I enjoy the Bundle Tumblr very much. It's totally a fresh spin on regular personal finance blogs.

Thanks, Pink. Perhaps you know that I am one of two people who maintain that Tumblr.

good interview, bingo!

I did, in fact, know that.

I was hoping you'd give me a cookie for the shoutout. Where's my cookie?!?

I owe you one cookie.

I suppose the discrete thing for me to do would have been to not say anything, but give you the cookie privately. Oh well.

YOU RUINED IT. Now I deserve two cookies.

Wow! Not only do I love this interview, I love this site and topic. Really great questions and great responses.

For a lot of people who live a more creative lifestyle, internalizing financial discipline and not telling themselves that they've become a conservative person is difficult.

You've articulated something I think is really important in this question, and so did Jessamyn in her interview. Our culture's relationships with money seem to me to be about as fraught as our relationships with food - we oscillate between excessive spending and excessive constraint, make choices that are bad for us, some people have a lot and some not enough, etc. And because, historically, it was always considered bad form to talk about your money - how much you have, how you manage it, why, your purposes for it, how to get more, life stages, whatever - its' always been this big mystery to figure out what you're supposed to do about it.

I think about this topic a lot - I'm chronically frugal and mostly prefer experiences to stuff - but it's wonderful to be able to give yourself what you value when you need it, and i do have financial goals. It's taken me a long time to think smartly about money,and I'm not even out of debt yet.

But for creative people - At some point I really had to level with myself that I didn't have unlimited money, and was going to want to think about what I most valued so I could know what to spend the limited amount on. Giving up on comparing yourself to people who have (and use) more disposable cash is important. Another thing that helps me control spending is actually my politics. I'm not all that eager to embrace Consumer as my primary identity, to enrich the executive staff of distance corporations, to contribute to the homogenization of America - so sometimes I can talk myself out of purchases that are motivated by more knee-jerk, 'retail-therapy' or laziness factors than true desire or need. And some things become worth more because they embody values - good food, for instance. Travel. Well-made clothing that will last a long time.

Great stuff. I'm really glad you can self-link here. :)

Great interview with Jessamyn and great comment by Miko.

Maybe bingo can put the longer interview someplace since we talked for a lot longer than what they actually printed. Ive been having a really hard time lately being more comfortable financially and realizing that some of my old patterns seem freaky and yet not wanting to replace them with shopping for stuff. It was a fun interview, glad to have more people seeing it.

Thanks for the comments, Miko. These are issues that I am struggling with right now too, as I attempt to transition to a more freelance lifestyle. And thanks again, Jessamyn!