Navigate your life to Financial Freedom

One of the biggest topics in our house right now is when we plan to retire and how we will accomplish this goal. Retirement for us does not mean we will stop working all together, and maybe I shouldn't use the word retirement but instead our goal is to become financially independent. What does that mean? Financial independence means we will have enough personal wealth that our assets generate income that is greater than our expenses. You can make this happen thru a variety of ways, but it's important to bring your expenses as low as possible to make this easier. The first thing you should do is pay off all of your debt. My readers will know that we did this in 2016 , except for the mortgage. We are currently working on our plan to pay off our mortgage before 2025. If we accomplish this on schedule, we will be around the age of 40. Our goal is to become financially independent between the ages of 50-55. This means we need some sort of bridge account from this age to the time w...

Just like how we review our finances after each month, we review our budget after each trip. We made a last minute trip to Florida this month to see my Grandmom and hang out with family.  75% of Americans have gone into debt to pay for a vacation. It was a great trip, even if I did get severely sunburned. Yes, I was wearing sunscreen, just not the one I should have been wearing. Below is our budget to actual and you will see that we saved over $580 on this trip. We were able to save on the activities because we decided not to go jet skiing since the costs were too high. $70 for half an hour? No thanks! The other large savings was for gas since gas prices are so low right now and from food since we did not eat out at any restaurants. We typically grill out the entire time we go on family vacations to save money. When everyone in your family knows how to cook, there is no reason to eat mediocre food out at the beach. (Plus with Covid, we were not willing to risk it!) W...

The first week of June we evaluate how we are doing for the year. We will compare our budget to actuals for the year and check in on the goals we put in place in January. We will then make any edits we see fit. As you are aware from our May review , we have overspent on our alcohol for the year. This prompted us to increase our budget so that we do not overspend the last half the year. Finances is like trying to eat healthy. Sometimes when we screw up our healthy eating goals by eating a burrito in the morning, we throw our hands up in the air and declare the day as a cheat day and continue to eat unhealthy for the remainder of the day. When we could have declared that a cheat meal and made better choices for the rest of the day. Spending money is similar. We could have said that we can no longer spend any more money on alcohol for 2020, but that is unrealistic. A budget is not in place to restrict you but to empower you and allow you to make smarter choices. I began this blog to ...

When our friend’s wedding had to be postponed again and my brother suggested we join my other brother in Florida, it was a no brainer, JP and I immediately jumped on board. What was even more exciting about planning this trip was that my Grandmom was going to be out of the rehabilitation center by the time we got there. She hasn’t seen family in months in person, and I know she will be just as thrilled to see us as we will be to see her. She is truly the sweetest, most amazing Grandmom ever. After securing the same rental property as last year, we set out to plan the rest of our vacation. Just like last year, we are going to drive to Florida… that is almost 24 hours of fun (as long as we do not hit a deer again)! Because we already had the money saved up for the Dallas wedding, we just moved that over to this trip. We have another 8 months to save back up for Dallas. One of the best things about vacation for us is the eating. So we picked out our route, investigated on the best plac...

Recap on our car life... Since moving to Colorado 7 years ago, JP and I have only had to take care of my car. JP always worked for companies that provided work trucks. When he left his job earlier this year, it meant we were down to one car. We started to save up in late January for a new car in case he got a job that did not provide a work vehicle. He started working for his new company in mid February and he and I would share the car. That meant, JP had to take to me to work each morning and pick me up each evening. It really was not that bad, but was simply an inconvenience. A month later, I was working from home due to Covid-19 and stay at home orders. JP was still going to work so he was able to use the car. Then starting May 3rd, JP was put on furlough and we both didn't need the car. I was still working from home and JP didn't need to go anywhere anymore. When JP got his first unemployment check with the CARE act payments, we had officially saved up to purchase a car wit...

This month has been a challenging one with obstacles that have tried to slow me down. I set myself a few goals for May: to hit every Apple watch activity goal each day (burn 340 calories, 1 min standing time, exercise for 30 minutes), to lose the weight I had gained from lock down, and to quit the late night eating. It was all going well until Memorial Day weekend. It rained all afternoon on Sunday and I had not yet finished my Apple watch goals, but I put a raincoat on and went walking in the rain to get it done. I was only a week away from the end of the month and was not going to let rain fail me. The next day, Memorial Day, we went out for our morning bike ride and I fell. Banged up my knee and a few fingers, we weren't sure if I was going to be able to go back on another bike ride or even speed walk but I was ok. After a few hours of rest, I got back on my bike and finished the goals. This made me think of other obstacles that get in my way for other life goals. Sometimes I co...

Even with the shut down, JP and I still meal prep each week. This week we meal prepped shrimp Filipino pancit for lunch, spam sushi for breakfast and even prepped some dinners. If we do not meal plan, we will end up getting take out or ordering in. And during these extraodinary times, we definitely do not want to be eating out that much. Although, we had ordered a lot of Pho and Pizza. Spam sushi is one of my favorite breakfasts. A few years ago some coworkers gave me this awesome spam sushi maker and it took me years to finally use it. Once we started, we cannot stop. But you do not need a spam sushi maker to make this delicious dish, it just makes it easier to put together. I could eat these everyday. I love everything involved in this dish. You just take cooked white rice, slice up and pan fry your spam, add some wasabi and wrap it up in seaweed. Delicious!  This week we meal prepped shrimp pancit , which is a Filipino noodle dish. This is a very easy and low cost meal. ...