
## Hello, from 2023 

I have some plans for this website as we head into the new year. 1) I'd like to put some DIY stuff in here because we do a lot of DIY stuff at home that add character, and I'd like to share it here. 2) I'd also like to add in our favourites, some items we just can't live without as we go through all the renovations and home changes.

This year is bringing a lot already. We ended 2022 with a bang, we went to Hawaii to visit friends in November and managed to get our scuba licenses while there. Met new people, ate amazing seared ahi tuna salads and swam with sea turtles. Saw old friends, enjoyed the sunshine and the beach, warm weather and the water. It was dreamy! Once we returned to Seattle we had family come visit for the holiday season and we hosted Christmas for the first time. Along with all the renovations being done on the house this year, we saw our house transform into our home. The number of things we learned through this process is amazing, we have come so far from where we were. 

2022 saw us prioritizing our home and health above all else. My theme for 2022 was literally 'sleep' aka 'rest' or any other word that meant 'take a break'. And I didn't realize that would manifest itself into me quitting and actually sleeping more. But I prioritized my mental health and took the time off that I needed, and it worked out great for me. I came back to work energized and happier on my new team, looking forward to my work each day instead of dreading it. I also finished therapy last year, something I didn't want to let go of but my therapist suggested I didn't need her as much any more - and to always contact her if I do need her again. We talked through a lot of different things, from child hood trauma to other life struggles. 

But this year, ah I feel like it's going to be the biggest year yet. The first few months of 2023 we are putting our travel pants on and getting out into the world. We're seeing the UK in February, NYC in March, and Australia/Japan in April. When we're not traveling or renovating, you'll find us snow boarding up in the mountains! When we're not boarding, we'll be finishing up renovations on the house. We have some drywall, electrical, and some basement work to be done but that's it! The garden will be more than triple the size it was last year, we started with 4 garden boxes and this year we'll have 14. Lots of space for flowers, more pumpkins, tomatoes, garlic, onions, basil, and everything else! We're going to put some lights up in the garden for the spring/summer time too! As well as ensure, all our garden boxes have lights installed on them for night time viewing :) 

This year my focus and theme is 'peace'. I would like to have a peaceful year filled with things that bring me happiness and joy. Good friends, great food, healthy habits, time outdoors, and rest. It's going to be a wonderfully big year, we have many surprises to bring to this little space of the internet and I can't wait to share them all with you <3 Thank you for being here. 






Hello From 2023


# Three months of time off 

Wow has time just flown by, its been three months of time off from work and I've felt incredibly thankful for the time. Something I told myself as I left work was that I wasn't going to go seek work until three months were up and it just so turns out I had the universe, god, angels (whatever you believe) working in my favour because a friend reached out with a job and I got it. I'll be going back to work around mid August and I'm looking forward to it!

But what did I do with my time off? What have I learned? I've learned a handful of things so far. Things I didn't expect and some things I did. Here's my roundup: 

## Work is not the only stress in life 

I think lots of people around me thought I'd take time off work and quickly find the stress isn't entirely gone. I didn't really expect all the stress in my life to go away the momeny I left work, stress is not entirely gone, it's still around once in a while and I'm okay with that. But the major stress in my life did dissipate. I have taken the time to feel relaxed, understand what gives me anxiety/stress and now that I'm at a good baseline with my stress/anxiety its up to me to maintain that. I've done that by 1) Choosing a good team/manager to work for. 2) I'll set expectations on what I can/cannot do. 3) The expectation isn't to work constantly when I do go back, its to be sustainable over time. 

## Prioritizing things you want to do today

If you want to start doing yoga daily, then you need to start doing yoga daily, regardless of anything else going on in your life. Without work I did have a lot of time to do what I wanted, time to relax, nap in the afternoons, read books etc. But my idea of who I was going to be was this ultra healthy, sculpted and lean version of myself. Things take time, that doesn't happen in a week and yes I worked out but it was the same as it was when I worked. If you need to rest and relax, you still need to dedicate time to that daily. Not working doesn't let you magically go to that yoga class and meditate in the morning, you need to build those habits into your daily life. 

## Get away from your phone 

No work means lots of time to look at social media, update linkedin, text friends, instant message, etc. It got my eyes all weird always looking at my phone. Going outside, taking time for a walk around the park, baking things, cooking things, reading books, gardening all helped me get away from screens and it was the best choice. Relaxing those eyes, which is funny givin here I am on my computer screen writing this out but you know what I mean. Limit phone time, read a book, listen to music/pod casts, look at things far away! 

## Give time to things that matter to you 

Time off for me meant I had time to be there for friends and family. A lot happened while I've been off, I had friends needing me for important things which I had all the time to help with. Family visited and I had the time to explore and go on adventures, I had time to renovate, call my mom whenever I wanted to, train the dog. It was nice being able to walk with my pup Teddy every single day, take him on walks and train him. It was really nice to have the time to do all the things that mattered to me. Taking a break from work gave me the time back to do other things, sometimes those things included taking a nap here and there. 

## Time off does not solve all your problems 

This one kind of relates to the first point but it has more to do with the things going on in your life. Time off didn't mean all my childhood trauma was dealt with and thought about. It was thought of sure but it didn't solve it. Time off didn't stop my emotions from being emotions, instead it brought out some things I hadn't been thinking of as much and brought them to the forefront of my mind. Why? Because I finally had the time to think about them. This is a pro and con, it helps me focus on them and figure out what I need to do to work through them but it doesn't actually make them magically go away. Which is a good and bad thing. 

That's about all I got this time around. I'll think about this one and add more if I think of more things I've gone through during my time off. 


Three + months of time off


## Funemployment 

I have been off work for over a month now, and I've learned quite a few things here about rest, recovery, and my mental health. Here are those points: 

## Time off is not:
1. Meant for you to create your side hustle or side business, sure a side business sounds lovely but the goal isn't to create new things. It's to recover from what you have done, all the work you've put into your career or anything else you're taking a break from. The anxiety of not producing money may set in but planning time off and taking it was meant to give you the ease of months without worrying about finances. That's why we plan for time off like this. Not producing a pay check is counter to what we've been taught, money brings everything to us in our society, home, food, etc. Making a plan before time off eases this burden by making sure finances are stable, setting expectations that you will be spending money and not recovering the money just yet, should already be established. Time off isn't meant to create a whole new business to produce money you are in fear of losing. 

2. Meant to start building new things unless those things impact your mental health in a positive way. Again, time off is for resting. Don't feel the pressure to build up your skill set to get back into the career grind and game, its not meant for that. It's meant to rest your brain from all the learning you've already done. 

3. To be constantly busy and always going. Rest rest rest, the only way to recover is to rest. However you can rest you need to do this for yourself, the anxiety you get from not moving constantly or making progress on other things will detract from the rest you could be getting and the healing you could be gaining. Time off is meant to go slow, steady, do things you want to do for you, not always needing to be active. 


## Time off is: 

1. Sitting in the stillness for a while. It's meant for you to get bored, to even have the opportunity to be bored again. We don't always have to be occupied by things, by news, media, tasks, to-do's etc. Having time to get bored again like we used to as children, and finding magic in things that other people don't. Having new ideas, getting inspired by the flowers, listening to the birds, sitting in the sunshine on a warm day. This is what rest is meant to feel like. 

2. Meant to reflect on what you've been through. Reflection can look like reviewing what you've done and how you've done it in the past, it can be taking time to think about past trauma and working through it, it can be therapy, journaling, yoga, meditation etc. Reflection comes in many forms but time off is meant to look at how far we've come, deal with things we may have never had the time or energy to truly deal with, and move forward. 

3. Doing whatever you want whenever you want. Want to sleep all day? Do it. Want to go for a run? Do it. Eat ice cream and video game? Do it. Go to the market and cook a hearty meal? Do it. It's all you my friend, no one else can tell you what resting is like for you except yourself, trust yourself and do what you feel like doing. 

Thank you for reading this post! We appreciate it so much. These are things I've discovered during my time off, although sometimes these items may seem obvious to me they really weren't obvious at all. It's taken me about a month to fully understand that I need to rest and not continue to go go go like I used to. My mind and body got used to constantly being on the go, the transition to not being so active is a challenge but I'm starting to understand it. I hope if you're taking time off to rest and recover too that you can fully rest to get all the benefits from taking a career break.


One month of funemployment


## Tips for Sustainable Living 

Let's talk sustainability! Always a relevant topic these days, and one of my favourites to talk about. I love sustainability and ways to help our environment and the earth. Therefore, keeping this intro quick and easy, onto some sustainable tips: 

## 1. Multiuse products 
Invest in multiuse products, these are things that don't get thrown out after one use. Instead of plastic ziploc baggies, let's try containers. Instead of cling wrap to preserve food, let's try beeswax wraps instead. And the all too popular tip for the grocery store, no more plastic bags, let's get reusable bags instead. We had a few reusable bags at our house but something I've loved are reusable tote bags, we have two that we obtained from our local ice cream shop and they've been put to great use already. 

## 2. Alternate transportation 
Try using public transportation instead of driving. Most companies will re-imburse employees for having a bus pass (at least in the Seattle area this is true, I'm not sure about other cities) and most buses will also allow bicycles if you're a rider. The altnerates to driving are taking a bus, taking a train, riding a bike, walking/running to your destination. Another big one are airplanes, limiting plane trips per year and trying to find the most efficient way to travel (Google now shows you flights with lower emissions) helps with overall environmental impacts.

# 3. Less Meat 
In our household this one has been hard to take on, we split our food into macros (protein, carbs, fats) and our primary source of protein has always been meat. I've switched it in the past year to be tofu although our desire to eat meat is still there. There are alternatives to meat now, with the impossible burger being sold at different restaurants and in the aisles of grocery stores (yay Costco has it!) and we'll slowly work our way to having less meals with meat but filled with protein. 

