00:00
There's always going to be breakdown on the other side. There's always going to be like, you set that block on the other side where you're going to have to combat those negative feelings and there's negative thoughts or something's going to come at you that you're going to have to face. And it's so great that if you have those tools in your toolbox to say, okay, I'm going to sit in this for a moment, but I'm not going to wallow in it. Because before I would not sit, I would wallow and I would wallow. I'd be one of those little pigs in the mud, you know, swallowing around the mud. I would just wallow in it, and I would just get stuck and I wouldn't have how to get out.
00:43
Welcome to the ownership game with Gary Montalvo. What would it take to get into the driver's seat of your life and leave your mark? The ownership game starts now.
Today we speak with author Melissa Vera, the founder of the lifestyle blog adventures of a frugal mom. I thought it'd be interesting to learn from Melissa how she became a blogger. But what I thought was going to be a very straightforward interview about her entrepreneurial journey quickly turned into a vulnerable and deeply intimate conversation about grief, learning to love yourself, and healing generational trauma. So, Melissa, talk to me about how you came up with the idea for frugal moms. How did that idea come to birth?
01:39
Actually, it's kind of funny. I had a friend of mine who was actually, we were both school teachers, and she was like, you're doing everything that I'm doing, but I'm making money doing it. Talking about saving money with coupons and deals and things like that. She said, you need to start blogging. And I'm like, I don't want to do that. I don't want to do that. I don't want to do that. And so finally she convinced me to start doing it, and I did it.
02:01
And it was like, okay, I like this, but I don't like the competition with the, with the deals and coupons, because there's so much competition out there with that. And if you're not right there, competition.
02:14
From other people doing that, like, type of content? Is that what you mean?
02:18
Okay, yeah. Competition from other blogs doing that. Because if you're not right on the deal when it post, and you're not one of the first ones to post getting anything else on it. So I said, you know what? I really enjoy writing. I've always. English was my major in college, English and communications. So I'm like, you know what? Let me just start. Just kind of branching out.
02:38
And at the time, my three girls were young, and I was like, okay, I need to start telling people that there are things that you can do with your kids that won't cost a lot of money, because we always brought our girls up to believe that if you want something bad enough, that you either work for it or find a way to get it without it costing you a whole lot of money. And so that's where frugal moms now, originally, when I started the blog, I had this in my mind, like, ventures of frugal mom. It's like, okay, it's a mom, a super mom flying through the air like Superman, and just like, everything. So that's where frugal mama came from. And I just, it solely, but surely evolved into a lifestyle brand. And when I was doing it, I started in 2011, but I didn't really go full time until 2014. And that is something that when the bottom fell out of my world, I didn't think I could ever do this again. I didn't think, I didn't know where direct of my life was going to be going.
03:31
And then God just opened up a door and said, hey, you need to do this full time. And I've done it full time since 2014. 2015, actually.
03:40
That's amazing. So you dropped something there that I think we need to go back to. You said the. The bottom fell out of your world. Talk to me. What happened there? What do we.
03:52
Okay. 2014 was like, I would say was the most trained period of my life. I mean, I went. Lost my sister already, and I lost her when I was nine months pregnant with my oldest daughter. But in 2014, my youngest daughter, who is now 21, was in 6th grade, had her first of many seizures that year. We didn't know what was going on. We thought at one point it was a brain tumor. And we finally got her back on the right track to where she was going back to school, on the medication and everything.
04:21
It turned out to be epilepsy. But then we had a car accident, and of course mama gets sick and mama gets hurt in the car accident. So I was out of work for the longest time, so I was slowly but surely, but was my shoulder was hurt. So when you're typing on a computer, it's hard when you have to type with both hands how hard it is. And then when I finally overcame that, and this is probably the thing that rocked my world the most. That year was my dad, who was my biggest hero. I mean, my biggest supporter, encourager. I strive to be like him in this world.
04:55
He was put in hospice care, and he ended up dying from exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam and the tanned Warner in Camp Lejeune. And so it just. It just, like I said, the bottom fell out, and I didn't know which way to turn. And my dad was such a big supporter of me in my teaching career, and he would always come in and help and volunteer and do a lot with the elementary school that I was teaching at that I just could not go back and face the hallway without remembering, and I just couldn't face his memories at that point. So that's when I said, okay, if this is what I'm supposed to be doing, then I'm gonna do this full time. And that's what happened.
05:34
Wow. Wow. That's really fascinating, because during your. Your weakest time, right? Like, the. The biggest pain and the biggest struggle, you kind of took the biggest leap, because switching careers and throw, you could have gone to another. Another school. You could have done something else. But that's really interesting that you chose to make such a transformation out of, like, at the.
06:02
At the lowest point of your life.
