Category: Money Management

Another month is here, and with it, another opportunity to get better at money stuff! (No, it really never ends–I’m always trying to work on spending a little more wisely, despite how long I’ve been paying attention to our spending!).

Last month I took on the huge challenge of a digital fast. There were so many takeaways that I’m dedicating a whole post to it.

For this month, I’ve been reading a lot about global warming, in honor of Earth Day, and I actually read some really useful information about how we, as a family, could do a better job of reversing global warming.

I read that the third top way to mitigate global warming, according to Project Drawdown, is to reduce food waste (if you’re interested, refrigerant/AC coolant management and creating more onshore wind power are #1 and #2).

As a huge composter, I was shocked to hear that reducing food waste was much more impactful to the planet than composting (composting is still a good method–coming in at #60 of 100).

Want to know what #4 is? A plant rich diet.

Okay, as someone who pays a moderate amount of attention to helping Mother Earth, the fact that there are two relatively easy ways for me and my household to impact climate change is kind of amazing.

Reduce the amount of food we waste.

Eat more plants and less meat.

Continue reading “A Year of Good Money: Decrease Food Waste”

Last October, I was excited to learn that Mr. ThreeYear’s employer was offering, for the first time ever, a high deductible health care plan, coupled with a Health Savings Account (HSA).

In the past, we’d only had the option of a Flexible Savings Account (FSA). Flexible Savings Accounts offer some tax advantages, such as allowing you to deduct up to $2700 of your paycheck, tax free, to use with qualified medical expenses. But you only have one calendar year to use the funds or you lose them. $500 of the funds carry over to the next calendar year, which you have to use by March 31st.

With an HSA, however, you can deduct up to $7000 of your paycheck, tax-free, and there’s no deadline for using the funds. You can invest the money in your HSA, and take it with you if you leave your employer. Your money will grow, tax free, for as long as it’s kept in your account, and you can access the money whenever you like to pay for qualified medical expenses. If you haven’t read the MadFientist’s excellent primer on HSAs, you should. It’s one of the reasons I was so excited to get an HSA option this year.

Last Year

Last year, we opted for the company’s normal health care insurance option. Each paycheck, $280.99 was taken out of Mr. ThreeYear’s paycheck for his cost of the health insurance, and $57.75 was taken out of each paycheck to fund the FSA.

When we went to the doctor, we paid a normal copay of $20-$40 and medications cost us $10 each.

Continue reading “Our Switch to an HSA: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”

Happy Wednesday, readers! So glad to be back with another installment of the “Your Three Year Experiment” series, where we feature stories of people pursuing their unique dreams and goals over the next few years.

Today I’m delighted to introduce Jennifer, a new reader whose story is very similar to my own, except she’s a lot younger, doesn’t have kids, and has way more energy than I do, based on this interview! 🙂

You’re going to love her story! In it, you’ll learn:

• the daily habit Jennifer and Lewis, her boyfriend, use to stay on track with their goals
• their multi-national geoarbitrage plan
• why paying attention to your tax rate is so important

Take it away, Jennifer!

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Hi! My name is Jennifer and my boyfriend’s name is Lewis. We are in our mid-30’s and live in Cincinnati, OH. We’ve followed very different paths up to this point in our lives but one thing we have in common is our dissatisfaction with following the standard societal norms and the idea of working for the next 30-40 years. We have decided to chart our own path that is a unique mix of a “fully-funded lifestyle change” and eventual financial independence, with a big dash of geoarbitrage mixed in!

Our plan is to spend the next 3 years in Cincinnati saving up/investing as much money as possible so that we can then move abroad for the following decade or so. We would both continue working on-and-off in some capacity- I plan to apply for teaching positions in international universities, while Lewis completes his degree online and then launches his own translation company. Our goal is to move every 2-3 years. So far we are planning: Bogotá (Colombia), then somewhere in the Middle East (likely Dubai or Abu Dhabi) [Laurie’s note: then definitely check out my friend Andrew’s story], then either Paris or Granada (Spain) for Lewis to do his masters. From there, who knows?!?

What’s your background? Early years, education, married, kids, jobs?

I’ve spent most of my life living in Cincinnati minus a few years in Dallas. I grew up in a solidly middle-class family and was the first to attend/graduate college. My parents have always tried to instill the standard American ‘dream’ in me of getting a good job, staying there forever, and living my whole life here in Cincinnati. Sorry to disappoint them, but I’ve never fit into that mold!

Even my career path has been interesting in that I keep jumping back and forth between two fields. I went to a top design school for architecture/interior design but quickly realized that I didn’t enjoy working in the field, so I took extra classes each quarter (the maximum the university allowed!) in order to get a minor in Spanish. Good thing too, because I graduated in 2009 and couldn’t even find a design firm to VOLUNTEER at!

Continue reading “Your Three Year Experiment: Jennifer & Lewis”

As we enter the fourth month of the year here in North Carolina, I’ve been thinking about the differences between our old Spring in New Hampshire and the Spring we’re experiencing now.

While it did snow yesterday (very strange for North Carolina in April), in general we’ve enjoyed warmer temperatures and sunshine. New Hampshire still has snow on the ground, so the flowers and Spring weather are a welcome change.

Spring has always been my favorite time of year here, and this year is no different. The new blooms and warmth make me smile. And things are in full bloom right now. Our cherry trees have exploded in tiny white blossoms that look like snow as they fall off the trees. We’re sneezing like crazy with all the pollen in the air, and everywhere you turn, creeping phlox, tulips, daffodils, and other early Spring emergents are bursting out of the ground in an explosion of color.

Our Progress

March was a pretty boring month, net worth wise. Nothing much changed and we saved a normal amount towards retirement, our HSA, home equity, and the like. Our total net worth increased just over 1%.

Continue reading “March Net Worth Update”

When I saw a note on a forum about a new series featuring young families getting out of debt, I smiled. Our family has definitely achieved the former, but I don’t think we qualify for the latter at this point. After all, I’m almost 40, Mr. ThreeYear is a ripe old 45, and our kids are no longer so young. At 11 and 8, they definitely qualify for the middle-elementary category.

However, I think our story has a lot to teach young families with debt to pay off. After all, we started our debt payoff in a typical fashion, by following Dave Ramsey’s baby steps. But we took more debt on, after we’d paid off our original debt, learned how to pay off debt twice, and have somehow still managed to save a large net worth and reach our goals of location independence.

Financial Pilgrimage is a blog about a young family who is also in the process of paying off their debt, including their mortgage. They focus on advice for young families, those who are just getting started, have young kids, or both.

Here’s our Debt Payoff Story (times two):

1) Start by telling us about yourself. Please include any details you feel comfortable sharing about your family, job situation, income level, and amount of debt paid.

I’m Laurie and I’ll start by saying that my family is probably a few years past the “young” stage. I’m 39, my husband is 45, and our boys are now 11 and 8. When we started our debt repayment journey, though, we only had one son who was about 18 months old.

Don’t worry, it didn’t take us ten years to pay off all our debt! But we had to learn some lessons twice, so I thought our story would be a great case study for young families.

When we started our debt repayment journey, my husband worked for a Fortune 50 company in marketing, I had just become a stay-at-home mom, and we were adjusting to life as new parents.

It was July 4^th, 2008, and my husband had been laid off six months before. It was the middle of the housing crisis, and his company had been hit hard. They laid off thousands of employees.

At first, we were frantic—he’d received a 3-month severance, but what would we do after that? After all, I was no longer working, we had a mortgage, and we now had a young son to support.

Continue reading “How We Paid Off Our Debt, Twice: Guest Post on Financial Pilgrimage”