# 4. Thrifting 
One of my favourite things to do is head onto the app Poshmark and find some second-hand items and sell some of my own items I no longer wear. It's fun to bundle up your old things and send them to a home that will use them, and it feels extra good receiving your package of second hand clothes! 

# 5. Solar Panels 
This one we don't have yet but we will get in the future. Solar panels! They give you energy! This reduces the cost of paying for your energy and also helps the environment by using a renewal energy source, aka the sun! Even over here in the Seattle area, although known for cloudy skies most of the time we still have sunlight peaking through even on the rainy days. That sunlight can be converted to energy! This is something we hope to do in the near future for our house.

That was my quick list of 5 things, some things we've already done and others we're going to do! But these are all things we know of and look forward to incorporating into our every day lives as we become more and more sustainable. If you have tips please let us know! We'd love to hear from you. 




Sustainable Living



## Changing your life 

I've been on Pinterest lately and the new trend for my account is feeding me these lists of things to change your life in 6 months to 1 year. I love the concept, I think change is a great thing especially when it benefits you, I've found some of their tips work but I wanted to give a try at my own list of tips, these are things that have worked for me, things I have personally experienced that have benefitted my life. 

**Drink Water** 
I bet you hear this one often, I do. This was on the list and I can personally say its helped both with my skin texture and my digestion. Drinking more water each day has shown me an increase in my skin bounciness (is that a thing?) and has helped my digestive system be more regular. 

**Sleep 8-9 hrs a night** 
This one has been a funny topic because on the one hand you see all these things saying "Obama slept 5 hours a night as President" and you think 'Wow that's what I need to do to be productive'. Then all of a sudden anything more than 5 hrs a night seems lazy right? At least that was my take on it. 8-9 hrs of sleep a night is not lazy, its what your body needs. There's a reason we sleep, to recover and recharge from the energy expended throughout the day, the more sleep you get the better you'll feel (to a point, there's a limit). Sleeping has helped me far more than I thought it would, naps throughout the day have helped me process issues that I've gone through in my past and sleeping a good nights sleep helps me prepare for the upcoming day. Of course right now we have a puppy so puppy training hasn't helped with this one but 8-9 hr nights is perfect, I'm more on the 9hr side. There are also a number of benefits to sleep that Joe talked about in a past post, [linked here](https://www.macbellclan.com/posts/sleep). 

**Spend time outdoors** 
Spending more time outside has been really helpful to my overall wellbeing because it brings me into the fresh air and the sunshine (when its sunny in Seattle). It also means I'm not staying inactive inside, when I go outside I'm usually walking or doing yard work which gets my body active. 

**View working out/staying active as a positive** 
I think many people can agree that relationships with working out aren't always positive. You want to work off that donut you had in the morning, or workout to eat that dinner and have drinks in the evening etc. Or you want to work out to avoid being unhealthy, instead of viewing working out as an opportunity to see what your body can do, how strong you can get. Changing this perspective has helped me have a better relationship with my workouts and my body overall. Instead of working out to avoid being unhealthy the goal is to workout to gain strength and see what my body can do. 

**Eat healthy** 
Eating a balanced meal with fresh options has been a big game changer for me. I used to always feel uncomfortable but with the increase in water and better portions and foods, it has helped me feel better about myself and my body. I feel better in my body as well. It's been a huge change from always feeling bloated, uncomfortable, or sluggish. 

**Go offline** 
I've found when I'm online I always find ways to compare myself to others or my spending increases. Going offline removes those tiny thoughts and actions in my mind and creates a more peaceful place to be both in my day to day life and in my thoughts. Setting timers on apps or just setting limits on your phone use each day helps (I need to get better at actually sticking to this one more often). 




How to change your life in 6 months


## Some life updates

What have we been up to since we were last on here? Well the biggest life changes are that we are in renovations on our house and I have quit my job! Big things are happening but we love the changes, and although quitting was a very hard decision to make, taking time off has only proven to me that it was the right choice. 

**Renovations:** We are renovating a lot, the house we have is a 1970's remodeled house from the 30's! We bought it knowing we had to put in some work and the work has begun. June starts the painting on the house exterior, and also our new floors come in. We've already taken up the carpet in one room but we still have the second and third bedrooms to pull up, the living room and the hallway! We also have an engineer coming in next week (may 16th) to get some work done and tell us how to remove this wall that will open up the kitchen and living room. Lots of work to do! Meanwhile there are little projects here and there, we've redone our entrance way wall to include a board and batten feature, we're updating lighting fixtures in the dining and main bedroom and we're doing a ton of work on the garden, putting in new garden boxes and planting a whole lot of vegetables. 

**Quitting:** What a taboo topic. I feel there are so many opinions about this one, quit and the gap in my resume will be a career killer. Quit and take a few months off to recover and then hop back into work, it'll be refreshing. I'm of the thought that it'll be refreshing, at least it has been so far. The biggest difference I've seen so far is the amount of sleep I'm getting, although I got the average before, now I'm able to take naps all the time and I think my body has appreciated it. Overall, quitting was a hard decision but one I am very happy with. 

But are there other life updates? Nope, that's about all we've got going on over here. We're still happy and healthy, working out and eating right. Our house is slowly turning into a home and we love that so much, its taking time but good things take time. I'll hopefully be back to update this website a little more soon! 


Life Updates


## Hello from 2022

Hey again. Here we are, 2022. We are one week into the new year and moving towards our goals. A lot changed in 2021, we bought a new house and are living in it now. Our condo is still ours, we are renting it out. We invested more in the stock market last year, we also bought a car that was "used" but basically new. We worked from Hawaii for a month and Canada for another. We celebrated another year at our companies, I got a promotion, Joe switched work teams. We did a whole lot, all the while still keeping on track with eating right and staying healthy. I'm sure I've missed things in there but the point is, we did a lot. 2022 will be different. I can say I'm tired, I've been tired for a while, this year my focus is more on sleeping right and getting good rest. With that comes a ton of new goals such as, no caffeine, no alcohol, no bad foods, and sleep at least 7-8 hours a night. No screened devices in the bedroom, no screens two hours before going to bed, have a bath whenever you can because it helps. It helps being active too, so trying to stay active at least a few times a week. Continue going to therapy to talk through my stress etc. There's a lot to good sleeping habits! But the hope is setting up those habits and absorbing the benefits and feeling so much better! 

We also plan to keep up with our financial goals this year, last year we invested in the stock market and this year we hope to do the same thing while also renovating our house. Our renovation goals are big too, we'd like to re-do almost the entire house. Most of it (hopefully) can be done by us, but major changes like breaking down walls and restructuring the house, those things will have to be done by the professionals. And we're focused on making this new place ours, we have three bedrooms now where the condo had one. We are at about +1800 sqft now while our little condo was ~700 sqft. We have a lot of space to make ours! We're so grateful for this life. We're so so grateful for all the opportunities and hard work we put in to get here. 2022 is all about resting, at least for me it is, because we've simply done so much. Resting is part of the cycle, but we are still chasing dreams even if we're resting too. 

At the end of 2022 I hope I can look back and say wow, we did it again. This year surprised me in such a good way. This year brought about new things I had never even thought of, it re-directed paths down the right ones for us, it gave us so much more than we asked for and we're thankful. I hope that is what I can say when I look back on this year, and I'm so excited to start living it. 


Hello From 2022


## Hello, from 2021 

Long time no see! Or maybe I should be saying that to myself. It's been a long time since I was last on here but we're new and improved on the backend. Our website is now independent, where we once used Square Space to host our domain we are now on our own and running thanks to our wonderful web developer and friend, we are free. With the website change comes a change to our uploading process which took a little bit of time to get used to. But here we are! 

So what's new? Well we have been busy investing and saving, our minimalist lifestyle created an opportunity for us to expand our real-estate investments and now we have our little condo and a new house. Heading into 2022 we'd like to make a few changes to health goals - activity and strength, work goals - stress and anxiety related, and overall mental health. We're focused on bettering ourselves in multiple ways, that still means saving a lot and being minimalists as much as possible. But we're renovating this year, and buying gym equipment too, and going outside more often. 

2021 was all about finding the joy in life, with and without spending money. We set our boundaries in multiple ways, made new connections, deepened others, and let go of some. We bought a car, bought a house, got promotions at work, and spent a little more money than 2020. We finally went outside again after a long time inside because of COVID, we traveled to Canada again to visit family, we went on holiday for a month in Hawaii, we got really sick at times (non covid) and took time off work when it was needed. A lot happened in 2021, we're looking forward to 2022. We will make updates to our website, you'll see the changes. We're looking forward and upward :) 



Hello From 2021


This wasn’t a post I thought I’d write until a few days ago, after having a hard conversation with a family member. After the conversation was done I thought to myself, what could I have done better? What can I do to make these conversations easier in the future? I also thought about what the term ‘hard conversation’ really means? I’ve concluded its a combination of vulnerability + emotion that can bring about a hard conversation and its in those conversations where things can de-rail easily. From my experience, here are the things I will remember for next time.

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## **1) Set boundaries with yourself first**

Boundaries are created and maintained by you, you are the one living with your boundaries and decisions. Set and make boundaries with yourself first before extending them to others. It’s important to feel confident in your decisions, if you can not live within the boundaries you are extending, re-evaluate them. No one is going to follow boundaries you are setting if you can’t follow them yourself. (Say boundaries one more time Kim!)

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## **2) Take action**

Express yourself by saying your boundaries or taking action to show your boundaries. This can be done by verbally telling others what you are expecting and how you are feeling, or by showing them. Nothing changes until actions are taken.