06:04
Yeah, for sure. And, I mean, honestly, I was doing it on the side from 2011, but I was like, you know what? If this is what I'm meant to be, I'm gonna take a year, do this full time, and if this is what God. And what I'm supposed to be doing, then it's gonna happen. It's gonna make a way, and it happened. 2014, 2015 is when I went full time with it. 2018, I actually went to a place, a storage shed building place. I call this my blog cabin. I'm in my blog cabin right now, and I used money from what I made blogging to purchase the storage buildings.
06:42
And anybody's ever looked at storage building know they can run up to, like, $5000 to $10,000 easily for any storage building. And so I went and purchased it, and I designed everything inside the log cabin. And my husband did the sweat equity, did all the hard work. I do give him credit for that, but I pay. Paid for every bit of material and paid for the block cabin, too. And so that was just something that I knew, continuing on that I was going to be able to do. I was going to be able to come out here, write, because if you're a writer or if you're a podcast or anything, you have to have a set place to work or else, something in the house is going to call you. Laundry, dirty dishes, the dog, the kids, everything.
07:21
But if you're out in your little office, in your little space, it helps you become more creative. And it opened me up in so many ways that I never thought I would have ever expected it to open up.
07:30
Wow. Tell me. So it sounds like you knew, you had no idea what this was when you first started. Like, your friend was just like, you should do this. Did you, you know, like. And I think that one of the things that often stops people is the not knowing how or the thinking they have to have it all figured out when, you know, in order to get going. I think it'd be kind of interesting if you can share some of your experience in that and just finding your way as you, as you were launching this.
08:05
Yeah, absolutely. I think the biggest obstacle I had was trying to get out of my own way, because we get in our heads, we have that inner critic that always talks, oh, well, you can do this, but really, can you really do this or, oh, I want to do this, but really, there's always that, but in our heads. And I, that was my biggest obstacle, was my head. I had to get out of my own headspace. And there's an adage that says life begins outside your comfort zone. And I 100% agree with that because life did not begin the way that I am living now until I got out of my comfort zone and I took that leap. Even though I was still mourning everything that I had lost the year before. I knew that if I didn't do something and didn't make some changes, that I was going to be stuck and I was going to be stuck.
08:52
And I've not only have I worked on myself, emotionally, physically, spiritually, but also worked in navigating and building the brand bigger and better as well. So I hope that answered your question.
09:05
Yeah. And how did you tackle the, like, not knowing what to do, like, how did you, what was kind of your process for figuring it out and breaking.
09:17
It into, first of all, day by day? I didn't ever look, I try not to look too far ahead in the very beginning because I knew if I set a goal, and a lot of people set really massive goals and I knew if I did not hit that goal that I was going to be upset because I didn't hit the goal, and then I would be down on myself even more. So I tried to take everything day by day, do little steps and try to at least do one new skill or go to one uplifting, inspirational speaker workshop or one thing that empowered me and helped me involved as a person, and then that just led to bigger and better growth. I had to feed into myself and I had to absolutely take those negative thoughts out and start replacing them with positive thoughts for myself. And that was hard for me because I, youngest of four girls, I was always the smallest. I was always the one that her voice was never heard. And I always felt like the imposter syndrome was huge in my life. And so for me to actually take those steps forward one day at a time, when I realized that I had to do it one day at a time and taking one giant, instead of taking one giant leap and then expecting quick results, I knew I had to slowly, steadily build the business. And when I interviewed my girls a couple years ago, because I have three girls, somebody asked them, what did you learn from your mom? And they said, we learned that you can build something from nothing, that it takes perseverance and persistence to go through and not to just give up.
10:48
Because in the beginning, yeah, I maybe had maybe ten people following the brand. And then now you look at it, it's grown exponentially. And not only do I have that, I have the podcast, I have YouTube channels. Now I'm doing, hosted a DIY show for a major market last December, October through December. So it's just, I'm taking opportunities, they come and I'm just saying, okay, I'm just going to go with it. Because when you start thinking about your opportunities and you start thinking about what could go wrong instead of what could go right, that's when you start realizing that you're passing things by when life should, you should be living your life and not letting life pass you by.
11:26
Yeah, I love that you said that because I, in my experience, people often, when they're starting things out, have this expectation that it's just like they have this expectation to just hit a home run. And I get it because I'm kind of that same personality too. I catch myself wanting to hit a home run without ever holding a bat, without ever, like, practicing. You just. But it's really not like that. And one of the things that people often take for granted is the amount of mindset work that you have to do, right? Because not only are you reinventing yourself in rediscovering yourself newly, but you're up against all this stuff that you've never done before, right? So there's a lot of learning. So that's always humbling, that's always insecure. A little.
