About Us!
An introduction to Our Story
Here's a little insight into who we are, why we decided to change our financial situation, and the purpose of this site. Let's dive in!
We are what you would call an “average” family. Average? What do I mean by average? Well, we have things like a mortgage, a car (sometimes two), credit cards, 9-5 jobs. You know, the usual stuff. We also have two young children, which is a fun, challenging and rewarding experience in itself.
​
Trying to balance all of this can be difficult at times. Not just logistically, but also financially.
​
As you could probably tell from the title of our website, we are on a recently discovered path to FIRE, with a family!
FIRE means Financially Independent Retire Early. It’s all the rage with millennials right now, and for good reason. Check out the "Start Here" button at the top of this page where we explain the concept in more detail.
​
This is us!
We are a family of four who had our fair share of debt, unruly shopping habits and a superficial need to keep up with the Joneses. Word has it that the Joneses are broke... And we don't wanna be!
Financial experts? Not us. We're just average Joe's with a passion for all things personal finance.
​
Our journey to a life free of debt and becoming financial independent has only just begun. We are here to share all our highs, lows and everything in between.
​
Now, back to the story!
​
Who wouldn’t want to build enough wealth to quit their day job and sip mango margaritas on a beach somewhere?
That’s not exactly the goal for us, although we do want to build our wealth to a level where working a regular 9-5 is an option, not a necessity.
​
I’m not new to the whole budgeting and spreadsheet world (I work in a Business Improvement function for a mining company).
Heck, I’ve even built excel tools for area leaders to measure and manage their operational expenses to cut back on unnecessary spending! But apply that to our own personal finances? Tried and failed a few times over the years.
I always labelled it as “too hard”, or “I’ll do it when our income is higher”. I now realize that was completely the wrong attitude to have and it’s not as hard as I once thought.
We now have a keen interest in all things related to personal finance. I gravitate toward the spreadsheets, the apps, the steps, etc. While my wife has more of an interest in the psychological aspects of building wealth, such as rewiring how you view money and the behaviours associated with spending. She’s the Yin to my Yang.
I only stumbled across the topic of personal finance in November 2019, completely by accident through an ad on YouTube. It was something to do with ‘minimalism’ (another hot trend). Not really even related to personal finance per se, but it led to another video with a guy who used a whiteboard to explain all things personal finance (shout out to Marko from WhiteBoardFinance).
After watching only a few of his videos, I was hooked. From there it snowballed and before I knew it, I’d subscribed to 3 different YouTube channels, had a spreadsheet whipped up with an annual budget and aggressive savings targets plotted for every bi-weekly pay period.
In December 2019, the wife and I set and agreed a lofty goal for 2020 to save 60% of our net household income! Before that, we had managed to save 0% of our net income. Most of the time we’d end the year with more debt than we started with. You can see now why I said “lofty goal”.
This blog is all about our journey of building wealth and sharing our learnings and experiences along the way.
We are by no means financial experts and what we say shouldn’t be interpreted as us soliciting financial advice. We are simply sharing our story and sharing what has worked for us.
We're excited to share this journey with you and hopefully inspire people to take control of their finances and build wealth for their - and their kids! - future.