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## **3) Speak with an open mind**

You can combat confusion or anger in response to your boundaries, with a voice of reason. Stay open-minded and use phrases that do not bash the other person for having emotions. Stick to the reason why you’re having the conversation in the first place. While also remembering that allowing someone the ability to understand what you’re saying, does not mean baby-ing someone until they understand. Be there to provide explanation but you don’t have to continue to explain yourself after you already have. Those who care will respect your decisions, ask meaningful questions, and always let you explain yourself.

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## **4) Be clear**

The best boundaries are those that are entirely clear. Whether that’s through action and you show someone or through using your words and verbally saying it. Stating what you’d like clearly is just like stating the facts, examples: “I am looking for a relationship and want nothing less”, “I do not have enough time to do all the things on my to-do list”, “This conversation is no longer productive, let’s take a break and come back to it tomorrow” etc.

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## **5) Accept that people might walk away**

New standards means some people will not meet them and that is okay.


Setting boundaries for yourself


‘5 steps to being a minimalist’ is usually a book title that tells you in pages and chapters how to do this. Here, we’re trying to do this in 5 steps summed up in one post. Why?? Good question. Everyone’s busy, you don’t want to read a book about it, you have other things on your mind like drinking 8 cups of water a day, reading the news, being a good human etc. All those things take a ton of work and let’s be honest, the average reader will skim a post looking for the goods. Here are 5 things you can do to be a minimalist:
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# 1. Don’t buy things because you want them…buy things because you need them

This one doesn’t need much of an explanation right? Buy what you need and not what you want. You need food, water, shelter. Invest in your home, food, and utilities. Do you need a car where you live? Do you need the new PS5 gaming console (some would say this is a need but that depends on your daily life, if you’re a full time streamer then maybe!)? Do you need a 10th bra? You see where I’m headed here.

# 2. Be intentional

Everything in a minimalist household has a purpose and a use. Make sure that you use everything you have because in the end these are things you need and don’t necessarily want. Food is a big one that comes to mind, eat up all the food before you take a second trip to the grocery store, this can prevent waste and help the environment. If you need a new jacket, make sure its one you’ll use and this can be applied to many other items.

# 3. No duplicates where applicable

This is a harder point to explain because duplicates aren’t bad but when applied to things you don’t need duplicates of, they can create clutter. A good example are measuring cup sets. I noticed in many households (also my own) there were two sets of measuring cups. You know those 1 cup, 1/2 cup, 1/3 cup measures. That is a good example of something you don’t need two of. But do this at your own leisure there are many use cases I can think of where duplicates are of value, its about eliminating the duplicates that aren’t used.

# 4. Save space

Saving space is a huge part of this because having more space is one of the goals. Saving space can look like putting all your old CDs/DVDs in a case and recycling the covers, moving your old photos to digital copies and recycling the photos, buying new video games or even books as digital copies and not physical copies, recycling really old papers, donating the old box of yarn, and many more! Finding ways to save space and open up your home.

# 5. No one-use items

Lastly, don’t buy things that are a ‘one and done’ type of use. For instance paper towels are one time use and then thrown away, buy cloths instead. This applies to many things but use it as you see fit. Cling-wrap is one time use, buy containers instead. If you buy shoes, make sure you’ll wear them more than once and the list can go on and on.

Alrighty little fam, I summed up our minimalist items in 5 simple steps. I hope they’re helpful! I also struggled to find a 5th step, if any of the points seem off or weird just let me know here or send us an email/connect on social media and we can chat this out! Have a wonderful Friday friends!


Minimalism in 5 easy steps


Working from home over the past 7 months, I’ve realized I have quite the aversion to spending money. Sometimes I think I want to spend money on something - I recently dropped my phone so that means phone shopping is in the near future - but once I start the process of finding a new phone I very quickly question if this is really worth it!
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### TL;DR:

- Don’t drop your phone, ever!
- Buying stuff has become difficult, and there are days I feel like it isn’t worth saving.
- Cell phones are expensive ~ $2.41 per day.
- Financial Independence is a difficult path, but it’s worth it
- Remember, **don’t drop your phone!**
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I have to go search which phone is the “best bang for the buck phone” on the market. Go read all the wonderful marketing pages and content about the phone, and more importantly, go read all the haters that think this phone isn’t worth a dollar. Because we all know that’s where the juicy stuff is at!

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So I landed on a phone - the recently released Pixel 4a. This phone is listed around $500, which is something I think most people don’t even question - some phones are going for nearly $1,000 which makes the phone I’d like a steal by that standard.

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On the surface I think it's fine, it’s a phone. Phones nowadays are used every single day, multiple times a day. Generally the phone comes with the latest and greatest cameras, a really vibrant display, and some **groundbreaking feature** that is sure to take the cellphone market to the next level. When in reality it’s probably something novel and will quickly be nothing all that remembered.

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But seriously, a phone is well worth its dollar, generally. According to CNBC, Americans keep their phones for 27 months before trading in their device for an upgrade. This comes out to 810 days (27 months \* 30 days = 810 days), so as long as the price of that phone is $810 or less, I can almost justify the purchase. **Almost**.

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Entertain my rabbit hole for just a minute. Let’s say my phone costs $500, plus $100 in taxes/shipping/misc for a total of $600. Now my wife and I have a discount on our cell service, which comes out to $70 per month. So, my daily costs for owning and using a phone looks like this:

- **Cell phone service per day**: $35/month / 30 days = $1.67 per day
- **Cell phone use per day**: $600 / 810 days = $0.74 per day
- **Total daily cost**: $2.41
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Assuming I own my phone for the average length of time of 27 months (810 days) then my total cost in that period is:

- Total cost: 810 days \* $2.41/day = $1,952.10

...and here is my dilemma. That’s an expensive device to scroll through apps, watch some funny videos of people tripping, read about how America has turned to a circus and the world is our spectator, and then go back to watching YouTube...

There is no way I am making anywhere close to that amount of money to justify such a large purchase! However, I think this is where I have to point out the obvious, my biggest quarrel isn’t necessary with the phone cost, but more with the cost for cell service each month. We have a fairly good deal for $70 per month for two, but even that is still quite a bit on a per day basis.

In my thought process as I question how much I really value this potential new phone, I realize that I’ve had my current phone for almost 3 years now (a wonderful 35 months) which gave me a blast of optimism that would justify this grand purchase.

…Making progress here, I’m really trying to justify this new phone!

Then I remembered that I bought the iPhone X, on the release date. You know, the first phone that came with a big sticker price of $1,000. With that realization, it made me deflated once more. I’m still paying more than $1.00 per day for my phone!

- $1,150 total cost / 1,050 days = $1.10

...damn. Looking over at my beat up phone, it looks like we may have more time together than I had thought.

But to my original point on having an aversion to spending money, I wonder if anyone else goes through this? This aversion to spending is becoming quite the pain to deal with, because it feels almost like it limits our capacity of happiness in some unknown way. I mean, this new phone looks pretty cool!

I think the one thing that really helps me get through these moments is realizing that it’s temporary as we continue down our path towards financial independence. That's the goal, get to our number. Once we are there, then we can relinquish some of these restrictions we place on ourselves.

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The goal isn’t to live like the average American, saving only 6% of our income in hopes of retiring someday. The goal is to live life with less concern on finances. In the pursuit for that life, we will have to spend a small period of our life being concerned about financial decisions like this. Cut expenses, save money, invest it, and keep repeating.

That’s been the cycle for the past 7 months.

Whether or not I’ll actually buy the phone this month is still undecided. I like it, it looks cool. The photos from it seem great, the reviews seem to be solid, it’s just the act of buying it. **What do you think?** Do you have any bad feelings when it comes to actually paying for something?


Joe's Journal | Financial Independence | Do I buy the new phone?


General terms like ‘minimalism’ tend to give off this harsh impression. You know what I mean? When I think of minimalism I think of the extremists. When I type in ‘minimalism’ into Youtube I see videos about a person who doesn’t own any furniture and sleeps on the ground. When I tell people I like to keep my life style minimal they usually ask me about my life with that in mind. “How’s the minimalist thing going?” and its a lovely question but its just my life it doesn’t really need to have the label like that right? These things I’ve been thinking about make me really wonder what is minimalism? and what does it mean to me?

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Minimalism in my world just means no over buying of things. I don’t need lots of things to fill my home up and make me feel comfortable, what I do need is what I have and that mentality is applied to everything in my home. Furniture, clothes, food etc. I try not to buy more than what is needed and I like knowing I use everything I have in my home. That is what minimalism means to me.

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But it also means that I have more than one of many things in my home, such as blankets, socks and Totoros to name a few. I don’t just shop at the thrift stores but I buy new clothes too. We don’t really have a pantry at home, we have the space and we never fill it but I do store extra sugar, coco powder, and popcorn at home just for the fun of it. I have more than one pair of shoes. I have more than one spoon/knife/fork, in fact we have more than two of those. Minimalism is what we’ve made it for ourselves and its simply having what we need and we have many needs. When we’re about to purchase something its asking ourselves if we truly need it and will we really use it? We are removing the emotion we put into the purchasing process. If we can’t say yes to those questions we don’t buy it and we wait. As a result we’ve saved, have a less cramped apartment, and use what we do have more often. What is minimalism to you? Here are a few questions I asked myself through this shift:

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> > What do you need to live your life?

> > Do you need duplicates of certain items?

> > Can you wait to buy this?

> > Will you use this item or will you use it enough to justify its price?

> > Why do you want to keep/buy this?

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These questions have helped me eliminate the amount of things I own and only use what I need for my life style. These help me manage the influence of social media, the media in general, and the way other people live their lives. These questions have also helped me use things up and save…a lot.