12:18
A little insecure because you don't, you just don't know it, right? It's new, and your mind starts to mess with you, man. Like, you really start to mess with you. So I love that so much of your success, really, when you were starting out was being very intentional about the way that you were feeding your, your mind, feeding your spirit, feeding yourself, nurturing yourself.
12:43
Right?
12:43
Like, that's always. I always used to think of a baby learning how to walk. Like, if a baby fell, you wouldn't be like, oh, come on, how could you? You're supposed to just walk, which is what we do to ourselves all the time. But that you were being very nurturing to yourself and making sure that you had positive reinforcement and things that inspired you. It's. It's such a great lesson that I think people often overlook.
13:07
Yep. I agree. And you hit on something when you said mindset. I actually, after I realized I went as far as I could go in my own mind, I reached out to a friend of mine who was a mindset coach and worked with her for a while. And then when I realized, when I. When I start going through stuff and I think, oh, I'm back in those. That stink and thinking again, I re up and look for another mindset coach to work with, I try to, because there are different mindset coaches that people can work with that they're. They may not be the greatest fit or maybe what you need at that particular time in your life.
13:42
And so I think it's great that people that want to reach out and, and work with coaches and mindset coaches because it blocks, it unblocks my creativity and just makes my creative juices flow so much better when I'm, like, working with someone one on one. And it may not be for a whole year, it may just be for a period of, like, two months, three months, whatever. But it's. It's so inspiring to me and unblocks my creativity and allows me to take my business off into another, different realm that I never even thought of, because it's great when you have someone there listening to you and then they're giving you that feedback that maybe it's not something you thought about you should be doing, but you realize that's something that you should be doing. So it's always great to get feedback.
14:25
Yeah. No, and it makes sense because the moment that you climb a step, you find yourself at the bottom of the next one. And the work that I do a lot with people is, is in helping them grow their mindset around their business and in helping them grow their business. And what I often say is, like, the mindset, to hit $100,000 is different. To hit $200,000, to hit three, and I mean, to hit your 1st, 25 or $50,000, it requires a breakthrough. And I remember for myself years ago when I had had, like, my first major breakthrough, right after years of struggling and trying to get the business going, I hit this. I hit a plateau around, like, 150. I kind of got stuck there for a while, and I was working with my coach, and they're like, okay, well, what's the goal? What do you want to.
15:17
And I kept saying, I don't know. I just want to make enough. I just want to make enough. Like, I just want to be able to do a little traveling and pay the bills and. And then it was like this big aha. Moment because I realized I'm like, oh, yeah, no wonder you're stuck. You had hit enough a while ago. You had already live hit your level of aha.
15:37
And so I had to start to create a new game that inspired me. And it was like, oh, what if I could. What if I could pay off my parents retirement home, right? Or what if I could pay my brother's school loans? Like, things? Because I've never really been, like, very driven by money. I mean, don't get me wrong, money's nice. We need money. I'm not like. But it's never, you know, I've always just loved what I do, and I wanted to make an impact. So for me, creating a game like that really allowed me to create a bigger container for money.
16:10
So it's, again, another really great tip because you, you do. I do find people get stuck because they feel like, well, I had a breakthrough already. I shouldn't be. I should be okay now. It's like, no, no, no. You had that breakthrough in that particular moment in time, like, six months from now, a year from now. You're, you're, you're. It's time to have it again or slightly different or at a different level with a different twist, with a different flavor.
16:37
So I love that. Another great tip.
16:40
Yeah. And I love the fact that you use breakdown because, I mean, breakthrough is because one of the coaches that I worked with said that once you hit a break through, there's always going to be a breakdown on the other side. There's always going to be, like you said, that block on the other side where you're going to have to combat those negative feelings and there's negative thoughts or something's going to come at you that you're going to have to face. And it's so great that if you have those tools in your toolbox to say, okay, I'm going to sit in this for a moment, but I'm not gonna wallow in it. Because before I would not sit, I would wallow, and I would wallet. I'd be one of those little pigs in the mud, swallowing around the mud. I would just wallow in it, and I would just get stuck, and I wouldn't know how to get out, and I would just be content being stuck. And that's not, and I was a miserable person because I was stuck.
17:28
And so once I realized, okay, I'm gonna sit in a moment, I'm gonna give myself grace, but then I'm gonna get up and move on to the next thing. Now, a moment, maybe one or two days and maybe half an hour. It may be a week. It just depends on what I'm going through at the time, what else is happening in my life. But I'm give, I give myself grace to feel the feelings go, what I want to do, go through what I'm going through and know that it's not going to be like this all the time. And that was hard in the beginning. It was hard that I always thought, oh, here are all these people that are making all this gain. So many page views, so many this, so many that.
