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Posted on May 31, 2019June 1, 2019 by Tread Lightly, Retire Early · 28 Comments

Friday’s Frugal Five (Orcas Island Edition)

We spent last weekend (ie Memorial Day weekend) out on Orcas Island, which was our first overnight trip to the San Juan Islands in much too long, though we did spend a day on San Juan Island just last month. We don't typically venture out that way during the summer months because it's the busy…

Posted on May 17, 2019May 17, 2019 by Tread Lightly, Retire Early · 21 Comments

Friday’s Frugal Five (Neighbor Edition)

Our neighbors moved away this week. Not just out of our neighborhood, but out of state and halfway across the country. They've been our neighbors for well over half the time we've been in our home, which will be eight years on the first of next month. Our son has known them to be our…

Posted on May 3, 2019May 3, 2019 by Tread Lightly, Retire Early · 16 Comments

Friday’s Frugal Five (Arizona Edition)

We got back from a long weekend visit to Arizona on Tuesday morning, and it's completely thrown my week off because of it after I returned to work on Wednesday. Hopefully I'm actually posting this on a Friday because I haven't known what day it was all week long. Even so, I do like splitting…

Posted on April 12, 2019April 17, 2019 by Tread Lightly, Retire Early · 16 Comments

Friday’s Frugal Five (2019 – Week 14)

We went out to San Juan Island for the day on Saturday for the first time in far too long. While Lopez Island is our favorite of the islands, we very much enjoy spending time on Orcas Island and San Juan Island as well. The major upside of heading to San Juan is that Friday…

Posted on April 5, 2019 by Tread Lightly, Retire Early · 32 Comments

Friday’s Frugal Five (2019 – Week 13)

So, one of our very favorite neighbor couples is moving out of state come next month. They are having their first child and are moving to be closer to family, so I completely understand why they are making that choice, but we are seriously going to miss them around here. Remember when I wrote about…

Posted on March 29, 2019April 4, 2019 by Tread Lightly, Retire Early · 32 Comments

Friday’s Frugal Five (2019 – Week 12)

Last Friday the kiddo and I took the train down to Portland for Uriah's third birthday party. It was an absolutely lovely trip and I'm so glad that the two of them got to hang in real life instead of just by FaceTime, and seeing and hugging his mama just fed my soul. Love you…

Posted on February 25, 2019May 28, 2019 by Tread Lightly, Retire Early · 46 Comments

How To Travel More Sustainably With Airbnb

I recently got back from a trip where yet another Airbnb we stayed in provided a Keurig and single use k-cups for coffee making instead of a more traditional coffee maker. While I made my coffee in the French press I brought along with us, it got me thinking about how to travel more sustainably…

Posted on February 18, 2019February 18, 2019 by Tread Lightly, Retire Early · 41 Comments

Monthly Financial Update: January 2019

Again, I think this is one of those months where I am way too hard on myself. After missing out on my 2018 savings goal by a few percentage points, I went into 2019 with a renewed focus to hit that full fifty percent savings rate this year. Of course, January was also the month…

Posted on February 8, 2019February 16, 2019 by Tread Lightly, Retire Early · 41 Comments

Friday’s Frugal Five (Hawaii Edition)

We just got back from a week in Hawaii on Wednesday morning and returned to temperatures fifty to sixty degrees colder along with a whole bunch of ice and snow. Looking at the forecast before we headed back sure made it tempting to just not come home for a bit, but it appears that the…

Posted on February 1, 2019February 1, 2019 by Tread Lightly, Retire Early · 23 Comments

Friday’s Frugal Five (2019 – Week 5)

Last Saturday we dropped the kiddo off for a sleepover at Nana's and we headed back out to the Olympic Peninsula (Port Angeles in particular) for a weekend trip for a neighbor's birthday. It's been over a year since we've gone overnight together without the kiddo, and it was a much needed trip. We each…