What is Minimalism?


This is the worst time to invest in the stock market. I would hate to own stocks right now. You’re crazy for buying stocks right now, there’s so much uncertainty. This is the worst crash since 1987.I could go on, and on, with all the statements I have heard from friends, and people that hear about our plan to invest money during this economic hardship caused by the coronavirus. We are far from leaving unscathed by the recent economic downturn due to concerns and fears of the COVID-19, but this does not deter our plan. If anything this actually helps us. But...

### Let’s get some quick background on what has happened.

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The stock market has dropped by double digit percentage points in a single day, and also increased by the same amount on other days. Undeniable volatility. What the stock market and investors will do in this recent outbreak is unpredictable. Most recently, it has continued to decline by at least 5-7% each day. One thing is certain, most people have lost a lot of money due to the drop in the stock market, or at least they did if they sold their stocks. Many investors are panicking, selling their shares at a loss to “stop the bleeding”, which can generally be attributed to emotional investing. Emotional investing is normal, and a fairly human reaction. We all work hard to make our money, and then we try to invest it to make more money. When we see our hard earned money drop, we try to stop it by any means necessary. So we sell our shares and pull our money out of the investment.
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That doesn’t make it the right choice. We only invest the money that we are not attached to. Money that if for some reason the stock market crashed tomorrow, we would still be okay. Would it cause a lot of impact in our lives? Sure. Will it crush us financially? Not at all. This perspective and approach to investing is what allows us to change our approach to investing in comparison to others. This actually spurs more action from us than anything else. Which means we have become even more active in this financial turmoil.
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### So why have we doubled-down in our stock portfolio?

With our pursuit of financial independence, we initially turned 100% of our focus on debt. This took approximately 1 year. From that point on, we wanted to figure out what would return more financial freedom, and after some bouncing around, we settled on stocks. Which, at that time, the stock market was in one of the longest bull markets in history (my definition of bull market: when everything is going great). Almost any form of investment would return positive returns. This meant that initially, we had to buy stocks at a higher price than we would like, as the stock market as a whole was increasing at a wonderful rate for most investors.
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Remember, our strategy:
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> > **Dividend x Shares = Paycheck** (with this paycheck we then buy more shares)
> > &nbsp;

The recent economic turbulence has dropped prices significantly. This has allowed us to purchase more shares of stocks with the same amount of money. Since we are focused on dividend based stocks, that means more money paid to us on these dividends. While the drop in the stock market has affected our initial investments, **we aren’t necessarily concerned about our investments**.

## “You should be, that’s a big drop in your investment!”

Yes, but no. The companies we have invested in haven’t had any changes to their business. They are still making products that consumers and businesses purchase, in some cases this outbreak would mean people buy more of these products. These companies have paid dividends through the housing market crash, and the 2000-2001 bubbles, and the 1987 crash. That provides us with confidence that these companies we invested in will endure this recent stock market decline. If any company has shown they can survive a strain like this, these companies have. Heck, that was why we avoided some companies given their lack of a historical performance in economic hardships.

## We stay the course

Recall that our formula of investments does not include the share price. The only thing the share price indicates is how expensive it is to own a share. A lower share price simply means we buy more. With the confidence in our companies that we invested in, we have decided to not only keep our money invested in the companies, we have decided to buy more. Since the market has declined by 10-15% in the last couple weeks, we have been able to purchase 10-15% more shares. In a sense, this decline in the market has actually helped our goals, and pushes us a bit further than we were originally planned to be at.
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We’ll keep riding this one out, and continue investing in this more difficult time.

Stay safe, healthy, and smart about how you handle the outbreak of coronavirus. During times like this, more than ever, it’s important we remember that we are all in this together.


Joe's Journal | Financial Independence | Stay the Course


Hey everyone, thanks for stopping by for a tough post. Debt is always hard to talk about so if you’re reading for fun, thank you! If you’re reading for support, we’re here for you.
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My story begins when I decided an American education would be better than my native home country of Canada. I planned it out, looked into many factors, and decided the US was a better place for my future than Canada. But Canada has subsidized education and it came as a little let down to tell my family I’d rather attend college in the US where education was almost triple the amount. I decided to attend the University of Washington and that cost me $12k a year and I went there for roughly 2.5 years to finish up my undergraduate degree. $12k x 2.5 = $30k. I then decided a graduate program was the best option and I went to grad school and this cost me $33k. $30k + $33k = $63k. I round up on the remainder and that’s because I went to community college before the bachelors degree, it took me 2.5 years to get through ~ each quarter depended on the number of credits you were taking and it varied for me. In my experience I saw that community college cost me ~ $6k, looking at it now I doubt that it did, in fact I think it cost me more because $1k was about the cost of 4 classes a quarter. But for the sake of this story, you can see where the majority of my $70,000 debt came from.

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I am thankful because I did not have additional credit card, house, or vehicle debt. I also survived the first few years of community college by living with my dad. That helped a lot! But for the most part, I paid down my debt in small amounts and here is how I did it:

1. **Debt was my number one priority**. I have heard it many many times and its hard, I completely understand. But if debt is what you want to get rid of so badly then it has to become number one priority in your life. That means that you will start to think a different way about anything and everything that will cost you even a cent. Under the pressure of all my loans I changed little things that in the end contributed to larger things. My habits changed, I walked/ran more often, I did things that cost very little or were free, I even changed my coffee order because it was cheaper that way. I did not go out for drinks, I did not go out to eat, I did not buy the latest makeup/fashion/thing because I had debt to pay. Debt was always on my mind and if there was any way I could contribute one more cent to it, I would do it.
2. **I got a job to help contribute to my debt**. This is important. In my mind it made more sense to have a job while I went to school and tried to pay down all the debt I had. I didn’t like seeing the 7% interest accrue on my loans over months and rack up even more money I had to pay off. Instead I got a job and whenever I got paid I would make sure I paid some of my debt off. If anything, I tried to pay more than $100 but that just depended on what I could afford. At times I paid off $15 here and $15 there when I had it. But this being the first action I did when I got paid, put the habit in my mind to always be aware of and always pay down what I owe first before doing anything else. Instead of getting a pay cheque and spending it all right away, I was able to learn to save it and put it towards my loans first and then use what was left to live on.

3. **I found things to do that were free (or close to free)**. I hiked, a lot. I went outside, a lot. I went to lakes, went on runs, trained for and ran half marathons, went to parks etc. I did things outside because it was free and I didn’t have to pay for them. At the time I had the option to live at home (I only did this during community college though) and I had free rent. This isn’t something everyone can do but if you can, do it. If you are a student in Seattle, you can ride the bus for free with your student card, do it! I know cars are cool but every little bit counts right? If you work in an office with coffee, drink the coffee and nix the Starbucks drink. It’s these small things that add up! I am a huge fan of being outside so I’d recommend finding things to do outdoors. It’s usually free! Or you can Google “things to do that are free” and events usually pop up in your city, there are also many lists of free things to try.

4. **Say no to social drinks/dinners**. This one is big. Being social and being with friends is great and who said it always has to be done around drinks and some dinner? It doesn’t. Instead of dinners I’d let friends know I want to get coffee instead. And it does feel weird at first, saying coffee instead of dinner is just odd. But its in the name of saving and it works, I promise. Instead of paying say upwards of $25 on a meal and drinks, you’ll pay maybe $5 depending on how fancy your drink is. (I’d opt for the americano or drip coffee which is about $2.50) If you really enjoy drinks, how about buying a bottle of wine (or whatever your drink of choice is) and hanging out at someone’s place? Drinks in restaurants and bars are up-charged! No need for that. My fav moscato wine is $10 for this huge bottle, that’s what I would likely pay for one glass in a bar.

5. **Do not go into further debt**. No big purchases because you do not need more things to pay off. I know Joe has posted on here about life style creep and it’s a true thing (as you get paid more you tend to spend more). You don’t need the latest phone, you don’t need the latest mini cooper model, you don’t need all the new clothes and things. What needs to happen is a habit change. We can’t make money and spend it as soon as we have it, we need to save it and re-assign it to the debt that will otherwise grow and make more debt. So there can not be large purchases during this time. I guess for most of us this can be a given and if debt is your #1 priority I doubt that you’re the person to go buy a house, car, and new phone all while already having debt. But just as a heads up, no.big.purchases.period.forever.and.ever. Okay big purchases have there time and place but not now! When we’ve got bigger things to accomplish!

6. **Just start**. Debt is hard, I didn’t look at $70k and get happy feelings. I actually got anxiety. My debt was monitored on an online loan company’s dashboard which would show me each month how much more interest I accrued and how much principle I had yet to pay off. Pretty little pie charts (and honestly great visuals) showed me in blue and green how much I owed from each loan I had taken out. It was hard to look at, and my heart raced the first few months I went back to visit that site. But what matters is that you start, its a daunting number and may seem like nothing is changing right now but little by little things change and debt goes down.

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How I paid off $70k in debt (Less than one year after I graduated)


I labeled this one a minimalist post because we’ve been eliminating a lot of the clutter in our home over the past few years. Are we full on minimalists? (what does that even mean?) No! Are we extreme minimalists? Heck no. We have moved so many times in the past four years, (5 times) we’ve been able to really cut down what we own and store, because we’ve had to move all the things so many times. Therefore we really asked ourselves, how many things in our home do we really need multiple of? These are a few of the things we cut down on:
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**1) Towel** - I only have one shower towel. In total we have 3: one for me, one for Joe and one for a guest if we have someone over. We have other towels like kitchen towels but there was no need for us to have duplicate shower towels, we have consolidated to one per person. I do not change towels based on the season, though that is a lovely thought. I just have one until I’ve used it too much and then I am done with it. And you may ask how I manage going to the beach with my shower towel, well I don’t. Every time I’ve been to a beach whether on vacation or something, there have been towels provided and then I return them to be washed. We do have another towel that was originally a dog towel (it has a huge pikachu on it) and we use that for the beach sometimes. I’ve had it since I was 7, pokemon was my life. I even had a binder with all my cards, sorted by element. Moving on now…

**2) Purse** - I own one purse. I have never had the urge to buy more than one at a time and found that I used to buy purses that would just fall apart in less than a year. It looks liked this:

Year 1: Coach purse = $300-$500, purse falls apart

Year 2: Coach purse = $300-$500, purse falls apart

Year 3: Coach purse = $300-$500, purse falls apart

Year 4: I have spent $900 - $1500 on purses that fall apart. Let’s get a better quality purse that lasts longer.

