About

Welcome to My Joy My World! My name is Melanie, but the name of this site is dedicated to my mom, who calls me “My Joy” for my middle name.

I was born and raised in the suburbs of Chicago, but I just recently moved back after living in Milwaukee for 9 years. I graduated with a degree in Biomedical Sciences from Marquette University, which is where I met my wonderful husband. We got married in June 2008, and adopted our dog, Rex, shortly after. We had our beautiful daughter in September 2010. Although I had a complicated pregnancy and birth, it was all worth it, and I’m reminded of how lucky I am everyday. I absolutely love my life and my family!

I work a regular full-time job based in Milwaukee, but I am fortunate enough to be able to work from home since moving back to the Chicago area. I also coach gymnastics part-time.

Starting our life together with college tuition and student loans to pay, my husband and I quickly had to figure out ways to save money in order to get all the bills paid and save up for our future. It took a lot of mistakes and learning on our part, but eventually, through smart choices, creative thinking, and use of our resources, we were able to pay for what some thought to be a $50,000+ wedding for less than $15,000, and then buy our first home. We use coupons when shopping and take advantage of as many ways to save money on our purchases as possible, but we also don’t mind splurging on a good meal at an expensive restaurant or anything else that is important to us to be of high quality. If not for the money we’ve saved and freebies we’ve received, we would not be able to enJOY the “finer” things in life that we, otherwise, would not have been able to purchase or do!

Even though My Joy My World has only been up since May 2011, I have actually been blogging since 2009. If you’re interested in my journey as a blogger, check out the post I wrote after feeling empowered and inspired from my very first blogger conference. I definitely keep busy, but I am totally enJOYing my life!

On My Joy My World, I’ll be writing about ways for you to save money, but I’ll also be sharing information about the other things in life that bring me JOY, such as food (restaurants and recipes), being creative (scrapbooking and crafts), events and activities in the Chicago area and the Midwest, reviews and giveaways, paying it forward to those in need, and, of course my greatest JOY, being a mom and my family! I’ll also post some stories so you can learn a little bit more about me.

I hope you’ll share my JOYs with me as I continue my journey on My Joy My World! Please feel free to contact me at myjoymyworld@gmail.com or through Facebook or Twitter at My Joy My World! I love hearing from my readers and working with others I hope you enJOY My Joy My World!