Hi, we’re The Fioneers! Our friends call us by our first names, Jess and Corey. We’re in our mid-30s and a DINK (dual-income; no kids) couple living in New Hampshire.
We started our blog together in September of 2018 to chronicle our journey to financial independence.
Since then, we’ve made many intentional choices to design our lives along our journey to financial independence.
- We both spent the majority of our careers working in mission-driven nonprofit organizations. Our jobs provided some meaning and purpose, but the trade-off was generating a lower income than a job in the private sector.
- In 2018, Jess experienced severe burnout which led to anxiety and other mental health issues. This led her to take a 6-month career break to focus on my mental health.
- In 2019, Jess went back to work part-time. This provided her with plenty of time to focus on her mental health. When her mental health improved, we realized we had reached Coast FI, so she decided not to increase her hours.
- In 2020, Jess launched my business with the very first cohort of Design a Life You Love, my signature group coaching program. And, I freaking loved it!
- In 2021, Jess “took the leap” to entrepreneurship!
- In 2022, we bought and built out a campervan to support our goal of living a location-independent lifestyle.
- In 2023, Corey left his day job to join Jess in entrepreneurship.
The best part? We have not yet reached our financial independence target. We’re using the financial freedom we gain along the way to design a life we don’t want to retire from.
We also love all types of adventure, whether it’s exploring a new country, learning a new language, or exploring the great outdoors. We have a goal to travel to 100 countries and all 50 states together before we get too old to travel.
Simply put, we like to dream big.
About the Fioneers
We started the Fioneers as a way to track our journey to financial independence. If there’s anything we have learned so far, Financial independence has many definitions.
We choose to think of financial independence as:
the point at which our assets produce enough sustainable income to cover our living expenses.
This is not just about the money, but more importantly about the freedom that comes with it.
The name “The Fioneers” comes from a combination of Financial Independence (FI) + Pioneers.
We think the name fits well with our deep-rooted love of adventure. It’s also a constant reminder to enjoy the journey.
Our Motto
Our motto at the Fioneers is:
The journey should be remarkable as the destination.
This means that while we are focused on reaching financial independence, we are enjoying the journey along the way. We don’t want to throw away the next ~5-10 years of our lives just to reach financial independence earlier.
Instead, we want to discover our passions and create a life we don’t want to retire from.
Slow FI
We coined the term “Slow FI” as a way to describe our approach to achieving financial independence. If you don’t read anything else on our site, our Slow FI Manifesto is one to read.
Or, you can watch the video below.
This is a big part of our message. And as such, we’ve also created our (award-winning) Slow FI Interview Series to share compelling stories of others who have made intentional decisions to design their lives along the path to FI.
What to Expect on The Fioneers
We publish a new article on the blog from time to time. Right now we are releasing new content on our youtube channel. We have years worth of written content to consume on the blog covering a few core topics, including:
- Designing a Life You Truly Love
- Achieving Financial Freedom
- Our Adventures and Vanlife
- Interviews with people who are designing their lives along their journey to FI
You can subscribe to our newsletter (via the form at the bottom of this page), follow us on social media, or return to our blog for new content.
Start with These Articles
If you are new to this site and would like to know where to start, here’s a brief list of our best articles:
- Why You Should Design Your Life Before Reaching Financial Independence
- How I Went from Making $11,000 to Reaching Coast FI in 10 Years
- Our Financial Independence Plan
- Our Next 5-Year Plans and Tips to Create Yours
- Savings Rate: Why It Matters and How We Doubled Ours
- F-You Money is More than a Number
- Your Ultimate Guide to Coast FI
- You Are Not Your Job: How to Reclaim Your Identity
- Passion Hustle: the Fusion of Side Hustles and Passion Projects
- Coast FI vs. Slow FI: What’s the Difference?
- Financial Metrics to Help You Design Your Life Today
- Why We Chose Vanlife