Now I have one fancy purse, that cost me a little more ($1500) but I’ve had it for almost 10 years now and it hasn’t fallen apart yet! That also means I have one wallet but I rarely use it so I’m thinking of donating it too.

**3)** Hair Brush - I only own one hair brush, it is a pretty basic hair brush and when it poops out I will buy a new one. In the mean time, I do not need brushes of different sizes, or different types. I have one. I am also thankful I have very straight hair that is not thick, I can’t justify having more than one brush!

**4)** Back Pack - I have one back pack to store my computer and lunch in for work. If I am heading anywhere, I use my backpack for extra storage. Such as when we travel, I use it to travel with. I only have one backpack unlike my husband who has 5. ** Eye roll ** I think that’s his ‘thing’. Some people like shoes, cars, etc. He likes backpacks…and computers :)

**5)** Coffee tumbler - We bought coffee tumblers to eliminate the use of disposable cups whenever we go to Starbucks/Cafe Ladro/any other cafe and we each have one tumbler for our weekend morning coffee dates. We usually go on walks and have a coffee while we walk on weekend mornings. Coffee tumblers are the way to go! They also save you $.10 every time you go get a coffee at Starbucks and it doesn’t seem like much but it adds up. I am a fan of tumblers, there was one I saw 4-5 years ago that was a Starbucks mermaid collection tumbler but I never got it (highly regret that) and since then I’ve had a plain silver one. If I ever see the mermaid collection again and a tumbler that looks similar to that one I liked years ago, I’m buying it! Until then, I have one of these!

Minimalism isn’t about having one of everything, it isn’t about having less things. It’s simply about having what you need. When purchasing anything, I usually ask myself if I need it and if I will use it. If I can’t say yes to both of those questions I wait on it and if after a month it’s something I am still thinking about then I go ahead and buy it. Honestly, sometimes I just like things and want them for that reason. The way I go about purchasing things is something I’ve decided to do for myself, and it aligns with our goals of saving money too. The origination of this way of thinking came about when I had a lot of school debt, ($70k - thanks grad school) but we can chat about that stuff later!


Minimalist Post: Things I own ONE of


Well, the month is nearing an end and I’m pretty excited for it. This month has been a rollercoaster for me. I’ve been in the job hunt to land some security in my career, and everything came to fruition, all at once. While nothing is official, things appear to be fairly certain, and I couldn’t be happier with my situation.

While that’s really fun, and I could talk a lot about that, I want to make sure to highlight what this means for our financial independence, and what this may entail. This potential transition brings up a very important topic when it comes to personal finance, lifestyle creep. This topic is huge, and arguably, at the root of a lot of consumer debt.
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_Let’s not get lost in fancy words, consumer debt = debt. Things like credit cards, personal loans, car loans, etc._

**What is lifestyle creep?**

In a simple description, it’s when your spending continues to rise as you increase your income. Say you spend 30,000 a year when you make 50,000 in income. You’re living life, maybe have a roommate and can afford to go out to eat once and awhile. Not too shabby! Now say you were given a raise to 75,000 a year. You would expect to save an additional 25,000 a year, which would be **awesome!** However, what is most likely to occur is that your expenses for the year will increase. Say you decide to move into a place of your own, buy a newer car, maybe a new TV or computer. All of that can, and often times exceeds, what that raise covers.

This is how someone who makes 6 figures a year suffers from the same exact financial problems that a person making minimum wage will face. I mean, how does someone who makes six figures a year spend **so** much? Well, this is where people decide to upgrade to the new phone every year, Starbucks every day, new cars every other year (sometimes yearly), buying a larger than needed home, eating out, etc. There are numerous instances out there, and it wasn’t until I began my career before I realized how true it is.

**Amplify your habits**

Getting more money only amplifies your habits. If you are someone who wants to save money, begin that habit now, regardless of your financial situation. This is something that will be magnified as more income comes in. There are various ways to combat lifestyle creep, and one of the most common ways is to “pay yourself” before all else. Find a number that is sustainable and put that money in a bank account/high interest savings account immediately. Then pay your bills. As you increase your income, that “pay yourself” amount should increase proportionately.

**Are you saying I should always live as if I didn’t have money?**

Well, personally I do. But, you don’t have to. Say you had the previous example of a raise from 50,000 to 75,000 per year. Ideally you save the extra 25,000 per year, but you want to increase your quality of life (a valid use for money). Find the things that are really hampering your quality of life. Perhaps it is in fact having a roommate. Maybe it’s being able to go out to eat an extra night a week. Potentially it could be upgrading your phone to the newest model. Any one of those things are more than possible! But, there is no need to do every single one. I **strongly** recommend being more intimate with your spending and knowing how much money is spent where. This information can help you identify the lifestyle creep sooner, and allowing you to ask yourself in advance if these new spending habits -- or things your buying -- are truly worth it.

**Pay yourself first.**


Joe's Journal | Financial Independence | Lifestyle Creep


Our first month towards our goal:
I want to talk about investing, and giving an update on the investing plan. I want to make an explicit effort to keep the **goal** in the crosshairs - **we want financial independence**. This is defined by removing the necessity for our work to generate income.

## **History and context:**

Our stock portfolio started back on October 1st 2019. This wasn’t an investment towards passive income in any way, rather it was me trying out a methodology of investing and putting a little money towards it. With that being said, we invested approximately 9.4% of our monthly income in October, and nothing in November. With our 9.4% investment, we invested into Coca-Cola. That investment returned us a dividend in December which allowed us to invest a good portion of our uninvested cash in Robinhood to buy another share in Coca-Cola. As of the end of December, we had ~10.6% of our monthly income invested.

## **Now, onto the January update!**

In total, we saved 73.6% of our monthly income. Writing that out, it seems absolutely extreme! So, that may, or may not be relatable in any way. However, Kim and I have joined our buying power and made some extreme decisions to reduce our monthly spending. Our mortgage takes up 21% of our monthly income, which means the remaining 6% was spent on food and bills. Some of those bills have bled over to February so they’ll eventually be reflected.

Note on our savings rate: That rate of savings isn’t quite sustainable, so we are trying to adjust that to fit our lifestyle and still move us towards our goal of financial independence at a rate we feel is acceptable.

We allocated our savings towards our two main investments:

**Real estate** - We saved 87.08% towards our real estate plans. We are currently saving for our next purchase, so this money is currently in what I call “Purgatory”. Just in case you are wondering, Purgatory is located in a high-interest savings account in Barclays at about 1.7%.

**Stocks** - We invested the remaining 12.91% in our stock portfolio. With that money, we invested 100% of it into Coca-Cola. I’m certain there are other strategies for investing, but our main goal is building a dividend portfolio, and we have checkpoint we are trying to hit before we invest in our next company. Our goal is to have 5-10 stocks make up our portfolio. We’ll do some homework on our next company in the meantime!

That’s our update for January. We made some big cost-cutting to invest more towards our goal, but it wasn’t scalable. However, it has shown us what we are capable of doing with attention and intent when we prioritize this goal above almost all other things.

Take a look at the next blog, Kim has written some really good thoughts on waste and a very common human trait — insecurities.

Until next time!


Joe's Journal | Financial Independence | January update


I want to call this one another ‘real talk’ because I think it really is about being real on here and insecurities are about the ‘realest’ you can get. But my lovely friend Brene Brown told me to fully live and experience all emotions I need to be vulnerable, so here is my vulnerability.

When I was going through my teen years I thought everyone else had all their stuff together. I thought everyone looked and acted like they had life in the bag and had no problems whatsoever. And here I was with normal teen problems like acne, awkward personality, odd fashion sense, pressured to be a certain way, pressured to blend in and be ‘normal’. It was hard to be myself because I felt like myself was always a little short of everyone else. So I tried harder to wear the fashionable clothes because I felt like that helped me look more normal, and I smiled all the time even when I wasn’t happy. This all started when I was 13, living in my home town of Toronto. I always wanted to be smart, to have great friends, and go do all the great things but I also never had the drive to be that social. I had more drive to do my homework in the evenings than I did to go outside and see my neighbors down the street. I had more drive to be on my own than be with other people. I began to think ‘this isn’t normal’. I am not normal.

I moved to Seattle when I was 15 and grew up in a very different environment. My days were spent with people who had the same interests I did. They did more outside of school than I had ever thought, they joined clubs, took advanced classes, joined community events, volunteered etc. That was impressive, that was absolutely new and I felt a little more at home knowing there are people who enjoy these things like me. But I also got caught in another form of insecurities during my home life. I went home each night to a place that was pretty bad, arguments happened all the time and I was told many things about myself that were not true. But at 15 I believed them because adults were telling me and I trusted the adults around me. I started to really hate who I was, I hated the person I became, I felt so lonely and so lost that I needed to feel something so I forced myself to be outside of my home. I forced myself to get out of the house away from all the negativity and all the fighting. I made friends, I joined clubs, I volunteered my time and it was all worth it but it was hard knowing home wasn’t a safe place to go.

