Remember that ridiculously cheery, borderline creepy scene from Mary Poppins where the children (rightfully so) complain about having to clean up their room? (If you weren’t forced to watch that movie in kindergarten like every other normal child on earth, the entire song the ensues revolves around a “spoonful of sugar.”) I was never a…

Pivotal Purchase is an ongoing series highlighting a watershed shopping moment — the thing you bought that made you feel like you were financially stable, that changed your perspective, that made you realize you were really, truly, finally an adult. When I took my first job straight out of college at a small town daily…