Aldo Rancier and I’m an Analytical Chemist in a major Pharmaceutical Company.

    2. My passion is music and I used to be in a few bands, but was never able to get in a band that made it. Will I pursue my passion? Probably not for now; maybe if I ever become financially independent and don’t have to work for a living then who knows.

    3. I paid off all my consumer debt (~$15,000) but still have some student loans (~$8,000). I am trying to pay it all by the end of April next year.

    4. I live in NJ because that’s where all my family came to land from Dominican Republic, but I would like to live in Europe (at least for a few years).

    5. I just got back from a trip to Boise, Idaho and Yellowstone, which was pretty cool. The rest of the summer I’ll just work and enjoy a few weekend trips (camping, beach, lake, etc.)

    6. Side hustle is definitely better. I don’t want to work more hours for “The Man”

    Reply

  13. James Salmons says

    Getting to know you Q&A:

    1. Name and Occupation

    Name: James Salmons
    Work: Writer, Personal Finance Educator

    2. Passion

    The purpose of my primary website states my passion well: to help as many people as possible become as successful as possible with their money. However, I enjoy teaching other things as well: gardening, website work, etc.

    3. Debt

    Although there was a time when I had excessive debt, I have ZERO debt now and have had none for years. One of the best things I ever was how to get in control of my money and out of debt. The liberation of being debt free is
    worth every bit of the effort required to get there.

    4. Location

    I live just outside of Alexandria, Minnesota, on about 20 acres of rolling farmland. I enjoy visiting other places but feel at home here.

    5. Vacation plans

    When our children were young we took lots of “mini-vacations” of sorts, mostly camping trips and the like. But we never planned what to do or where to go.

    We would load all or gear in a big van (so we could do whatever we wanted), get in and ask, “Where should we go?” Often we would just pick pick a direction to start. Unless we want to see friends or relatives in the process, we rarely plan ahead. It is a part of getting way or “vacating” that I like.

    6. Job or hustle?

    I created my first “hustle” when I was in kindergarten, no joke, although it was at my mom’s expense and she never knew about it.

    Other than when I was in college and worked in a grocery store, I have always been self-employed (although as a professional I had positions at times that were essentially salaried though not tax wise or technically) but that was over thirty years ago.

    Self-employment is in my blood and I cannot imagine living any other way.

    Reply

      • James Salmons says

        Thanks for the reply and for visiting my site, Wade.

        Yes, we are not far apart and we drive up to Fargo occasionally for shopping. In fact I came quite often back when I was building my house to shop at Acme Electric for tools, one of my favorite places. I love the Mexican restaurant over by the mall, too.

        The content on my site started to go along with my classes, “How to Take Control of Your Money and Your Life.” It grew from there. I appreciate your checking it out. I like what I see on yours as well. Some good tips.

        Your last post, “Downgrade your stuff, upgrade your life,” is timely for me. I am just getting ready to go to AT&T to talk about downgrading my phone set up. I have 5 phones on our plan and spend around $300 a month altogether, but some of us don’t really use some of the services. It is certainly wasteful to keep paying for stuff you don’t use. I can think of many better uses for my money.

        Good success!

        Reply

  14. Kayla @ Shoeaholicnomore says

    1. I’m Kayla and I’m in Ag Banking (currently) and I don’t LOVE it 🙁 Hoping to get some debt paid down and then find and pursue my true passion in life.

    2. What is my passion? I don’t know. But, I do know I love writing and since I started my blog in December, I’m been LOVING blogging.

    3. I have about $18k of consumer debt/student loans and my mortgage, which is about $117k.

    4. I live in the midwest, USA.

    5. I have no vacations planned due to the debts I’m trying to pay off.

    6. I have both a side hustle and a part-time job (in addition to my full-time job). I really like my side hustle more right now. I know it’s still new, but I’m loving getting to work on it whenever I have time and even in my PJs while sitting in bed. The flexibility of a side hustle is nice! I’m hoping to start making enough from my side hustle to quit at least one of my part-time jobs in the near future. 🙂

    Reply

  15. Sara says

    I moved with my husband and two small kids from California to Erie, CO about 5 years ago. We absolutely love it here! Pretty close to both Denver and Boulder. Award winning schools, awesome Community Center amenities, great weather and very safe. (It was just named the #1 safest place on some list or another.)

    Reply

  16. Daniel says

    1. I’m Daniel, and I’m a seminary student currently doing a year long pastoral internship. The goal is that I’ll be ordained as a pastor in the (ELCA) Lutheran church in two years.

    2. Yes! If it wasn’t my passion, going into full-time ministry would be an insane career path!

    3. Debt – I’d rather not say the exact amount, but between my wife and I we have somewhere in the neighborhood of $55,000 – all student loan debt. Most of it is from college, but a little is from seminary as well. We’ve actually paid off almost $12,000 while I’m in seminary, which I think is pretty good!

    4. I live in Dubuque, Iowa, because that’s where both the seminary and my internship congregation are located! After seminary, we could be almost anywhere.

    5. My summer vacation is over now, but we had a great time visiting my parents, my wife’s parents, and going to Lifest, a music festival in Wisconsin.