Insecurities followed me to my personal life, I got married and then divorced and that broke me down. I felt like I had failed my world, I had absolutely failed and everyone was there to see it because social media is a thing and everyone could see my life displayed. I was talked about in the mall when I walked around and saw old class mates, I was talked about by others because of things my friends overheard. This grew my insecurities, the entire situation did. This was a time I had to spend more and more time with myself, to learn who I was again and accept myself. I went to therapy, lots of therapy and I talked to people who would listen and give me advice. I got closer to the people who didn’t judge but instead who embraced the pain I was going through and took it on as their own. I took the steps to be happier (as in the former real talk post) and I learned new things. I started exploring new places and going on new adventures. I found people who were more like me, and most importantly I found confidence in the person I was becoming.

And so, in a nut shell we end up here. Here in this world that I have created for myself. One still filled with insecurities because I wish I could say they’re all gone but they aren’t. I always want to be more and better, I ask myself “Why can’t I be that **\_**?” and fill in the blank with anything. Happy, smart, smiley, energetic, outgoing, extroverted etc. Where and why did I start to believe that being me was the worst thing in the world? Why did I want to be like the others when I can embrace being me? I don’t know, I can’t really recall when it first began. I can blame many things like upbringing, social pressures, social media, magazines etc. But we all have to deal with it, in fact I think its something more people don’t realize others have to deal with until someone speaks out about it. It’s a long journey to be perfectly happy with who you are, and that’s okay. Giving myself the thoughts to ask why I can’t be happier or smarter, those are okay to ask myself and then move on from. I acknowledge that I have them and then let them pass because they are just thoughts and not anything I will invest more than a few seconds in.

Now the good thoughts, those we cherish, those are the ones we have to sit with for a few minutes and really take in. Like when someone gives you a compliment and you say any excuse to deflect the attention. “Great job today!” - Oh I really didn’t do anything. Those are the times we need to take those and really say “Thank you” and maybe even “Yes I did do a good job today”. Acknowledging the accomplishments is severely lacking in my world today, maybe yours too. And what does this tell us when we deflect that positive attention? I think it tells us its not important enough to remember. Why isn’t it important to remember? Well there go the insecurities again, the comparing and thinking of all the things you did wrong when someone is telling you what you did right and you deflect the energy.

There’s a lesson to learn here and I don’t think I have the full picture yet. But all the bad things you remember, the things people told you, the negative things you always tell yourself, those things should not take up more than a second in your mind. And the good, the things that make you smile without even meaning to, that make you feel hopeful, the people who are rooting for you. Those are the things we should keep in our minds for minutes, for hours, those are things we should always remember. When the hard days come, because we know they will, that is when we need to bring those good memories out from storage and put them on replay, constantly.


Insecurities


See Australia up in flames put the view of climate change into a different perspective. Things I absolutely love and cherish are going up in flames. I was aware and have been aware of climate change for a while but the changes are becoming more drastic and far worse than I had ever expected them to be now, as I’m in my late 20’s. A huge goal of mine has turned to sustainability and how to better the planet with my small steps. My efforts, though small and though potentially won’t make a large dent in the climate change problem, are all I can do. I’d rather say I lived a little and tried my best than to give up and continue harmful habits. I have compiled actions I’m going to take in 2020 that will allow me to be a better human to planet earth. Here they are:

**1) Use less plastic**

Staying aware of the things we buy and the packaging that comes with that is a huge way to reduce garbage and the plastic getting dumped into the ocean. Using things like bar soap instead of soap in a pump, and if you do use products made of plastic try finding ways to recycle them by using them a second time. I’ve also found reading ingredients is helpful because there are products that have plastics in them without you even really knowing they’re there. Like micro-plastics in face washes and other hygiene products. Also bringing your own utensils and straws when you go out, using paper or glass instead of plastic when possible, and consuming less packaged grocery items are all additional ways to reduce plastic!

**2) Sustainable clothing brands or second hand clothes**

This one is going to be tough, I don’t shop too often but when I do I head to the Zara’s and the Free People’s of the world. Though both have great business plans and are highly successful, I am not entirely sure how they rank on the sustainability scales. I know Zara is all about “fast fashion” where they intend for their items to be worn once and then thrown away. Free People I am hopeful has better practices than this but I can’t guarantee I know where their clothing is coming from. Moving forward I am going to be looking into what I buy with more depth and I’m going to research what they are making and how they are making it. Brands I know that are sustainable for 2020 shopping are:

[Reformation](https://www.thereformation.com/)

[Uncle Studios](https://unclexstudios.com/)

[Mate the Label](https://matethelabel.com/)

[Everlane](https://www.everlane.com/)

There is a huge stigma against second hand clothing, lots of people think they’re really dirty and gross to re-use. And to a point that can be true but I’m not thinking I’ll go and buy ripped up clothes or really dirty clothes, in fact many thrift stores don’t even hold items like that on their floor. What I’m thinking is I’ll search for second hand items that are lightly used and are items that I really really like. If I can’t stop thinking about them then I can buy them but if not then I’ll be fine without them.

**3) Use reusable items**

No more one time use items. This means I won’t be using paper towels but cloths instead, no more makeup removers or one time face wash cloths. We will use re-usable bags for shopping, coffee mugs instead of cups, water bottles instead of plastic bottles, use dryer balls instead of dryer sheets, and beeswax wraps instead of plastic wrap.

Another great way to go about this is finding multiple uses for items. Like paper bags could be used for gift wrapping. Or finding recycled gift wrapping paper, items that use recycled plastics like water bottles and containers etc. Finding a way to reuse items or use recycled items is the goal.

**4) Taking public transportation**

This one we had no choice in because we don’t have a vehicle but its something I plan on continuing into 2020. We will always use public transportation or walk/run/bike instead of using a car. We live close to our grocery store and can take the bus to work because we live close to a bus line, it was something we took into consideration when we moved into our place. We will continue to use the bus and light rail whenever we need to go somewhere, it saves a little bit of the environment and actually saves us quite a bit of money each month too.

**5) Eating less meat**

I’ve always been a meat eater and this one has been hard. How I will accomplish this is meal prepping on weekends to make sure I have meals ready to eat throughout the week and I will be using alternative protein sources to meat. The source I’ve been using for a few months is tofu, and I have been meat free throughout the week successfully. Consuming less meat helps the environment tremendously and it also saves us quite a bit of money!

All these steps and more will be used to help the planet and be a little more sustainable of a person. I want to reduce my carbon footprint and the added benefit is the amount of money I will be saving. Because although these steps help the environment, we have been doing a lot of them because they also help save us money. It’s a win-win once again :) When I think of more steps I’ll write them out here!


Sustainable 2020


**I despise being required to do most things**, out of the simple fact that I’m being forced into something. This very much applies to how I feel about **having** to work. I have 0 issues with working, putting in the time to better something, so long as it’s something I have agency and meaning in.

Let’s take my current job as an example, I enjoy helping the people at work, but I despise the fact that I have to continue working, Monday - Friday, blocking out 10 hours out of my day. I don’t think I spend 10 hours a day doing anything of my own personal interest.

So I want to change that. I don’t want to continue working out of necessity. I want to shift it to something that I do out of enjoyment, or something that I find great meaning in. I think that all of us can find that, and myself being no different. Throughout my travels, I’ve noticed that there are people in non-western and western countries that have found a balance in all of this. This journal piece is about my approach to that balance.

**_Let’s start off with the definition I use for financial independence. Looking this up in the internet will yield varying results, so let’s work from this definition: Not depending on work to generate income._**

As simple as those 7 words were, it took me a considerable amount of time to figure out how exactly I felt about financial independence. In a passing conversation, I may describe it as not working, not having to work, not working full-time, or simply working part-time. I think it’s good to remember that the goal is to remove the dependence on work to generate income.

**This is something that I place great priority on.** Sometimes this can be annoying, not only for myself, but for Kim as well. I talk about this often, strategizing, wondering, researching, crunching numbers, and fantasizing what the end will look like. Exciting on a routine basis, but also exhausting. However, let me get into how we have decided to go about this.

**Real estate.** This form of investing is great, it just requires a bit more involvement and planning than I had originally thought. Our thought process behind this is to rent out a property at a profit. Fairly simple idea, the difficulty has come in thinking about what expenses/fees that will come along with this. Examples of those would be: vacancy, maintenance, misc/unforeseen maintenance, property management, and move out/in maintenance like painting, wall repair, etc. Just typing that out raises my stress levels, however it is possible. If at the end of the day you come out with money left over, that’s a good indicator.

**Stock dividend investing.** This one is a bit more hands-off, which I love. Dividends are payouts from a company for investing in their company. This is generally on a per share basis. Example being I buy 10 shares of company X, and that company pays an annual dividend of $0.50 per share. That means in that year I made $5.

The idea behind this is to invest in a company that pays regular and increasing dividends, and reinvest those dividends by purchasing more shares with that dividend. Doing this over a longer period generally results in larger annual income. This can easily be something that reaches the level of another person’s salary.

**We have started.** Kim and I have recently purchased our first property, and given our situation at the time, we purchased it with a 0 down mortgage. This was great for us to get into the home and call it ours, however this means that we have a higher monthly payment. So, we are focusing on paying down the principal of this loan, and then refinancing to achieve a lower monthly payment. That refinancing will allow us to rent out the property at a profit.

Given both of these things require a lot of financial responsibility and planning, things will move relatively slower than we generally like to go. That’s okay though, it’ll be a good lesson for us to learn, especially as we go down something that is new and filled with ‘learning experiences’ (code for ‘Oh shit’ moments). Perhaps slower is better ;)

**That’s us and our plan.** Financial independence is something I hope more people strive for. I hope that us sharing this will at least spark an idea for you to look into it, and perhaps commit to it by making it a priority in your life.

