I’m about to turn 31 in a few short weeks (as of the launch of this blog), and my lovely, globe-trotting wife is about to turn 30. Money has always been of great interest to me, and I’ve been a diligent saver for as long as I can remember. Several years ago, a friend introduced me to a personal finance blog (Mr. Money Mustache, you may have heard of him) and my interest in achieving Financial Independence (FI) exploded from there. The Spreadsheets that I so diligently maintain project us to be able to retire from the working world within the next 3-4 years with a portfolio value somewhere around $1,250,000. Hence the name: FIby35.
An accountant by trade, I currently work in the governmental sector in the greater Twin Cities area. Mrs. FIby35 and I live with our dog in the suburbs of St. Paul, Minnesota, in a house that is admittedly too large for 2 people and a small dog. Personally, we don’t subscribe to the “professional” one-size-fits-all recommendations you see elsewhere on the internet proclaiming that certain cost categories should make up a certain percentage of your overall spending. We do our best to spend our money on what makes us happy.
Speaking of things that make us happy, we love to travel. In fact, that is the genesis of our FI journey – we want to be able to retire as soon as possible so we can travel the world on our own schedule, at our own pace, and see all the amazing things it has to offer. Other interests of ours include brewery hopping, sports, and live music.
I created this blog as a way to document our personal experience and the thoughts we have along the way. My hope is that it provides an interesting, entertaining, in-depth look at the financial decisions we make on a daily basis that eventually impact our future life in a big way.
Please browse around the site, subscribe to the blog so you get new posts delivered directly to your inbox, and comment on the posts to make this a lively discussion and not just some crazy spreadsheet-worshipper dumping his thoughts into the internet. If you have comments to share privately, or suggestions for topics of a future post, you can email me directly at fibythirtyfive@gmail.com.
Join us on our path to FI by 35!