Welcome to the first edition of the Snowflake Member Spotlight! Each week, I’ll be posting an interview with one of the Snowflake Revolution member blogs. This week’s volunteer is Shanti who blogs at Antishay Ventenne about personal finance, life, self-improvement, simple living, and much more! If you’d like to be the subject of a future spotlight, contact me using the join the revolution link. I hope you enjoy learning more about Shanti as much as I did!

Tell us a little about yourself.

My name is Shanti - I live in Seattle and I have too many interests for my own good. I came into PF blogging in a very roundabout way and love every minute of it. In addition to personal finances, I adore organization and all things design - interior, web, graphic, clothing - and spend most of my free time reading and creating in those fields of interest. Besides that, I am obsessed with languages and study them as much as I can. Outside of hobbies, I love being creative with my hands and spending time with my other half, Sean - boyfriend extraordinaire.

Why did you start blogging?

I started blogging because I love to write and had no outlet for writing. I love researching and reading, too, and the three fit nicely together when writing a blog. I actually started Antishay Ventenne to write about fashion and makeup! But I quickly realized that all of my posts were going on and on about finances and debt reduction - and I hastily changed gears. I didn’t realize that I wanted to write about personal finance until I started writing about personal finance, and now I know that I love it. It fits me well.

If you could be remembered for only one thing, what would you like it to be?

I’d like to be remembered for my love. I am very compassionate and giving in my own way, and I’d like to think that those closest to me will think of me as someone who genuinely cared about and for them. This is part of the reason I started my WWSD series - I’d like to get closer to my readers and talk to them face-to-face - or, as much as video allows, anyway.

I’d also like to be remembered as very smart I am an INTJ (for all the MBTI people out there) and am obsessed with my brain. I love to learn and to teach what I learn, and to continue to ponder on all the things I don’t know enough about (meaning: everything). I romanticize about being in a think-tank some day.

What about finances inspires you enough to blog about it?

Personal finances are deeply related to everything we do: how we view the world, how we view ourselves, how we handle our own lives and how we interact with the people around us. I am deeply intrigued by the inter-personal and inner-self development that goes on when we start to work on, control, and monitor our own spending - and saving - habits.

What I’m most inspired by are the stories that people share about the improvement in their lives as a whole once they decided to take control of their finances. I especially love those stories which reveal the author’s love of life, found by discovering personal finance. Those are the stories that keep me writing, and keep on trying to be a better person.

What attracts you to the concept of snowflaking?

I am attracted to snowflaking because the concept is very encouraging. Sometimes it can be very difficult to look at a long road ahead and actually SEE the finish line. Snowflaking is the same as “baby steps,” is the same as “one step at a time,” is the same as “brick by brick, we will build this house.” In any classic metaphor, the best encouragement is that little by little, something great can be done.

I love snowflaking because it can apply to everything in life - not just money! I apply the snowflaking concept to my finances, for sure, but that’s not its limit. Whenever I do little things for myself, or for others, or see any teeny thing that makes me just a little bit happier, I call those moments “snowflakes of happiness.” I’ve been meaning to post about this for a while…

When a tiny happiness occurs, I smile to myself and think, “Another snowflake!” And the moment will cheer me up all day. I honestly believe we can snowflake happiness into our daily lives and be happier overall. This is why, no matter how frugal it would be to stop it, I still cherish those little things that make me sigh and smile - a milk chocolate truffle, a lavender bar of soap… Snowflakes of happiness! Because, after all, life is about living

What is your favorite snowflaking tip?

Never assume a little thing is a “nothing.” Even if it seems like total nothingness to you, keep it up for a while, and soon you’ll have a snow clump… later to be a snowball. I stop at the gas station frequently and, without fail, find change on the ground outside the convenience store. At first I’d walk by the pennies and nickels and ignore them, but about a year ago I started picking them up. After a couple of months, I had a few bucks in change in my car’s cupholder! So I continued. While $5 total means hardly anything in the span of six months, it gave me incredible encouragement to continue snowflaking in all the other income areas of my life, so that I was eventually snowflaking over $400/month. So I would remind you that it CAN be done… all you have to do is see through the falling snowflakes to the snowball ahead.

What is the strangest snowflake you ever had?

I went to Value Village to pick out some old clothes to cut up and use as fabric in this grunge-inspired top I was sewing. To go into the store you have to walk through the parking lot and past the dumpsters - and next to the dumpsters was a box of clothes someone obviously didn’t bother to take in. So I dug through the clothes and took out a few things and left. About a year later, I finally got to using one of the shirts in the box and in the pocket was $30! I don’t know why it was there but it was a surprise and completely confounding.

What is your favorite financial practice besides snowflaking?

Certainly not budgeting! I am terrible at budgets. Period. No, my favorite thing would have to be paying myself first. It was really a struggle to save for my emergency fund (Dave Ramsey’s Baby Step 1) when I was barely making the minimum payments to all my credit cards. But as I started to see money build up in the bank, I began to get more encouraged about this whole paying-me-first thing Now, I am psyched to be DEBT FREE!!!!! and to pay myself first and pay myself ALL of my income

Is frugality a part of who you are? Why or why not?

Yes and no. I was born with the creative, do-it-yourself, jack-of-all-trades gene, so I’m naturally inclined to try and do everything myself and pay for nothing I could potentially do on my own. I cringe whenever something costs a lot of money and I could do it without paying - for example, moving. Why pay movers?! I can do that! However, I went through a long period of time where I was getting into debt simply because of my seriously inflated expensive taste. So I’d say that part of me is completely indulgent and the other part is very frugal.

The balance came when I started to be able to see long-term rather than short-term. Looking at the long term, I’d rather be frugal, and I believe I grow more and more conscious of that every day that I get older and see more clearly my long-term goals and dreams.

Share some of your short term and long term financial goals.

I recently wrote about my early retirement plan and how I plan to retire at age 35. In the short term, I am working on paying off the last of my debt, then buying a motorcycle (my car is about to be no longer), then saving rapidly for 13 years and retiring.

How has blogging about finances improved your finances?

Blogging keeps me accountable and in touch with reality. I have a tendency, even now on a budget, to over-earmark bits of money for unexpected expenses. By blogging about my money weekly, I remember a lot more of what I plan to spend, and it helps me stay on budget and within the real-life parameters of my dollars. It also forces me to look at my finances objectively, rather than just inside my head, and often times leads me to wise decisions I don’t think I would have come up with otherwise

Thank you for this opportunity to share about my money, blog, and about me! The Snowflake Revolution is a great resource for so many people and I am honored to be part of it!