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Final sunset while on our trip to Orcas Island over Memorial Day weekend last month. We stayed at West Beach Resort in a glamping tent cabin for the first time ever. It wasn’t cheap - almost $200 for the night - but the experience was so much fun and we really enjoyed ourselves. The rest of the trip was with family in a big Airbnb, so we went all out for the final night just the three of us. . Otherwise, we did a decent job on the rest of our expenses for the month, with our grocery bill coming in at under $300 for the first time all year! Restaurant and vacation food spending was higher (though normal), but I was pretty dang proud of us on the grocery front. More in the post about how we made that happen. . I also did something extra special for a friend this past month, and I decided to share the details about that giving. I am always hesitant not to seem like I’m “showing off” when it comes to things I do for others, but if I can inspire someone else to do the same, then that awkwardness of sharing is completely worth it. Above all else, love people, and use your actions to show it. . Want all the details about our finances this month? Real numbers (though I do keep back what we pay on the mortgage + daycare for some small bit of privacy on the internet) and how we achieved a 44% savings rate in May even while splurging on some special travel. *link in bio* . . . . . #orcasisland #sanjuanislands #islandsunset #financialfreedom #debtfreecommunity #financialindependence #financialindependenceretireearly #fire #choosefi #budget #womenspersonalfinance #savemoney #frugaltravel #glamping We now have enough strawberries in the yard on a single day to have enough to make milkshakes! We did this a handful of times over last summer with different berries as they ripened and the kiddo remembers it as one of the best parts of summer. Even better, he got to share it last night with a couple of his friends, and you could just see how proud he was to share “his” garden’s produce. . He loves to help in the garden and in the kitchen, and I hope has he grows these memories will stick with him - not just of relaxed days in the sunshine at home, but also of being tied in to the fluctuations of the seasons and the understanding that strawberries just don’t happen in the middle of winter, that food just tastes better in season. . . . . . . #homegrownstrawberries #homegrown #urbanhomestead #frugalliving #gardening #pnwgardening #frontyardgarden #gardenwithkids #zerowasteliving #zerowaste #growyourownfood #frugal #homemademilkshakes Tuesday afternoon I had the opportunity to walk the six miles home from work because my husband picked up the kiddo. I considered taking the bus and then goes to the gym instead, but the day was just too lovely to spend on the bus. . . And then I considered the $2.75 bus fare I’d have to spend instead of the free walk, and that sold it for me. As silly, small about perhaps, but thanks to @reachingforfi a while back sharing her creation of a “found savings” bank account, I’ve done the same, so that $2.75 has been deposited there. . Without that intentionality of moving the money immediately into savings, I’ve in the past tricked myself into thinking I’ve “saved” a lot more than I actually have. Money would not get spent in one place, but then I would look back at the end of the month and I wouldn’t actually have saved any more because if just got spent on other things. . So far, my “found savings” account is small, but $2.75 here and $10 there are going to add up to real numbers over time. And it’s better incentive for me to forgo those “it’s just five dollars” temptations because I know they’re adding up to so much more. . Do you have a “found savings” account? Have you ever considered opening one? . . . . #debtfreecommunity #financialindependence #financialindependenceretireearly #frugalliving #moneysavingtips #savings #womenspersonalfinance #walkhomefromwork #walkingcommute #personalfinance #choosefi I met Liz back in November of last year at the inaugural Cents Positive. While I was so excited to meet blogger friends in person, again or for the first time, I really hadn’t given a lot of thought to the other women who would be attending the event, considering well over half of them were not bloggers (there were perhaps twenty or twenty five bloggers of more than eighty women who attended the weekend). . . Other than bloggers, I had only met one other person in real life who had retired by their mid fifties or earlier, and that was my husband’s godfather, who travels with us often. Obviously, there are many others who have also done so, but since the majority don’t talk about it publicly, we don’t really get to know them in the same way. . . At Cents Positive though, I met a number of women who had pulled the trigger on early retirement, and many others who were along all different places in their journey to financial independence. Liz was one of them. She retired in the summer of 2017 and, as I found out through conversations that weekend and then later through email and then text, she hasn’t worked a day since. . . The idea that everyone who “retires early” find some encore career or other source of income (ahem, like blogging) is perpetuated by the fact that those are the people who tend to write about it publicly. The ones who aren’t blogging or sharing online are simply living their lives, oftentimes very much off line. . . Eventually, I asked Liz if she would write a blog post for me here, and I was thrilled when she said yes. We’ve talked about a number of overlapping interests, mostly gardening and sustainability (they have an electric car and solar panels and are using gray water to water their garden), but this post today is specifically about the numbers. She tracked her finances closely through 2018, her first full year of early retirement, and she shared them with me here, as well as some snippets about her life since she walked away from her corporate career. (Link in bio). . . . . . . #financialindependence #financialindependenceretireearly #womenspersonalfinance #fire #choosefi #earlyretirement #retired #workoptional #debtfreecommunity Financial Independence For All. . . Women are joining, and changing, a movement that has been white and male. . We aren’t just joining the FIRE community (hello, Vicki Robin and the publication of Your Money or Your Life originally back in 1992), but we certainly are changing it for the better. . I know I shared the online version a couple days ago but there is something extra surreal about seeing my name in the print edition of The New York Times. And of all the things I could see my name attached to, this article about women and financial independence is probably the best thing I could have ever hoped for. . “Meet The Women Of The Financial Independence Community,” the blog post and evergreen list of women’s financial independence and personal finance bloggers, has been my most read post since I started blogging two years ago, for darn good reason. And with its inclusion here, the women listed there are ALSO getting some pretty awesome press as well. There’s nothing I love better than seeing all the referrals go out to so many amazing women writing about money and FIRE, truly shifting the tone of the community to one that is supportive and inclusive, where it doesn’t matter your sexual orientation, family structure, skin color, or career track; there’s a blog (or many) that women can read to find a story that sounds more like their own. And now those stories are being seen by so many new people this week, and that makes my heart so happy. . “Before I found you, I thought I was the only one out here!” . . “We all deserve... to see the dream is possible.” . . “I saw there were women with debt and kids that are doing it so why not me?” . . To anyone who thinks representation doesn’t matter, this is why. . . @charlottecowles @richandregular @our_nextlife @bgrpiggy @bgrkitty @frugal_asian @steppingstonestofi @nytimes . . . . . #financialindependence #financialindependenceretireearly #financialfreedom #debtfreecommunity #womenspersonalfinance #debtfree #personalfinance #frugalliving #frugality #inclusion #blackwomeninfinance #womeninfinance #womenbloggers #choosefi #firecommunity I’m in The New York Times this morning talking about women in the FIRE movement. From first publishing my list of bloggers a year and a half ago to having a (very) well written article in a major news publication talking about the very same thing - thanks to @charlottecowles for writing such a fabulous piece. I’m a bit in shock, and so, so thankful that I get to be a part of lifting up women’s voices in this wonderful personal finance community. I can’t wait to see what we do next 🔥 . . . . . S/o to the other ladies featured: @our_nextlife @richandregular @bgrpiggy @bgrkitty @frugal_asian @steppingstonestofi . . . . . #financialindependence #financialfreedom #debtfreecommunity #womenoffi #fire #earlyretirement #womenempowerment #frugalliving #financialindependenceretireearly #choosefi #personalfinance #womenspersonalfinance

Tread Lightly, Retire Early

Tread Lightly, Retire Early

Recent Posts

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  • Friday’s Frugal Five (2019 – Week 22)
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