    6. My full-time job is obviously working in the church, but I also have a couple of niche websites that serve as a side hustle to help pay down that debt!

    Reply

    • Michelle S. says

      Haha yes he’s been interested for awhile, so I’m glad he finally wants to start one though. His is a secret for now. I will say that it won’t be about personal finance though.

      Reply

  18. Alicia @ Financial Diffraction says

    That’s so exciting that Wes is starting to blog as well. My fiancé is thinking about starting a niche website on the side as well, and I’m super excited to help him a bit. I am no expert whatsoever, but I have an answer or two to questions he might have. That being said, he’s mostly my technical guy (he was the one who got my site self-hosted, etc) so it might be a lot easier for him than it was for me.

    Our mortgage isn’t gigantic either, because housing costs are cheap-ish here. So the mortgage is roughly $170k. Not awesome, but that’s pretty good considering what it could be in other parts of the country for comparable houses.

    Reply

    • Michelle S. says

      I don’t think $170K is bad at all. I see some bloggers who live in expensive areas with mortgages o $500K for a starter home and that just scares me!

      Reply

  19. Jason B says

    1. I’m Jason. I work PT for the Atl Braves and I blog.
    2. Traveling and helping people are 2 of my passions.
    3. Debt – A little under 70K
    4. I live in Atlanta. I want to move to FL, somewhere out west or overseas.
    5. I went to DC last week. I’m probably going to Cleveland in Sept.
    6. Side hustle

    Reply

  20. Nat says

    1. What’s your name, and what do you do for a living?

    My name is Natalie and I’m a legal assistant. I work with four lawyers in a mid-size law firm in Toronto.

    2. Do you want to follow your passion? If so, what is your passion?

    Travelling is my ultimate passion, but I haven’t done so much of it. The world is so beautiful and I want to see all of it in my lifetime! I really am passionate about my family and I want to be a good mom to my son! 🙂

    3. How much debt do you have?

    I have a car loan and mounting credit card debt. So about 10K in total. Planning to rid myself of this debt in a year!

    4. Where do you want to live? Do you live in your dream location?

    I would love to own a home in the next city over to where I am living now. Right now to save money for a down-payment and to pay off my debts, I have moved back home with my mom, with my family in tow.. She has been gracious enough to have us! She’s the BEST!

    5. What are your summer vacation plans?

    I stayed in Miami with a good friend for about 3 days and it was a nice fun girls getaway. Other than that small weekend getaways not to far from where I live is going to be it, until I can afford a better vacation.

    I would love to travel all over Europe next summer. That would be amazing.

    6. Would you rather have a part-time job or a side hustle?

    Well neither! HAHA but if I had to choose one, I would prefer to have a side hustle.

    Reply

  21. James Salmons says

    Thanks for the comment.

    Yes, we enjoy having our home in the country which was a dream for us for some years as well. We have been here almost 20 years now and keep improving it. Our latest addition was a greenhouse/shed, 30’X30′ with the south 12’X30′ being the greenhouse.

    You might be interested in how we got the land. “Homestead” acreage, plots of 5-10 acres in particular are difficult to find, especially in our area. But I found what was advertised as 56 acres (it turned out to be a little less) of farmland that had been on the market some time being too small to interest most area farmers but a lot more than home owner/ homesteaders could afford.

    Having some knowledge of real estate I immediately thought of offering half of what they wanted for half of the land, an amount not much more than I would have had to pay for a large lot, and they jumped at it.
    Their real estate agent recognized right away that I had thought of what he should have. They sold it to me and within two weeks sold the rest. I have more land than I really expected but it has worked out well and we enjoy the greater privacy.

    Reply

  23. Pauline says

    I would choose CO over FL, I loved Miami but it looks like the weather is too hot and too wet too often, plus the hurricanes. CO is beautiful.
    Let me know if you can squeeze a couple of days to visit Tikal in Guatemala while you’re in Belize!

    Reply

    • Michelle S. says

      Yeah, the hurricanes are something that scares me! I am also very tired of the humid weather in St. Louis, so that’s why we are leaning more towards Colorado.

      And yes, I will let you know! 🙂 I would love to meet you.

      Reply

  24. Lisa E. @ Lisa vs. the Loans says

    1. What’s your name, and what do you do for a living?
    My name is Lisa and I’m a treasury analyst!

    2. Do you want to follow your passion? If so, what is your passion?
    Eventually, yes! My problem is defining what my passions are! I know I love helping others as well as personal finance, so I’m leaning towards becoming a financial coach or advisor.

    3. How much debt do you have?
    Too much, haha. Right now, I’m in $312,080 in debt – this includes mortgage, car loan, student loans, and credit card debt. YUCK!

