About Me

My name is Miss T and I was born and raised in Manitoba, Canada, where my husband and I still live today. I have seen a lot challenge in my life – I was bullied as a kid, I was sick as a kid, had a sick mother growing up, had families that lost homes in a flood, etc. – but I have been able to be resilient and get though all of these difficulties. I guess I always saw the need to go on and persevere. Giving up just wasn’t an option. People in my life and my future self relied on me to keep plugging along. Growing up my mother nicknamed me the “little engine that could” because I would always find a way to get past each road block and keep going.

I grew up in a very close family, one that invested their time, energy, and love into one another. My parents have always been very supportive in any opportunity I have pursued. They taught me to work hard and treat others with respect. Sometimes I think they took the working hard thing a bit too far but hey, they tried their best.

I love everything. To list the things I have an interest in would take pages and pages but here is a brief idea. I love photography. I love the ability to freeze a moment in time; a precious memory that you can see and be reminded of time and time again.

I also love family and children. From the time I could walk I think, I have been helping people out and caring for others, including other’s children. In fact when my relatives lost their homes in the flood, I took a break from school to raise two newborn babies. I was just so natural at it and I felt great being able to help. To this day, having a family is one of my top goals. Being a mother is something I meant to do. The current plan is starting a family within two years.

I am also very passionate about health care. I currently work in the health care industry and I find it very rewarding. Being able to help those sick in need gives my life some purpose and conviction.

When I first graduated high school I didn’t go directly to University. I had a plan to attend a local college but there was a two year waiting list to get into my desired program. So in the meantime I continued working at my family’s business. I had been working there all through high school so the job wasn’t new. It was great. It was a stable income that I could count on. However, working with family can have it’s challenges. You end up taking work home with you and when there was an issue at work it became an issue at home. Eventually I felt the need to go out and work somewhere else. My mother encouraged me to apply at our local hospital to cover vacation relief as a physician assistant since I liked medicine, so I did. I ended up getting a job there that unknown to me at the time, would pave the way for my future career success. Each job led to another, and with each job I got a bit of a raise or more responsibility. Eventually I got to the point where I would need to take some courses to get any farther. So I enrolled in university and started doing courses in the evening while I worked full time. In the past 6 years I have completed three diploma programs and am close to finishing my degree. All of this has been done while working full time. I guess it is that hard working attitude that my parents taught me that is paying off. As I have completed programs, new jobs have presented themselves and I am now in a job that I love. In fact, my schooling now is just a formality because I don’t plan on leaving my current role anytime soon.

My ultimate goal in life is simple: to live a full and rewarding life; one that I can look back on and smile at. I don’t ever want to pass up an opportunity to do something that I might later regret. I want to be all I can be and experience all the world has to offer with my husband. Together we will continue to live a happy and fulfilling life.

About Prairie Eco-Thrifter

Prairie Eco-Thrifter just kind of happened. It was a creative experiment I started in the spring of 2010. My husband had been subscribing to some blogs for a few years and after reading a few of his emails I too started to read and subscribe to some blogs. I found out soon after how valuable they are. I loved reading the stories about what people had learned about a certain topic and how I could learn the same stuff.

At this point I started to think about blogging myself. I thought “I wonder if I could share some things I have learned and if people would actually read them.” So, one day on a whim I started Prairie Eco-Thrifter. I originally started it in Blogger but soon realized that WordPress was the way to go. I transferred my domain over and created a new template for the site.

It took a really long time to get any readers. In fact, I would go a week or two with only getting a couple more. Plus I never got comments. I couldn’t seem to get any discussion going. I was really discouraged. I thought my experiment was a flop and I should just give up. But then I discovered Yakezie.

I signed up for the Yakezie challenge on June 9/10. At this point my Alexa ranking was 1,722,015. After joining the challenge my blog started to gain momentum and readers. As happy as I was with the growth, it wasn’t quite the rate I was expecting. In fact, I still haven’t technically hit the 200,000 mark, unlike many of my co-challengers. My current ranking is 231,574. Despite this I have decided to not give up on blogging. There are days when I am tired and can’t think of things to write but I want to keep blogging.

I have seen so many personal benefits from it in the year that I have been doing it. I have been able to expand my knowledge in topics that I didn’t even have an interest in before- like personal finance, lol! I have always been more into self improvement, being healthy, and looking after the environment. I guess that’s why along with personal finance, I blog about living green and healthy.

I have also challenged my brain. I have always written for work or school but never just for kicks. Writing posts has given my brain a new stimulating workout. I love knowing that I am using it.

I have also made a huge amount of friends on the Yakezie network. The network is full of such amazing people; people who are caring, supportive, helpful, and inspiring. People that I thought were hard to find in this day and age. I think this is what has kept me going on the longest. If I stopped blogging I would lose these great new friends that I have made.

Well, there you have it everyone. This is how I got started blogging. I hope you have learned a bit more about me today and what makes me tick and I hope to continue to learn more about all of you. Thank you everyone for allowing me to be part of this amazing community. It has been an absolute honour. I hope to continue to add valuable knowledge to the blogging world of personal finance and simple living and I look forward to continue working with all of you.

Cheers!

Miss T