Hi all, and thanks for joining our frugal pack on our adventure!
We are two millennial engineers working towards financial independence, who jumped out of the corporate world early to pursue a slower savings journey. Financial Independence/Early Retirement (FIRE) has also challenged us to simplify our lives and deflate our lifestyle.
After graduating from college, we got married, saved up to buy our home, and then wondered what next? Conventional wisdom told us that we would be doing great if we saved 20% of our income. We started spending, traveling, and filling our life with more. Eventually, we realized all of this “stuff” and “experiences” weren’t contributing to our happiness. Our busy jobs got in the way of spending time together.
We then started reading and researching to discover what more was out there. Our awesome friends directed me to our favorite FIRE blogs, and I devoured the content. From there we started challenging everything and living a simply engineered life:
- Reduced our annual spending by 37%
- Finished paying off $60,000 in student loan, medical, and auto-loan debt
- Increased our savings rate to 75%
- Found better jobs to increase our income by 35%, optimize our savings, and try a new career path
- Track all of our spending using Personal Capital
- Continuously evaluate and optimize
The Big Change
After reading about FIRE and saving our money we realized that our lives were still not fulfilling. So we leapt out of our jobs early and stopped saving money.
We are now letting the market work its magic, enjoying a mini retirement, and earning only enough money to support our frugal lifestyle.
We love re-purposing lost and rejected items, working in the garden, cooking vegan dishes, and long bike rides. You may be interested in our monthly spending reports, to see how our DINK SINK family saves and spends.
But things aren’t always perfect for us either. We certainly don’t live up to the Mr. Money Mustache lifestyle, struggle through the daily drudgery of full time jobs, and Mr. Kiwi deals with chronic daily headaches. If you want rainbows and butterflies you won’t find that here! But I will share with you real and tested strategies to get off the hamster wheel and have more time for the things you value.
Thanks for learning a bit more about us, please let me know if you have any questions!
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