A Room With A View

By Melissa TosettiIn 1987, my senior year of high school, I went on a first date with someone who took me to the Tower Theater in Fresno, CA to see a movie I'd never heard of called A Room With A View.The experience was impactful.  That was the night I fell in love with costume dramas and what they provided – a glimpse into a time of beauty and simplicity.From that evening on, the movies I gravitated toward and the books I read shared that common theme – beauty and simplicity.It wasn’t until I started The Savvy Life that I realized the one thing all those movies have in common is that simplicity is a lack of "stuff", an absence of clutter. The clothes, the accessories, the homes, everything has a purpose or adds beauty.In this day and age, our “stuff” is drowning us.  We’ve become consumers for the sake of consuming rather than for intention.Instead of bringing more into our homes, perhaps what we really want is to have less.  Focus our spending on quality items that bring beauty rather than clutter into our lives.When I talk about, write about or teach Savvy Living, the overall idea is to build this beautiful, purposeful life.As a side note - when Dante and I were at the library last week, I picked up a copy of A Room With a View and watched it, nervously, for the first time in 20+ years. I was surprised and grateful that it held up to the romanticism of my memory. Of course there's so much more that I "get" now, since the first time I watched it when I was 17, which made it all the better.There were two takeaways I had after watching it again. Helena Bonham Carter grew better with age (as we all should) and Maggie Smith is a goddess!_________________________________________________________________________Melissa Tosetti is the founder of The Savvy Life and author of the international bestseller Living The Savvy Life. For the past eight years, she’s worked with over 450 individuals and families to create Spending Plans.Melissa also works with financial advisors and their clients doing cash flow planning as well as giving over 200 Savvy Living presentations via webinar and in-person to audiences across the U.S.If you’d like to learn more about how Melissa works with clients visit The Savvy Life’s Programs page.If you’d like to learn more about how Melissa works with financial advisors and their clients visit: The Savvy Life Advisor’s Page