When Root Jr. was just a wee little pre-schooler he became very good friends with four boys at day care. We and the other parents nurtured these relationships with play dates and birthday parties. The boys remained friends through elementary school even though they didn’t […]

One of my favorite Financial Independence blogs is LateStarterFire. Late Starter is a 40 something woman from Australia who writes about her journey to Financial Independence. She’s a great writer and I can really identify with her story being a “late starter” myself. Also I […]

My last post was my first monthly review. It was the last day of February but I wrote about how we did in January. That same day I did something unusual for me since having found the Financial Independence movement (FI) just over a year […]

Let’s talk about money. Something I really enjoy about the FI community is that they talk about money! I think it’s important to talk about and not treat it like a taboo subject. To be honest, I feel a wee bit queasy as I write […]

A few years ago I saw Marie Kondo, the author of “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing” on a morning news show. It was a brief interview but had an immediate impact on me. She demonstrated how to […]

One of the reasons I started this blog was to hold myself accountable and measure our progress on our journey to FI. I am a fan of J. Money’s blog Budgets Are Sexy. A recent post of his got me thinking of what we have accomplished […]

Back in 2014 I read the book Zero Waste Home by Bea Johnson. If you haven’t heard of it she’s known for making her home and life as close to zero-waste as possible. She thought up ways to reduce how much trash she and her […]

I went from being a spendy gourmet to a frugal foodie after finding the Financial Independence (FI) movement. What I learned from the FI community is that there are three main categories of expenses that typically eat up people’s budgets the most: housing, transportation, and […]

I had an epiphany that Financial Independence = a shift in mindset. Like I said, “shift happens“. This shift in mindset saved me $37,656 dollars. Yep, here’s how.   HOW MY TOTALLY RELIABLE 10 YEAR OLD CAR CAME INTO MY LIFE In my Pre-FI, zombie-hamster-wheel, head-in-the-sand life […]

Here’s my big take away from learning about Financial Independence: it’s a SHIFT IN MINDSET. This shift was the catalyst for our plan and our drive to start taking action. Here’s what we have done so far since January of this year. CONTINUOUS LEARNING AND […]