Joe


Joe's Journal | Financial independence


Our grocery updates have come to an end because we have completed our challenge! I am so happy to announce that our challenge is done. We managed to save quite a bit of money and we applied that to our mortgage and shaved off over 4 years of our 30 year home loan! Which means we have less than 26 years to pay it off in full, though we will always be paying more to cut that down further and who knows, maybe there will be another grocery challenge and saving challenge in the future. But right now, I am just happy to say it’s done because although it seemed pretty straight forward, there were many days that were stressful because I couldn’t buy the thing or go out to eat with the friends etc. It was not as easy as we thought it would be. One of the hardest parts was the grocery list, we bought pretty much the same things over and over again and not by choice in this case, which also got to us. And now that we’re done, we’re taking a month off from the immense savings and we are going to re-calculate what we need to do to get to the next savings goal. Whatever that may be. Right now we’re in the dreaming phase, we need to dream up the goal first ;)

But I’d like to end our grocery updates with an update on our trip to Bali and what we did. We did so much while we were there and it all started with the first two days of odd experiences. We rented an Airbnb for two weeks in Seminyak, Bali. Right by the water. And we got to our Airbnb, initially it was a great place to stay we had space and the place looked like all the pictures. We had some issues with the quality of the place, as we had reserved an Airbnb **Plus** stay, which are held to a higher standard. It just was not up to par, and we left two days afterwards. We ended up staying the rest of the time at the Grand Hyatt in Nusa Dua, and it honestly made the trip 10 times better than we had expected.

**Gates of Heaven**

We took two tours during our stay and the first one was called the “instagram” tour, were all the stops in the tour were highly instagram worthy. The tour name was very accurate, we saw the Gates of Heaven - pictured above. This is a Hindu temple that stands at the top of a very tall hill and looks out to a volcano. I feel like a few of the temples face the volcano because this definitely was not the only one with a beautiful view. On the way up we drove up a very steep and winding hill to get to a gate where our driver let us out. We put sarongs around our waist and I put on a scarf to cover my shoulders and we were free to enter the temple. To get there we had to walk up more stairs and a hill but it was worth the walk. When you get up here, you see this beautiful gate and three rows of stairs that are ceremonial staircases. There are also a lot of people taking photos here, so many that if you want to take a picture you need to grab a number. Our number was #315 - they called “#246!”. To which I did not want to take a number any more and I got the shot up above (without me in it) because it looks beautiful as is. I don’t need a photo with it. We were also standing in over 90 degree (30 degrees celsius) weather with double layers on (the sarongs) and didn’t want to sit around to wait that long. We got our photo and left the temple and headed to the next stop.

**Rice fields**

I have seen so many photos of Bali and one of the most popular sceneries are the rice fields because they are just so perfect. We had the change to walk through an entire village dedicated to these fields and oh my goodness it was so picturesque and perfect. We walked past so many of the fields and they all looked this pristine. They are also so quiet and because they are all placed on hills you can look out from the top and see ongoing fields that reach the ocean. We stopped here and had lunch with a beautiful view and took an afternoon walk through the fields. It was so quiet, the sun was warm, and there was a small breeze. It was a beautiful place and if I could I’d live right there in the fields.

**Hindu Temple**

Hindu temples are everywhere in Bali. In fact the two most popular religions in Indonesia are Hinduism and Islam. The Hindu temples are pretty easy to spot, you’ll see these pagodas towering whenever you’re close to one. What’s unfortunate is we went to all these temples and yet didn’t ever hear about the history or the really much about them at all. I don’t even know the name of this one. I just know its sitting on a lake at the top of a hill and it’s surrounded by mountains. Oddly enough the lake reminded me of Scotland and seeing Loch Ness, you’re so elevated it feels like you’re closer to the sky and you can just smell the difference in the air. The water is choppy and icy blue, the sky and surroundings are shades of grey. It reminded me of Scotland so much, it felt a little more like home than the other temples did.

**Gelato Secrets**
Ubud, Indonesia

How could I not end off this blog post with some ice cream? I always try ice cream when we travel, it’s one of my favourite things to do because I love tasting the differences and as I call it, I love doing ‘field research’. We have to test out what other ice cream stores are offering! Here is passion fruit/banana and chia seed (I think it was vanilla?) flavour. The color is what caught my eye and I had to try some. But I also have been meaning to make a passion fruit ice cream, it’s just hard to make given that it’s a fruit and I don’t really enjoy making sorbets. (I resort to making a sorbet when the fruit is very watery) This recipe was a great idea to combine banana because banana adds so much more texture and thickens up the ice cream base. I will be using this the next time passion fruits are available at the store!

**Nusa Dua, Bali**

And to end this post I will say if you ever get a chance to visit Bali you should take that chance and see if you like it. It’s a beautiful place, filled with great people, lots of culture and honestly some really good food. I will be back with a new post soon, probably not a grocery update but an update in some sorts!


End of grocery updates + Bali Trip


I’ve been so far behind on the grocery updates that I decided to combine both weeks 9 and 10 together into one blog post. It’ll save time on writing, and definitely some time on reading so the following grocery update is broken into two separate weeks.

A little explanation for Week 9, you’ll see the grocery bill increase by a lot including an “extra” category. There are things I just can’t find another place to put them in, its almost equal to miscellaneous because they’re things like getting my license renewed, and Joe meeting a coworker for a drink etc. Do they fit in grocery? Not really. Do they fit anywhere else? Not really. And do I want to make a category for all the random things? Yes, yes I do and it’s called Extra.

Grocery Week 9:

Groceries: $15.45 + $119.19 + $9.19 + $48.78 + $18.97 + $27.63 + $18.56 + $11.91 = $269.68

Gas: $7.02

Gardening: $40.84

Extra: $3 + $6.50 + $56.25 + $8.26 = $74.01

**Total: $391.55**

---

Grocery Week 10:

Halloween: $8.79

Grocery: $21.52 + $12.96 + $8.99 = $43.47

Clothing: $218.00 + $24.72 = $242.72

Gardening: $16.00

**Total: $310.98**

Super duper interesting here is that in week 9 we spent the most money on groceries and you can see the break down of our grocery trips. While in week 10 you can see we spent the most on clothing and it was literally not that many trips at all haha But I will add in I had a miserable day at work (and no it was not shopping therapy) but it did involve having to swap out my pants for new ones. Therefore, I went to Nike and bought sweats because they are comfy and I found out later as I’m looking through our receipts that I bought a pair of $90 Nike pants….why are they $90? I have no idea. Do they feel that fancy? Not particularly, and I might actually return them because $90 is a lot for a pair of pants that feel kind of meh. They aren’t very soft…..anyway. While in the Nike store Joe also bought himself some new shoes he’s been needing to replace, so our bill increased :) Do I regret any of our spending? Honestly no because we do it sparingly for the most part and if we splurge some times I am really happy that we do because that means we’re spending more on the things we absolutely want to spend on.

Combining all our weeks together, we have spent a total of $3157.74 in 10 weeks of time on groceries and some additional items. Are we doing good? I’d like to say yes we are. Can we do better? Always!! And right now we are one week away from our vacation time, looking forward to getting back to spending a little more ‘normally’ once we’re back from vacation but also excited to see what’s next to come. What challenges we’re going to take on and what we’re going to be doing with savings/spending and our financial goals.

What have we accomplished while we’ve been on this savings challenge? We cut down our mortgage from a 30 year loan to a 26 year loan by overpaying on the principle. We saved lots of money, were able to help out a friend, were able to treat ourselves to a few things along the way, and were able to spend time with people and still be somewhat social. We kept up with the gym and kept up with our hobbies such as planting little seedlings and watching some new movies. I learned a lot about what I spend and surprisingly learned a lot about the things I do buy during this time of no spending. I’ll keep you posted on the next challenge we decide to take on AND especially on our trip we’re going on in just one week :) Thank you so much for riding along with us on this neat-o money saving journey, it’s been a lot of fun and I think we’ll be doing it again in the future!!


Grocery Update - Week 9 + 10


I’m late!! Ahhh! We’ve had a few things going on but I’m just getting to this now and it’s a Wednesday…trying to stay on top of everything is a challenge all the time. But we’re not into week 8, we’ve come so far and saved so much! A little update, we had savings and moved a lot of it into our mortgage, woot! We managed to eliminate 4 years worth of our re-payment plan off our 30 year mortgage. I guess now we’re at a 26 year mortgage :) Something that also stuns me is checking out much you’d actually pay of you paid minimum payments on a 30 year mortgage, you pay more than double the amount you actually bought your property for. Which is just insane to me. Anyways…going off topic a bit. Here are the things we spent on this week, we treated our selves a little and you can probably see our grocery bill was higher this week and that’s because we had friends over that we wanted to cook for, so we did. Joe made his wonderful spaghetti with his home made meat sauce, its my absolute favourite thing ever. We also went out to lunch with friends, and we bought supplements for ourselves from the store, annnndddd we bought gifts. So…that wraps up week 8.

Lunch with friends: $17.40

Groceries: $38.45 + $23.35 + $11.38 = $73.18

Gifts: $21.99 + $29.99 + $50 + $10.99 = $112.97

Supplements: $100.32

**Total: $303.897**

From last week, we had spent a total of $2151.34 by week 7, adding this into the mix we have spent $2455.21 by the end of week 8. I think we’re still doing a great job, seeing as this is two months now and we’ve spent that much including major family life events, having dinners with friends, and keeping a social life for a bit. We’re saving a lot stuff as well, and potentially putting that money back into our mortgage of savings accounts. We shall see!