18:05
And here I am building my brand. And it wasn't what I thought it was to begin with, like the coupon and deals blog. And that's why more, more into a lifestyle blog, because I just felt like this is where I needed to be. I needed to take my writing to another level, and that's what I did.
18:21
Yeah, beautiful. I something I wanted to go back to there, but I forgot. So I love to hear, what are some of the, your most favorite blogs? Like, what were some of the favorite things that you've written about that you're.
18:34
Like, oh, yeah, most of my favorite ones are the ones where it's like, personal revelations, where I'm like, oh, my gosh, I'm sitting here writing, and I think I'm gonna write one post, and it turns out to be totally 180 of what I'm gonna write. Because once I sit down and my fingers start walking on the keyboard, it's like, no, this is the way the blog, the post is not gonna, it's supposed to go. And I heard a lot of people say that my voice is so unique that that's the reason why it's not doesn't matter the numbers. It matters that my voice is so unique. And I'm writing to the just one person. I'm writing to the person whose voice was never heard. I'm writing to the person who struggles with feelings and is not able to voice them. I'm writing to that person.
19:18
And I think the most personal ones are, the ones are my favorite. But I also have to do a plug. I also have a 13 year old Shih tzu named Allie, and I write all the dog pet articles, which she hasn't written in a while, in her voice. They're absolutely my favorite because I can be a little sassy with those, and she's very sassy.
19:37
So that's really funny. What's your process, like in terms of, like, your creativity or how do you plan? Is it instinct? Do you, like, plan it for a couple of weeks? Like, how, how do you work?
19:53
I wish I could say I was a planner, but I'm not a planner. I'm a procrastinator. Now, if I know there's something big coming up and I know I'm going to be away, then I try to plan out. Like when. When I had to have surgery for my shoulder, when in 2014, I planned out post so I would have something going up every day. But most of the time it's procrastinator. And especially the time is when I'm sitting down and I feel led to write. Like an idea will just pop in my head and I'll just feel led to write about it.
20:20
Like, I have a whole list of ideas. Now that my husband and I just came back from a cross country trip. We went from North Carolina to California and then California, North Carolina, back for celebrating our 30th years of being together. And during that time, I would write down a whole bunch of things I wanted to write about, about the trip, but not have I written them. No, but I do have ideas down in a book that eventually I'll get to them, but who knows? Right now I'm playing catch up on email, so.
20:47
Yeah, no, I totally get that. Something that I wanted to, something that you said that kind of stood out that I love is there's just a level of grace that you give yourself in. You said the time that I give myself maybe 30 minutes, maybe two minutes and maybe two weeks, like, depending on where you are, and even now it's how you're speaking. There's seems to be a level of grace about, oh, I haven't written, and I think that's interesting to talk about because the self judgment very often takes people out of the game. It's one of the things that I see a lot, and I'm curious, was that always, is that, was it always that way for you, or is that a result of just the experience of you doing it for so many years? And how did that come about?
21:38
It was definitely the result of doing it for so many years because in the beginning, I would sit down and I would not be able to do anything. I would just, like, think about all the things I didn't get done and didn't get accomplished. And I would say, well, why even bother? Why even try and working with mindset coaches, like I said, and within the last, I say, five years or so, I was like, okay, you know what? I need to give myself grace. And it wasn't until, let's see what 20 20, 20 19, 20 20 is when I actually started giving myself grace and starting working with coaches and saying, okay, this is, this is, okay. I'm gonna feel the feeling, then I'm gonna get up and move on. But before, I used to wallow and stay in it and stay in the muck and just not. And just feel so blocked, creativity, creative wise. And then I wish I had learned it earlier and gave myself Grace earlier because I could look back and say, oh, my gosh, where would I be now if I hadn't, if I had done that? But then again, I think there's a process we all go through, and everybody goes through a process differently, and your process may be different than my process, so maybe I needed to go through that, all that stuff to get to where I am right now.
22:46
Yeah, perfect. And I think that's part of the grace understanding that, because stuff is happening and our instinct is to resist it and to push it back and to go, why is this happening? What's wrong? But very often there's a gift in it at the other end, right? Like, there's always a lesson. There's always something that I've been really working on asking myself a lot is, what is this here to teach me? Right? Like, what? What is this here to teach me? Because it's here to teach me. And when I step into that and I drop into my heart and I just listen and ask the question, very often I hear something bad, it's like, okay, I'm here to learn patience right now. Okay, got it. I'm here to. I'm here to learn how to step into my power and responsibility. Okay, got it.
23:37
And you may not always like it, but that's the lesson, agree.