    4. Where do you want to live? Do you live in your dream location?
    I love where I live – San Francisco Bay Area. But I’ve always want to live in New York…

    5. What are your summer vacation plans?
    This weekend, my friends and I are off to San Diego for Comic Con! I wonder if FinCon in New Orleans counts…

    6. Would you rather have a part-time job or a side hustle?
    Side hustle!

    Reply

  25. Anna Pry says

    I’m Anna, I work at running our household, homeschooling the kids and bringing in extra income by sweepstaking. I want to follow my passion for growing organic produce. We have over 50K in debt, most of it from student loans. We just moved a few weeks ago to where we’ve been dreaming of living- the mountains of NC. Spending the summer getting to know our new town. My side hustle is blog giveaways and twitter parties, also some ebay sales.

    Reply

  26. alena svetelska says

    Hi,my name is Alena Svetelska and i am stay at home mom.My passion is entering sweepstakes and more cooking.My debt is around 40.000 90% medical bills.We just moved here 2 years ago,we live in townhouse.We were in situation being homeless where our old complex closed down and we had 48 hours to move out.Thank to good friends and our savings we were able to to afford this nice place,Its not in perfect location,but its home.Our vacation plans r none excisting,my hubby get paid his vacation days as we strugling financially,money r tight,one reason i started doing sweestakes in 1st place 3y. ago.I have been trying look for job,but its not been easy,when i have to take and pick up kids from and to school.

    Reply

  28. clint odeza says

    1. What’s your name, and what do you do for a living?
    My name is Clint Odeza i’m a computer sales techinician

    2. Do you want to follow your passion? If so, what is your passion?
    yes my passion is to give better living to my family

    3. How much debt do you have?
    right now I dont have debts

    4. Where do you want to live? Do you live in your dream location?
    I would love to live somewhere in canada…or a place where I could earn a living for my family and provide their needs

    5. What are your summer vacation plans?
    right now the summer is over here in ph. but usually on summer we go out on picnics with my family. I hope I could find more time to spend with them because I work far from my family

    6. Would you rather have a part-time job or a side hustle?
    Side hustle –secure income

    Reply

  29. Kasia says

    1 – I’m Kasia and currently enjoying maternity leave. I’m due to return to work for a finance company after my maternity leave ends but hoping to avoid that.
    2 – Writing is my passion, I’ve been doing it since I was ten. I’d love to get the courage to let someone read my fiction works but they usually end up in the trash before anyone can lay eyes on them. Health & fitness and personal finance are probably the topics I’m most passionate about so I’d love to spend my days doing something that revolves around both but is also location independent.
    3 – Debt wise I’ve got a few thousand on a credit card that seems to get paid off and then topped up again, and we’ve got a 0% car loan of $20,000, and then there’s student loans of $36,000 which get paid off come tax time with the amount depending on how much I earn in a given year, they get adjusted each year in line with inflation.
    4 – I live in Australia and love it. My fiancé and I would like to be able to spend 2-4 months of the year living in Europe in order to spend more time with our extended families. It’s definitely something that we’d like to work on making happen in the next 5-10 years.
    5 – Currently we have no vacation plans but have family coming to visit us for a month from Europe in September. Our summer vacation is December/January, and I’d love to spend a few days exploring the Whitsunday Islands and the Great Barrier Reef but that’s a maybe as this year is full of expenses.
    6 – Side hustle definitely.

    Reply

  30. Laura S. says

    1. My name is Laura and I currently own and run a tutoring center. I am also an independent business evaluator.

    2. I am following my passions. I love my work. Probably the only downside is the tutoring doesn’t make me completely flexible.

    3. Debt-Too much 🙁

    4. I live in NH (mountains, beach, and overall beautiful scenery) and am originally from MI (not interested in the state itself so much but most of family and friends are there). Ultimately, I would like to split my time between the two. I did move to Florida for four years and absolutely hated it. Living there is very different from visiting. I found those who weren’t originally from the state (90% it seems) either loved it or hated it. It seemed as if many were running away from their problems.

    5. I went to Florida in June to visit my adult kids. I will be going to Michigan in October.

    6. I definitely prefer side hustles. My two jobs are “side hustles” that together make up full-time employment. Having two “jobs” makes me feel a bit more secure and keeps me from being bored. I also used to be a semi-successful blogger for several years. I gave that up when I grew to hate it.

    Reply

  32. Marina says

    1. My name is Marina at the moment I am taking some time off over the summer.

    2.Passion. Restoring my French farmhouse, I have already finished a small cottage, which was just some old outbuilding.

    3.Debt. I have no debts at the moment.

    4. I live in Burgundy, France. I used to live in Los Angeles and England. My dream location is living here in France.

    5. Taking a road trip down to the south of France for a few days, but when you live in such a beautiful place as Burgundy. I am more than happy to stay at home.

    6. Side hustle.

    Reply

  34. Cathleen Jia says

    I actually spent a week in Costa Rica this summer! It was truly breathtaking! I definitely recommend going! 🙂

    Reply

  35. Dana Newman says

    Great getting to know you! 🙂 Was definitely amused by the places you mentioned being interested in living–I grew up in Florida but now my parents live in Colorado, so when I go back to the States to visit “home” I often travel to Colorado. I’ve been to Fort Collins in CO and it’s an AMAZING city. It’s not huge or overwhelming but not tiny either. The atmosphere is so chill and relaxing, and EVERYONE is friendly.
    All the best! -Dana

    Reply

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