Reflections After 1 Year on the Journey to FI
One year ago, Corey and I officially decided to pursue financial independence. As I now look back on one year into our pursuit of financial independence, our life is very different today than it was a year ago. Financial independence played a huge role in redefining our lives.
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Financial Independence Milestones that Actually Motivate
After reviewing the popular financial independence milestones, I decided that I wanted to create new financial independence milestones. These new milestones would motivate, inspire and help me keep tabs on the impact that financial freedom has on my life today.
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Surprising Benefits from Not Climbing the Corporate Ladder
I was recently speaking with Chris Roane from Money Stir. Chris shared with me an interesting story where he decided to take a “step back” in his career after figuring out what kind of work would be a better fit for his skills and personality. When he initially made this decision to switch jobs, he took a fairly substantial pay cut. Less than two years after making this decision to find a job that was a better fit for him, he’s advanced in his career and is now making more money than before.
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Gamification Not Deprivation
Too often the narrative around financial independence focuses on depriving oneself of purchases so that you can increase your savings rate. While I agree with the essence of this discourse, it has a gaping hole of HOW. How do you go about reversing some of the most ingrained habits and behaviors? In my opinion, there’s no better way to help you change your behavior on the journey to financial independence than to leverage gamification.
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Our Frugal Wedding
Our wedding day was beautiful, and we embraced a money-saving mindset and optimized almost everything. This set a strong foundation for starting our financial life together and more recently, getting on the same page regarding financial independence. For our 10th anniversary, I’d love to share our 10 frugal wedding ideas.
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Trading Money for Time on the Path to Financial Independence
Back in the fall, when I considered accepting a part-time job, knowing that Angela has previously walked this path made it feel easier to do the same. Angela has also been instrumental in helping me learn to set boundaries at work and say no more frequently. Angela was one of the first people who I thought of when I started this interview series. I’m very excited for Angela to share her story with you.
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Why You Should Pursue Financial Independence Even If You Don’t Want to Retire Early
Even though I don’t want to retire early, this doesn’t mean I am no longer pursuing financial independence. It’s actually quite the opposite. I am more excited about our pursuit of financial independence because of the complexity of our journey. It’s no longer as simple as finding a balance between work and no work. It’s a journey of self-discovery, dreaming big, working toward goals, re-engineering our life, diving into entrepreneurship, and so much more.
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Balancing Work and Family with Part-Time Employment
Meet Mr. and Mrs. GovWorker. Mr. and Mrs. GovWorker live in the midwest. They both work government jobs and have three kids, ages 3-to-11. Mr. and Mrs. GovWorker also don’t have a set timeline to reach financial independence. They learned about FI in 2018 when reading a Money Magazine feature. Their decision to pursue FI came when they realized that they were already more than halfway to FI and would love the extra time to enjoy life together. In this interview in the slowing down series, Mr. GovWorker shares how their family of five has achieved more balance since Mrs. GovWorker recently was able to transition her role from 5 to 4 days/week.
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How We Manage Our Money
I’m here to pull back the curtain and share how we manage our finances. Most of these practices were already in place before I got involved. Now that I am more aware and involved, I now realize how lucky I am to have a partner who has been so conscientious about our finances. It was Mr. Fioneer who set us up for success from the very beginning.
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