23:41
And then once you take that thinking from negative to that positive thinking, you can see the whole switch in your whole life, too. When you start thinking, like you said, what is this teaching me? That's the positive out of that, you're taking that negative that you're going through and creating a positive. And I think what everybody who has a positive outlook on life, if you look at them, a lot of them may be going through a lot, but they're able to come and they're able to smile and say, okay, now I've gone through this. Now, what else can I do? And you see, most of the people that have been successes in the world have gone through that. But the outlook and the way they created their own reality from their outlook and from their mindset is how they got able to go further and further in life.
24:27
Yeah, I love that. So what, what's next for adventures of a frugal mom? What are you, what are you working on now? Like, what are your goals?
24:38
I am actually working on writing a book. I have the greatest relationship with my mom. Being the youngest of four girls, I already said my dad was my hero. And so I'm writing a book about how sometimes, you know, we struggle with parents. We, I think we all have parental struggles no matter what we go through, but we learn also from our parents. I learned from my mom how not to be the mom to three girls, that she was the mom to me. I mean, she favored, and I will agree. And I understand the reason why she favored the two eldest girls was because my dad was deployed when those two were born and she had them for such a long period of time when it was just her and them.
25:17
And then when my sister Karen and I came along, we were like, okay, dad's home. He's retired. And so we were more dad's kids, even though we were, has the same set of parents, how parents tend to kind of like, oh, he's my favorite, or she's my favorite, even though we're not supposed to have favorites. So I'm writing a book about my relationship with her and how it was. My faith showed me that some of the things before where I thought was rejection was actually only her way, that she's coping with it, how she coped. And I learned also from her that I wanted to be the type of mom that my girls could come to me with anything and talk to me about. Whereas I knew if I went to my mom and talked about anything, she would say, oh, that didn't happen, or, it's all in your head and that kind of negative thought process, because that's what she learned. And so that's what I'm writing a book about because she just passed away in August.
26:07
And I swore to myself that I would not write anything out of respect for her until she died. And then once she died, I was going, okay, my story is finally going to get told because I had to put a boundary around the family that I grew up with after my dad passed away because I just could not handle the negative, the toxic stuff coming off of them that they just assumed was normal, everyday stuff. But to me, it was very toxic and took a toll on me, emotionally and physically. And so I just had to say, no, no more. I'm there. I love you, but I can't be around you all the time. I can't because that was just too much. And so I decided when she passed that I was going to write a book about it and how it led me to the unconditional love.
26:50
And it's a christian Facebook, but it's led me to the unconditional love of God, knowing that I'm okay, I'm just as good as myself as I was her daughter. No matter what, I still deserve to be loved. There's no conditions behind being loved. Everybody should be loved unconditionally. A lot of times. There's a lot of conditions. And, like, if you do this for me, then I'll love you more. If you don't do this for me, then I won't love you at all.
27:13
Or I'll take something away, or I'll punish you for that. And so, working on myself with this mindset for the last couple years, I learned that I can only control the way I react to situations. And so, like I said, I waited until after she died to start writing the book because I did it out of respect for her. But I also want my story to be told. And I think that's important that people tell their stories. Their stories are valid. People need to tell their truths, tell their stories, even the messy in the muck, because there's somebody out there that is struggling, just like you are. There may be a little girl right now or a teenager who's struggling with her mom, and she.
27:52
And she picks up the book when it's finally published and says, oh, my gosh, I'm not the only one that had a relationship like this with my mom. I mean, because I used to warn the fact I didn't have relationship with my mom at all.
28:03
Wow, that's really deep. It's really heavy. And I think a lot of people can relate to having to make that difficult decision and navigating that. Right and setting up boundaries with people that you love and people that are your family and having to navigate that. How, if I can ask how your, how's your relationship with your sisters? Did that impact you guys?
28:33
The sister that was closest to me in age, she died when I was six months pregnant with my oldest daughter, and it's coming up on her anniversary of her death. And so it was hard because she was the one that I, she was my best friend. She was the one that always hung out with me. We always did things together. We always talked about how we felt like we were different and treated differently from mom and everything else. And so when she, when I lost her, the bottom fell out, but I still had my dad. And then once I lost my dad, it was like, okay, my sisters were, my mom had those two older sisters, and there was me by myself. And then the year before my mom passed, my oldest sister passed away in her sleep.
29:16
So I only have one sister now, but she's the type of person that she's not willing to see her fault in anything that goes on in life, and so I'm willing to take my part of the blame. But I told her, I can't take all the blame anymore. I can't take it on. There's two sides to every story, and there's two sides to everything in life, and she needs to start saying, okay, compromise, because that's important. But I learned early on with my sister, the one that just pat, the oldest one that passed away, is if I had something that I wanted to say to her, if I waited instead of reacting in the moment, which is what the old Melissa used to do before the mindset coaching. If I waited in the moment and if I reacted in the moment, that it was going to be nasty, ugly words, and neither one of us would be happy about it, but I learned to sit on it for a while, and then when the time opened up for me to talk about it, I was much more confident and calmer person when I talked about it.
