It has been crickets around here lately so I figured I would stop by and give a little update on what life is like in the Fire Journey household right now! It is going to be short at sweet and I am not worrying about too much formatting… so here it goes! It is August of 2022. The last time I updated I shared our plans for 2022. Well here we are over half way through the year and some of those plans have become real life and some have not! End of our Mini-Retirement Parental Leave We finished up our mini-retirement parental leave in May and we have both been working full time for nearly 3 month ..read more

A mini-retirement is the perfect way to welcome a new baby to your family! Welcome to the Ultimate Guide to a Mini-Retirement Parental Leave! Our time off as a family on our mini-retirement parental leave has been fantastic for us and I want to spread the word! I want to start the conversation to inspire others and let others know it is possible to take time off as a family when you welcome a baby into your life! At the time of writing this post, we are 11 months into our joint parental leave! I have been off for over 16 months and Mr B has been off for 11 months. I have been thinking about wh ..read more

Welcome to our first net worth update of 2022! This is where we share the monthly updates about our net worth changes, our journey to financial independence, our FIRE portfolio (NEW!) and see what happened in our life over the past month on our mini-retirement parental leave! Click here if you want to be notified when we post our monthly updates! Disclosure: This post includes affiliate links. That means we may receive a commission if you make a purchase or sign up after clicking through our links at no extra cost to you. If you choose to click on our affiliate links we appreciate your support ..read more

It is that time of year again, when we all take some time to reflect on our year and look ahead to our next year. You won’t find us crushing big goals we set at the beginning of the year here. We didn’t set goals for 2021 and aren’t setting any for 2022 either. Instead I like a “plans” approach better, instead of goal setting. I explain a bit more in the plans for 2022 section! So here is our review of our awesome 2021 and a look at our plans for 2022! 2021 Year in Review In no particular order here are some highlights from 2021! To say the least I am so grateful for the amazing year we have h ..read more

Welcome to our daughter’s 1-year old net worth update! Our little Baby B hasn’t worked a day in her life but she has a 5 figure net worth at 1-year old! When I was pregnant everyone always said how fast kids grow up. I can certainly understand what they mean now! It feels like yesterday we were bringing Baby B home from the hospital and now she is over a year old. We have had an incredible first year with her and we have both been home to enjoy watching her grow. She is now walking, starting to say words and is developing such an adorable personality. Over her first year we have tracked her ba ..read more

It is with a heavy heart that I write this post. I want to share it for financial transparency and maybe give you some inspiration for leaving inheritance to your family some day. I am receiving an inheritance. Baby B is receiving an inheritance. This inheritance is being passed to us from my Grandma also known as my Retirement Idol. If you want to read a bit more about her inspiring life you can read the post I wrote about her. She is my Retirement Idol for living such an amazing life right up until she passed. I want to share a bit more about her with you. I want to share how she included no ..read more

Our daughter Baby B turned 1 this week so we are sharing the cost of baby’s first year and our baby preparation expenses with you! I have been very excited to share this post after originally being inspired by Modern FImily’s post about the cost of their baby’s first year. I have also recently found inspiration from Rich Frugal Life and Money Flamingo on the costs of their children’s first years. I love seeing the actual cost of raising children and the cost of baby’s first year from people that are part of the financial independence community and not just a random website stating a baby will ..read more

Welcome to our December net worth update! This is where we document our net worth journey to financial independence and early retirement and dive into what happened in our life over the past month! Our net worth as of December 1, 2021 is $1,418,871! This is an increase of $1,495 since November 1, 2021. EXCITING NEWS!!! We track our net worth on an Excel spreadsheet every month! I have now made our exact spreadsheet available on my Fire Journey Design Etsy Shop for you to track your own net worth! Hope you enjoy! What happened this month? We are still on our mini-retirement parental leave! I ha ..read more

I have been off of work for 359 days. Mr B has been off for 205 days. In 191 days we will both be returning to full time work. Our daughter will go to full time daycare. Our mini-retirement parental leave will be over. We can’t stop thinking about how we could turn this parental leave mini-retirement thing into a forever thing! How can we achieve FIRE now?! We are dreading the return to work and starting child care Life is really good right now. Maybe too good. So good that we are dreading returning to work and starting our daughter in full time child care. When I picture what life will be lik ..read more

Welcome to the first post of our brand new blog series – financial independence with kids! In the growing financial independence community, there are more and more families with children or couples that want to have children on their journey to financial independence. We are one of them. We plan to reach financial independence with children and we want to share that journey with you! The series will include the following posts: Our Daughter’s Finances How to Prepare for a Baby Baby Essentials for the First Year Parental Leave Mini-Retirement Cost of Baby’s First Year RESPs Do you have other id ..read more