In the previous article that I wrote in this series, I talked about dealing with the massive overwhelm that you experience as you delve into any new subject; which was something I was struggling with early on when I decided to get into UX. During my initial overview of the subject, the more I knew, the more I knew I didn’t know.

I’ve also talked a little bit about the benefits of going the self-taught route and skipping expensive traditional educational routes when you’re first getting started.

The biggest benefits of being self-taught:

1. Saving money (or even staying out of more debt like I wanted to…

Most of us walk around with a smartphone in our pocket every day and are able to capture pretty good pictures. But making the leap from smart-phone photographer to grabbing your first “real camera” can be incredibly intimidating. It’s expensive, the camera is full of settings you don’t understand, and you’re not really sure where to even start.

I get it… I just made the leap a little over a month ago and I wanted to share what I’ve learned along the way to help you get more confident with your camera.

Here are some examples of what I’ve been…

Resting my hand on the round glass casing, cold with frost and cradled in the smooth metal below; I stared into the darkness ahead. We had built these tunnels centuries earlier, as a way to quickly receive shipments from our sister planets. We hadn’t had much use for them once the shipments had stopped. That was our first sign, and we didn’t even realize it then.

I stared down at the icy eyelashes of the man I loved — asleep to me, hopefully one day to awaken out of harm's way. His cold lips glittered with frost that reminded me…

December 2020

This is mainly a record for me to see growth and trends over time. That said, I hope that it might offer some transparency as I get started for others that might be interested as well!

A bit of background on me

I’m definitely not a professional writer, but I’ve done a few blog posts on things that interest me in the past. I also loved writing in school. I’m currently a UX Designer for a software company and I travel full-time in my RV while working remotely. I’ve been writing about design, personal finance, being a digital nomad and some of my past life experiences.

Focus of this month

…

This year I had a grand total of 3 glasses of wine.

I didn’t purposely set a limit, it’s just what ended up happening. The actual goal was to be more mindful of when I chose to drink. I was curious about what I might learn about my own relationship with it and see how I might choose to change my habits moving forward based on what I learned with this more hands-on approach.

Over the course of the year, that decision has drastically changed how I view my relationship with drinking and our collective culture around it. This time…

I’ve recently been writing about my switch into Tech and offering help to those that are also making the switch. Part of sharing my process is also sharing my results. This article goes over what I’ve made in 2019 and 2020 as I’ve moved from a Junior UX Designer to a Mid-level UX designer.

• If you’re interested in getting into UX without going back to school, here is an article on how exactly I did that.
• If you want to see how much money I made during the 1st year as an intern and as a Junior UX Designer at…

There are 2 things that most of us seem to struggle with in some capacity:

1. Our Jobs — getting one, keeping one, and balancing work with our lives.
2. Our Money — Making it, managing it, and growing it.

But what if you could stop worrying about both of these things early on? That’s exactly what the FIRE movement is all about. …

We got engaged 2 years ago, and we still aren’t married. To be honest, I’m not sure we ever will be. At first, I was confused and anxious about my cold feet. I was initially so excited about being engaged…

At the best of times, I told myself that maybe it was normal. At the worst of times, I thought I must not love my fiance enough, or there was something awfully wrong with me if I didn’t want to go through with the wedding I’d already agreed to.

I now know that neither of those is the case.

It…