Hi, I'm Diane. My husband Greg and I live in Franklin, Ohio, a small city off I-75 between Dayton and Cincinnati, in a 1977 split-level we bought in 1999. We raised two kids here. Emily is an ICU nurse in Columbus, and Josh finished his engineering degree at the University of Cincinnati in 2026 and now works in Indianapolis. Biscuit, an orange tabby who was supposed to be Emily's, stayed with us and now belongs entirely to Greg.
For 24 years I ran the front office of an elementary school. I left in June 2025, a little earlier than planned, and these days I do part-time bookkeeping for a small local business from my kitchen table. Greg drives a delivery route and gets up at 3:40 every morning, which means our evenings start early.
When the kids moved out, I expected to miss the noise. I didn't expect every bill in the house to suddenly look different: the groceries, the car insurance, the electric bill, the health plan I was about to lose. I started this blog in March 2025 to write down what we figured out, mostly so I wouldn't forget, and partly because my friends kept asking.
You'll find our real numbers here: what we pay for gas and electric in Ohio, how our insurance renewals went, how we paid off the house and what we're doing to get ready for retirement. I'm not a financial advisor or an insurance agent. I'm a careful person with a green notebook full of bills since 2003, and I share what worked for us so you can ask better questions about your own situation.
Thanks for reading. If you'd like to say hello, my contact page is always open.