Hello and Welcome!
My name is Robin, I’m the creator of Fluster Buster. Fluster Buster was born as a way to share our intentional journey of living a more simple life. If you’d like to know more about me, my little family and our simple living adventure, read on, it’s quite the ride.
About Robin
I hold a degree in business management, most of my career has been spent in finance, rubbing elbows with some of the most impressive people. In addition to working in the corporate world, I also owned a children’s clothing store, home schooled my kids and was on the board of a non-profit that housed homeless veterans, all while raising a family. Whew, I get tired just thinking about it.
My Family
I’m married to the most hard-working, incredible man ever, this May we will be celebrating 26 years of marriage. Together we share the honor of being parents to three incredible boys. Our oldest son, who lives in California with his wife and daughter, is in the process of completing his culinary arts degree at Le Cordon Bleu. Our middle son, just completed his training with the National Guard and will soon be starting his police academy training. And our youngest son, he is in his first year of high school, he hasn’t decided on his path yet, but with his grades (4.8 GPA) he can do anything he wants.
Our Journey to Simple Living
Before we started on this journey, life was very different, a big home filled with beautiful things, lots of expensive toys, spa memberships, you name it we had it, we also had a huge amount of debt. We were working around the clock to maintain our lifestyle and never finding the time to enjoy the things that we were working so hard to keep. It was an exhausting paradox!
I finally sat my husband down and told him I couldn’t do it anymore, so we devised a pretty radical plan. First, we decided to leave California and move to another part of the country where the cost of living was considerably less. Then, we hired a realtor, sold our business, cut up all our credit cards, liquidated our retirement accounts and sold almost everything we owned, in order to pay off our debts. That’s when we were hit with a curve ball, our realtor informed us that the value of the house was considerably less than what we owed. The housing market was in a death spiral (2010) and we were in it’s wake. After considering all of our options, we ended up walking away from it! As a finance manager, this wasn’t an easy decision.
Fluster Buster
Starting over is scary business, but what it does to your outlook is incredible. Even with the fluster of empty pockets and an income far below comfort levels, there’s a sense of peace. That peace didn’t mean that things were easy, they’re we had to rely on some creative tactics to build our new life.