Grocery Update - Week 8


We are already more than half way through our challenge now….dang! And I have some more updates on our grocery list this week. We’ve been really feeling the pain of money/food restrictions lately! Isn’t it weird how you want to buy everything when you don’t have the option to? And then when you do you don’t want to spend anything? That’s me at the moment, feeling like I could buy 10 million things just because I can’t haha!

Our grocery list looks the same…cheese, beef, tofu, fancy sparkling waters, gatorades (sugar free)…etc.

Groceries: $51.85

Other: $9.30

Lunch date at Poke Works: $26.30

Cleaning supplies: $12.07

Soap, shampoo: $20.52

Extra sweets like kitkats…chocolate etc: $25.87

Groceries: $71.47

**Total: $217.38**

Last week we were at a total of $810.79 plus this week’s spending that brings us to a grand total of $1028.17! We have spent just over $1000 on odds and ends things, groceries, random lunch dates, and others. That has been a huge task of us, we are doing a great job. Only 5 weeks left until we hit the goal deadline! We will keep this blog updated as we reach our goals.


Grocery Update - Week 6


Okay internet family…week 7 was a b-word to our finances. For good reason, if I had to decide again on going this path I would have made all the same decisions BUT it did hit our finances hard and let me tell you about it. Last week around the beginning of the week I found out my family had an emergency, my relatives in Victoria B.C were going through some things. We decided to take a trip up to Victoria for support and really did so in a spur of the moment but it was absolutely worth it. We were there to support the family and I’m thankful we have the means to be able to do that when we can. Here is what we spent on:

Grocery trip: $89.14 (we spent extra on ice cream supplies like chocolate, heavy cream, milk etc.)

Hair: $130.54

New underwear: $28.16

Lunch out: $17.40

Car rental and gas: $40.88 +$14.02 = $54.90

Hotel in Victoria: $229.31

Snacks for the trip (protein bars): $8.36

Coffee: $4.40

Grocery trip: $71.47

Parking at hospital: $5.50

Clipper to Victoria: $388.00

Tin foil: $2.52

More Ice cream supplies: $25.49

Lunch with the family: $80.98

Oatmeal on the trip: $4.40

**Total for the week**: $1140.57

Including week 6 finances of $1028.17 and this weeks total of $1123.17 we have spent a total of $2151.34. This was a huge hit to our financial goals and within week 7 alone we actually spent more money than we did from week 1 - 6. But as much as it pains me to want to reach a goal SOOO badly and sacrifice everything to do so, this was a family incident that we needed to be there for. Let’s see what week 8 has for us! We are still on our way to the $25k financial savings goal we set for ourselves in August and we will see if we can make it! We are still on track, just a few more weeks to go.


Grocery Update - Week 7


**6 hours will be fine.** That’s what I used to think when I would stay up a couple hours too late. Stayed up to play my favorite game a little longer, stayed out with a friend longer than expected, or watched a movie instead of sleeping. I mean, 6 out of the 7 or 8 that is widely accepted as necessary is pretty good, right? Nope. Not by a good margin.
&nbsp;

I recently read the book “Why We Sleep” by David Walker, Ph.D. This book created a level of anxiety that I generally don’t feel. In this book, topics that are primarily covered are the side effects of not getting enough sleep. These side effects include increased anxiety, irritability, heart disease, brain disease, and the likes. Everything from short-term problems, to long-term demise. Damn.

**So why isn’t 6 hours good enough?** Well, it turns out most of the wonderful benefits and healing properties of sleeping occur in the last few hours of sleep. This happens to be those last couple hours that I would frequently shave off on a regular basis, where lies the problem. I was losing out on many benefits such as increased memory retention, reducing my irritability, increasing my performance in the gym, and the basic feature of dreaming! Before this book, I had always proclaimed that I didn’t dream since I was much younger. Sure I would dream once in a blue moon, but nothing I would remember aside from feeling ‘different’. In hindsight, it makes complete sense why those dreams just stopped. Since my high school days, I have routinely slept 5-6 hours per night. I worked full-time in high school, then I went to the Navy where sleep is a luxury not wielded by many, and off to college where we all know that we abuse(d) sleep, myself being no different.

**What have I done since?** I’ve started to sleep in a more routine, predictable way. I have an alarm for 10pm, and one for 6am, one to get ready for bed and the other to wake up. Generally, I do this every day of the week, including weekends. The weekends are a bit harder due to old habits, but through some consistent effort I feel like it is becoming easier and easier each week. I’ve also significantly reduced my caffeine intake, which I’m unsure if it has had much effect. I’m now approximately 1 month in and the difference is night and day (pun intended). There are a lot of good tips and recommendations that I have incorporated into my daily life, but like any new habit, simply starting is the biggest and most simple step to take. I highly suggest and recommend at least checking out the Ted Talk by Dr. Walker. If the talk hits an interest, do take a look at the book.

[TED](https://www.ted.com/talks/matt_walker_sleep_is_your_superpower?language=en)

[Book](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06ZZ1YGJ5)


Sleep


Week 5 already. We are half way to our next vacation in 5 weeks, and that vacation is the end of this grocery savings and extreme budgeting thing we’ve committed ourselves to. I’m looking forward to it being done.

BUT that being said, we spent a little more than we usually would this week for a few reasons. This week was hard, harder than others because some personal things happened to us and shifted our worlds forever, therefore we went and had lunch. Not too extreme of a reward for what happened but none the less, we had a lunch outside the apartment and spent ~$90 on it. It was wonderful, was it worth it? Hells yes it was. Here is the break down for this weeks Grocery Update week 5 extreme budgeting goal…

And I’ll save all the details, I think the past week updates pretty much sum up the things we eat to balance out our macros. Sure there are additional little things like salsa for taste, or vegetables for volume. But here we go, sans the detail!

Groceries: $77.04

Additional: $65.56

Lunch: $94.85

This week went spent a total of: $237.45

Meaning within the last 5 weeks we have spent a total of: $810.79

Breaking this down a little further I want to add in some background. This is the most we’ve spent in the past 5 weeks, but before we even began this journey we decided to budget ourselves roughly a few hundred dollars a month to spend on things. Just to make sure we don’t miss our on quality of life things, for instance if we go to the hospital and have to pay a bill or something random comes up….this allowance would help with that. I also want to mention that within the time of this challenge we have moved with movers, and I have applied for some of my own green card - alien type - residential - citizenship stuff which we all know costs too. Those things are not accounted for here, the intent is to monitor what we’ve saved so I add in as much detail as I can but everyone knows the internet can be a weird place. I don’t like adding too much detail…because that’s weird and feels weird, its just all around weird to me. Therefore I don’t do it. That being said, I do enjoy sharing our savings and sharing when we meet goals and I’ll continue to do that BUT I also want to mention a few things. Like the fact that our household is a double income household, that we don’t have kids, we live in the US of A and we have no debt (except I guess now a mortgage), we have no vehicle and our other bills like phone, utilities and everything etc etc is also not included here. Why do I leave these things out? because it’s all about the savings, I could go into how we pay $100 a month for two phones on our plans but that is not something we’re going to change in order to save soooo I leave it out. Just like I add in grocery items because we can shift our eating to save more moneys. Hope that makes sense.

This savings thing has taught me a lot, I’ve felt restricted and limited by money on many occasions. I do not go out for social outings with friends…I literally have coffee if I have anything at all when I do see people. And by coffee I mean a drip coffee….usually a tall or short if they have it. But I like that I’ve been able to do this because as restricted as it is, it’s showing me just how much I do spend on things and I can look around now and see how many ‘things’ there are to spend on. Makeup, skincare, clothes, services, etc. There’s just so much we can spend our money on and I’m thankful I have the opportunity to take these weeks to not spend on them as much, and see what it does to my overall spending habits. Now….enough of my ranting and onto week 6.


Grocery Update - Week 5


We are well into week 4 and we are well into savings! We spent a little bit this week on groceries mainly, and some additional things like a spray bottle we’re going to use to sprout some sunflower seedlings. Overall I haven’t felt the pain of not spending, but more so on the hunger and craving for everything outside of our macro counting. Like pizza, donuts that work brings in for FREE, free food is so hard to say no to because I didn’t pay for it. Or even the little Kit-Kats that came in straight from Japan, green tea and peach flavours too. I had one…okay two ;) The rest of the week has been going well, we’re also starting crossfit and it’s been great to sweat out the stress three times a week. I’ve also been completely off caffeine and the decaf coffee has actually been much better than caffeinated because last week I tried to have caffeine again and I couldn’t sleep that night. It’s been a great few weeks, I’ve struggled but that’s something I expect because that’s just so normal. So here is our grocery list of the week:

0 Cal drinks = $6.05

Pasta = $4.00

Taco Sauce = $2.69

Cheese = $5.99

Ground Beef = $35.13 (we got 7lbs of it)

Kimchi = $5.49

Spray bottle = $1.50

Sunflower seeds = $17.99 (for sprouting)

Coco liner (for planting sunflower seeds)= $48.99

Harley Shampoo = $7.49

SQL book = $9.99

Nutella/Ice cream/cake (cheat meal Joe + Me) = $21.46

Water/Sugar Free Gatorade = $5.93

Sour patch kids (watermelon) = $1.98 (dextrose substitute)

**Total $176.61**

This is week 4, so the total from the past month that we have spent on groceries is: (DRUM ROLLLLLLLLLL) $396.73 + $176.61 = **$573.34**. Yay!! One month of savings and getting back to macro counting/gym time/no caffeine. We have made a large change in the past month and I’m really proud of us. We have definitely failed a little bit here and there but that’s okay, we have worked really hard to get to this point. We are over half way there guys. That’s awesome and motivation to keep going!!