30:15
Yeah.
30:16
So it's the other sister, the one that's still alive, tends to react in the moment, and I want to react back to her. And I find myself sometimes thinking, oh, no, I'm not snapping back. You know how? Because a lot of people, when people say something nasty to you, you'll snap right back. But I've learned. I'm like, no, I can only tell my truth. And my truth is, okay, I'll take part of the blame, but I'm not taking all the blame.
30:37
It's so funny how we do all this work and we do all this work on ourselves. We do all the therapy, all the coaching, all the stuff. But then these family triggers, they, like, they put us right back.
30:53
First. Sure, 100% sure.
30:57
It's like, those are the hard ones, man, that, like, that just kind of stay with you on some level forever, man. So as you're speaking, the thing that I became really present to is you've had a lot of love. You've actually experienced a lot of love in your life. There's a lot of grief like that you have had to process.
31:21
Yep. I mean, my first experience with death was in 1983 when my maternal grandmother died in February, and then in August of that same year, lost my paternal grandmother, and they were both the only grandparents I had in my life. So I lost both grand grandmothers in the same year. And that was hard because it was my first experience. I was 8th grade, 9th grade, my first experience ever with death because I never really experienced going to a funeral or anything else. I was very lucky because I didn't experience that until that time. But then looking back now, I just can't imagine. I see people now who have grandparents and great grandparents, and I think I just talked about this with my oldest daughter.
32:05
She's like people that still have their grandparents around or their great grandparents around, and they don't take time to spend with them. It's hard to because, hey, you're lucky I don't have any. She doesn't have any grandparents now. I mean, we've lost all my. Not only my husband's parents, but both of my parents have gone. And so it's just, it's really hard. And grief is hard, and grief is different for different people, and it's also different for how you grieve for people in your life. Because I remember having a conversation with my youngest daughter after my mom passed away.
32:38
And I said, I feel guilty because I'm not grieving her. Like I grieved my dad, like I grieved Grampy. I told her, and she said, and my youngest is 21, seemed to be 22, so she's super smart for her age. And she says, mama, you are not grieving Nana because you had a different relationship with her. She says, I said, should I feel relieved or should I be guilty because I don't grieve as much. She said, because you had a different relationship with her, mama, with Grampy, you had that relationship where if he didn't see you or didn't hear from you, he would be driving by the house all the time. He would come in, eat, eat popcorn, hang out for a few minutes and go on, but he would always make the time to stop. Whereas my mom always felt like we had to go to her.
33:20
And so. And when she said that, it framed my mind. Yeah, that's right. Because I. To this day, I still grieve. My sister that passed away in 94, and my dad, he passed away in 2015. I just grieved them hard. But the other, my mom and my sister.
33:37
Yeah, I still wish they were around. I wish I could have said some things and it had a little bit of regret for not kind of clear in the air, but I know that that wasn't. The relationship wasn't there for me to be able to do that with them. And so I still grieve my dad and my sister, but my mom and my older sister, I'm just with. My mom died. It was almost like a relief because I'm like, she's finally back with my dad because they've been married for 50, would have been 55 years when my dad died. And so she had known him since she was eleven years old. And so for me, I felt like it was such a wait because I knew she was with my dad, I knew she was back with him, and that was her happiest place in her life.
34:16
And with my sister, Sherry, I grieved for the life that she didn't have because she didn't have a lot in her life. And it just made me so sad to see that. And so, like I said, you grieve for grieving different ways at different times, but you also grieve for people differently, too. It's because the impact they make on your life. And my dad, like I said, has made the biggest impact in my life. He's the one that I always think about when I go to give back. I always do something on his birthday to give back. I always donate books to little free libraries.
34:46
And inside, I put in loving memory and put his name in there and everything, and always stick him. Whenever I get a book, I stick in a little free library so that his legacy can live on as well.
34:56
Yeah, I. So I think you have grieved your mom. It's just you started grieving her earlier. I mean, you. It's you. You were grieving her when you were alive. When she was alive. Right.
35:10
Because that relationship, or even if it wasn't that you wanted with her had to be gifted at some point. So I do think you have grief. There has just been different with, with your dad. It's like all of a sudden situation, but with your mom, it was like a lifetime of grieving in some. Some regards, right?
