Hi there, I’m Dani!
The Hacky Homemaker
… and I LOVE finding elegant, improvised solutions to home life’s trickiest hard parts.
Before I was a mom, I’d spent 20 years making a decent full-time living in a gig-based career. That requires a bit of creative skill, a lot of clever resourcefulness, and a measure of luck.
So I’m no stranger to finding smart ways to save time and money without losing my mind.
I had to improvise clever ways to “work smarter, not harder,” make good use of the resources at hand… and continue climbing.
(And all along, I had no idea that this was just super-intensive training for the toughest and greatest gig of all… parenthood!)
When I finally met and married the man of my dreams, I decided to take a sabbatical from work to go “all in” as a stay-at-home mom during our kids’ formative years. That quick pivot turned out to be more of a culture shock than I had anticipated.
“Having a baby dragged me, kicking and screaming, from the world of self-absorption.”
Paul Reiser
Suddenly, I was far from friends and family. Separated from my proverbial “village” that it takes to raise children. And floating without a meaningful aim because WORK had been all I had known and loved to do up to this point.
Who knew? Parenting. Is. HARD.
So I turned back to the skills I had honed because that’s all I had at my disposal. I knew there had to be a way to parent smarter, not harder. After all, I’m not the first clown to join this circus.
I started searching for all the tips and tricks to increase my productivity around the house without sacrificing family time.
I looked for ways to leverage my resources – including time, money, and my patience! – to create a happier home environment for my kids.
And I found products and gadgets that made total strangers stop me just to say, “That’s amazing! I need that! Where did you find it?”
And this is how I’ve become The Hacky Homemaker!
Start here with a few of My Favorite Posts!
Follow and Like @TheHackyHomemaker on Social Media!
10 Fun Facts about Dani, The Hacky Homemaker
- I love colder weather, but I hate the snow. #snowgrinch
- To say that I am a roller coaster enthusiast would be a massive understatement. I have ridden (and loved!) the fastest roller coaster in the USA. There is only one faster in the world, and it’s on my to-do list!
- I used to be so addicted to coffee that I once got a job at a coffeeshop just for the free lattes.
- I love to travel! Aboard 69 cruises, I have visited nearly every small island in the Eastern, Western, and Southern Caribbean. (Grand Turk was my favorite!)
- When I was 9 years old, I started collecting the tabs from the top of soda cans. I never stopped. To date, I have over 25,000 tabs. But I don’t drink soda.
- As a quirky side hobby, I write on all my paper money and track the bills using WheresGeorge.com.
- My summertime guilty pleasure is watching Big Brother on CBS. But the show I’d truly rather be ON someday is The Amazing Race.
- I’m an extroverted introvert. Like Michigan J. Frog, I love to show off my song and dance and hear the applause! But at the end of the day, I prefer just to sit quietly in my little shoebox.
- I once swam in a lagoon full of sharks in just my snorkel gear and a swimsuit. Voluntarily. Yes, I still have all my appendages. No, I will never do it again.
- I have a conflicting passion for saving the planet, and buying sets of cheap plastic organizational bins.