A wish list became a roadmap to stability

a wishlist – When her son was nearly 1, Ashley Archambault had savings and a part-time job but no cushion. At a kitchen table, she wrote a “Wishlist” of the life she wanted if money were no issue—then turned those bullets into a plan. More than a decade later, her degree i

By the time her son was almost 1, Ashley Archambault wasn’t exactly flush with cash. She had a small amount of savings and a part-time job, but for most of her 20s she had been in financial survival mode—focused, day by day, on caring for her first baby.

As she became serious about building a stable future for her family, money started to dominate her concerns. She didn’t want to live in worry forever, but she also understood that she couldn’t switch her reality off. So she did something smaller first: she let herself fantasize.

One afternoon, while her son took his nap, Archambault sat down at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee. Her son was about 10 months old then. She pulled out a blank spiral notebook page, wrote “Wishlist” at the top, and started listing bullet points. The whole exercise took less than five minutes.

The items weren’t vague. They were specific goals laid out like an inventory of the life she wanted: “Go to Paris,” “Buy my own house,” “Finish my degree,” “Become a teacher,” “Get us whatever we need without worrying,” “Get a dog,” and “Start a business.”

At first, the list looked almost unreal—even to her. Owning her own home as a single person didn’t seem possible. But once it was on paper and she began thinking about what it would take, the distance between dream and plan narrowed.

When she examined the bullets one by one, they stopped reading like fantasy. They still required time and effort, and she didn’t expect to accomplish everything at once—but the list shifted in tone. It wasn’t impossible to build the life she wanted for herself and her son.

College became the first step she could actually see. Finishing her degree wasn’t “really that crazy” once she started thinking practically. She planned to apply for financial aid or loans and save up for tuition. believing it would be possible to complete just two years of college to finish her Bachelor’s degree.

Over a decade later, her son is 12, and the notebook has long since stopped being a private wish. She has started a couple of businesses while finishing her degree. She bought her own house, and her family also got a dog.

None of it came quickly. After she sat down at that kitchen table, it took a total of five years—and “very little rest”—to achieve everything she wrote down.

She still hasn’t made it to Paris. But the distance between dream and reality has changed. She took her family on a “real” vacation to Vermont one summer, using airplanes, rental cars, and hotels. Even then, the financial concern didn’t vanish. She says she still worries about paying for things her family needs sometimes. and she tries to calm that anxiety by telling herself she always figures it out.

Looking back, she connects that kitchen-table moment to a way of planning she only understood after it worked. After she finished her degree, she taught English for six years. Now she describes what she did with the wishlist as backward planning—starting with the final goal or assessment and working backward to determine the steps needed.

Each bullet list item had been a final goal. Once those goals were clear, she found it easier to determine the steps to get there.

She also considers another possibility: that writing the list was more than strategy. It was, in a way, manifesting her future. The act of putting desires into words made them feel more within reach, as long as there was foresight and planning.

Money, she says, initially looked like the barrier between her and her dreams. It didn’t end up being that simple. Once she saw there was a way forward with the right plan. “the world opened up a little more.” The wishlist stayed “powerful” because she could see that. with enough drive. nothing should really stop her from going after her dreams.

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