35:31
Yeah, I totally agree, because, like I said, it was almost like a weight was lifted off my shoulder when she died. It was like, oh, I don't have that judgment anymore. I don't have that, oh, if you don't love me, you don't love me. If you don't do x, y, and z for me, and I'm like, I do love you, but I can't do x, y, and z for you. I remember one of the conversations I had with her. She had called and needed a ride to the doctor, and at that point, I suffered from really debilitating migraines, and I had just taken some migraine medicine, and I physically could not have gotten in the car and driven. And she took up on herself to just blow up at me and just say, wow, why would you care anyways? And I'm like, mom, I would if I physically could get out and do this, but I physically cannot get out and do this, because, number one, when I drive, I just could. Not unmedicine.
36:19
I'm already loopy. If you give me a little bit of benadryl, can you imagine what it's like with a migraine medicine that's supposed to knock you out? Being able to drive? It's hard.
36:28
Yeah. Okay. So you started writing this book to tell your story. How's the process different? I mean, this is a lot more emotional than the content that you've been dealing with in your blog, but I imagine there's a. There's a. Yeah, talk to me about the difference in the process, because I would imagine it's a big difference.
36:50
It is a big difference. And I find myself, and I knew when I was writing this, when I started writing the book, I knew my words were coming off harsher than what I wanted to be. And so I decided it goes back to finding help when. When you're struggling with something, finding help. So I decided that, you know what? I needed other eyes on what I'm writing at the time. So I actually joined the mastermind. They only allowed ten people in, so I joined this mastermind at first meeting was actually today, and they're going to help me. There are two writers who are going to help me become a better writer because I knew that the way my words were coming off right now was very harsh because there was a lot of anger.
37:29
And I don't want to focus on the anger in this book. I want to focus on the redemptive value of knowing that you can find yourself, even though you're struggling with parental relationships or marriage relationships or any kind of relationship that you can, you still deserve to be able to be loved unconditionally, even if it's. You only love yourself unconditionally, because self love is important. And a lot of people think that self love is selfish, but it's not. It's. It's. It's a way for you to present yourself better to the world. It's a way for not only do you love yourself, then that love ebbs and flows and goes out and waves to the people around you.
38:04
So I think it's important that I needed, when I was writing and started writing the book, that it was coming off harsher than what I wanted, that I sought help for that. And so, yeah, I think because there's a lot of emotions and there's times where I'm like, okay, I can't. I've written all I can today. I can't do anymore. I can't process. But I do write myself little notes. Okay, go back and do this, or go back and write about this in the. In the little sidebar of the.
38:30
Of the text from the doc that I use. But it's hard. And especially when you're going through and you're reliving all the things that happened in your life, and you're like, wow, I've come this far. Whereas before, I would say, wow, I was treated this way, why am I even on this earth? But now it's like, oh, wow, I can look at this and realize how far I've come with this.
38:54
Yeah. And I want to acknowledge you because I can. Obviously, what? You're sharing the struggle in you, trying to navigate the emotion and the hurt and the pain that's still there with your. With your sense of responsibility and with your sense of wanting to not speak poorly. Like, you're. You know what I mean? Like, you're. You're really. The fact that you are waiting.
39:26
You waited to your mother past, the fact that you. I think that you. The fact that you hired somebody to kind of go, wait a minute, and I need someone to check myself. I love that. And it's such a. It shows so much responsibility in your. In yourself and wanting to make sure that you do justice to the story. I'm really intrigued as to where you're gonna go with this process, and I hope that.
39:55
My hope is that it also brings some closure to you and. And some forgiveness for your mom and for yourself. Such an interesting project that you're taking on, and I can see everything you're trying to. It's not just like, how do I write a book and how do I make it interesting? You're also processing all your stuff as you're doing it. It's really interesting. It's very courageous of you.
40:22
Yeah, I 100% in the way of me writing this book. I think it's a way of forgiving my mom, of being able to say, okay, mom, I understand what you went through, because she was brought up in a time where children didn't talk. They were seen, not heard, and she was brought up, and I love my grandmother to death, don't get me wrong. But she was brought up in a family that had some step kids, and my mom was the youngest of all the kids, and it was hard for her to find her own identity, I think. And she also had loss when she was. When her sister was 18 years old, she died in a car accident. And I think my mom was maybe 1516. I don't know the age difference, but that was a huge loss for her because that was her sister that was closest to her in age.
41:15
And so. And I know that mom did the best she could. I know that. I know that in my mind that she did the best she could and that. I understand it's hard when you're a kid, but looking back as adult, you understand why she formed the bonds with the two older sisters and she deal with my younger sister and my sister Karen and I, because she was there. She had time with them, and my dad wasn't around, so those were the ones she bonded to. And so I understand that in my mind, but it's hard when you're working through that, thinking about all the things that were slighted, even the grandkids. I mean, I have three girls.
41:56
My sister that's still alive has two boys, and it seemed like she preferred the boys of the girls because we were told, well, they don't have a dad in their life. And I'm like, so you're going to penalize my girls because my husband and I are happily married? That's not right. I mean, I understand the thinking behind it, but not only did it hurt me, but it hurt the girls as well. So, yeah, trying to go through and. And think about all the things that were done wrong or, in my mind, were done wrong to me, because I read somewhere that our perceptions of what's going on at the time can be totally different from what someone else's perceives it to be. So what we maybe remember is our truth is not maybe not what really happened, but it's our truth and how we remember it. So I learned how to kind of sit back and be a little bit of observer with my mom. And, yeah, you're right.
42:50
I'm going through the process of forgiving, and I grieved her. And I see that what you said, yes, 100%. I grieved a relationship I didn't have with her because that made me want to build a relationship that I wanted to have with my mom, with my girls. And I did that well.
43:06
That's what I was fitting here. Going back to, what's this here to teach me question, like, the gift and all that, is that you sound like you're a pretty awesome mom.
43:19
One of the greatest compliments that my oldest daughter actually gave me, she moved a clear cross country to California to go to school, and her husband did. But she. I was out there visiting two years ago, and she's like, mom, I don't think of you as my mom. I'm like, what? What? Excuse me. What did you just say? I'm not your mom. I gave birth to you. You may look like your dad, but I still gave birth to you. She said, no, let me finish.
43:43
And she says, I don't think of you as my mom. I think of you as a friend who happens to be my mom. And I think that's the greatest compliment. And then my middle daughter, she's come around to seeing how much I changed in the last couple years as well, because something came up when my mom was. Had fallen and broke her hip, and it was in the hospital, and she was saying something that happened in her childhood. And I looked at her and I said, I don't recall this happening, but if it did, I'm sorry. I said, as parents, we all make mistakes. As humans, we make mistakes.
44:15
And I said, I'm not telling you that it didn't happen because I don't remember it happening. You remember it happening. So I can do is apologize and move on. I mean, it may not have happened. It may not have happened the way that she said it happened, but I took her truth and took it in and said, okay, if I apologize 100%.
44:34
Yeah.
44:35
And so that was been a. She's been the most difficult one for me to have a relationship with because the other two are more like me. And so her seeing me say that, hey, you know what? I apologize if something happened. And then. And I never told her. She couldn't have a relationship with my mom either. That's the one thing with all three of my girls. I never told them that, hey, you can't be.
44:55
You can't go see your nana. You can't do this. You can't do that. I don't want to be around that toxic place. But you guys, that's your nana. You go love her. You go be with her. And then my youngest daughter calls me her best friend.
45:06
So, yeah, very sweet. Well, Melissa, it's been lovely to have you on the show. Thank you for sharing so much of your life and your vulnerability in which you opened up and just really appreciate you letting us in. And I wish you all the luck with this book and more importantly, with your healing process and your forgiveness process that this book is here for. And I have no doubt that it'll be very successful. Let us know when you finish it so you can come back on the show and share about it.
45:47
Oh, I would love to. And thank you for having me on. I love being able to share because I know other people are struggling with either relationships with parents or kids, and that way you can break those generational curses and just say, okay, it's time to move on and get out of our own. Get out of our own way to have a successful life.
46:05
Yeah. Amen to that. All right, my love, I will put the blog post on the show notes. So definitely go check out Melissa Vera's blog, the adventures of the frugal mom. All right, my love. Have a good one. Thank you for being on the show.
46:23
Thank you.
46:25
In today's Instagram world, we very often get the picture perfect version of events. Melissa's raw honesty gives us a rare glimpse at what it looks like to be a person at work, a person who's working on her healing, working on her mindset, just working on all of it. And what most inspired me about Melissa is how she includes it all. She's using it as part of her process. She's a writer, so she's writing about it, she's sharing about it. She's letting us in. Many times. Our instinct is to keep this stuff in the closet or to only share it once you've gotten past it, to only show us the breakthrough.
47:05
But I think there's a beautiful gift in Melissa, this process, not just for us who get to be part of her journey, but for herself. It allows her the gift of grace the gift of knowing she's a work in progress and that some days her best looks very different than others. It allows her the grace to bring her mess and give it a seat at the table, which allows her the opportunity to fully integrate and love all of herself, the good, the bad and the ugly. I for 01:00 a.m. Deeply moved by her generosity and courage in sharing so much of herself with us today, you taught this overachieving high performer a thing or two about grace, and for that I am very grateful. Thank you for joining us today. If this episode has inspired you in any way, please don't forget to share it with someone that you love. And it wouldn't hurt if they click follow and leave a review either.
48:05
I'll see you next week. Thanks for listening to this episode of the ownership game with your host, Gary Montalvo. Make sure to like and comment on your favorite podcast platform as well as subscribe so that you never miss an episode.