“We just got back from an 81-day vacation.” When people hear this, they pretty much always leap to the same two conclusions: The first is that it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for us, and the second is that we must have spent a huge amount…
Having lived in both Orlando, Florida, and Orange County, California, I’ve tested tons of Disney hacks that work for the theme parks at both Walt Disney World and Disneyland. And as someone who hates overpaying for anything, believe me when I tell you that my…
Ten years ago, we bought our very first home — a 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom condo in the inexpensive city of Gainesville, Florida. And after living there ourselves for a while, it became our very first rental property investment — providing us with extra income as we…
We started 2025 by signing up for Duolingo to learn a little French for a summer road trip to Quebec. As usual, we ended up going way farther than expected — covering 9,178 miles (14,770 km) from our home in Florida, all the way through…
We just got home from a 61-day road trip that took us from our home in Florida to the remote province of Labrador, Canada. To make extended trips like this more affordable, we live out of a tiny camper van without a toilet, kitchen, sink,…
In a population of 8 billion people, there are only 3,000 billionaires on planet Earth. That’s not even one ten-thousandth of one percent! And, seemingly for good reason… You’ve probably seen viral posts about how if you made $100 an hour, you’d need to have…
As we started planning a 3-week trip to Iceland for our anniversary last year, one of the first things we saw repeated on the internet again and again was, “Iceland is EXPENSIVE.” But as notoriously frugal travelers, we decided to interpret that warning as a…
People who read this blog and know me in real life are sometimes surprised by my choice of possessions. On one hand, I can be seen frugally squeezing life out of a 6-year-old smartphone, sharing a single used vehicle with my wife, and typing this…
For the past 15 years, we’ve had a habit of waiting to buy technology a few years after it’s released and using it a few years longer than it’s officially supported. Not only has this made us richer, but it’s had a positive impact on…
This October, my computer died. Ordinarily, I’d just fix it, but since this particular computer was an Apple product, its designers made sure that would be very difficult — so difficult, in fact, that I’d need to buy a replacement. Just for fun, I punched…
For the last few years, my Instagram feed has been peppered with beautiful images of Iceland — from its coastline of black sand beaches to its countless cascading waterfalls. Of course, the most alluring images of all were those of the colorful Northern Lights dancing…
Before this year, we’d already spent a ton of time in Canada — almost exclusively in the mountainous west, checking out some of its most famous National Parks or just driving to Alaska. But it finally felt like the right time to give the Canadian…
It’s been six years since we bought our red Nissan NV200 and turned it into a compact camper van. In that time, we’ve driven our little stealth camper all across the US and Canada, and we’ve also been able to meet a lot of other…
This summer, we set our sights on someplace new: Canada! Okay, okay, we’ve definitely been to Canada before, but we’ve never visited its Atlantic coast. As we crossed the border from Maine into New Brunswick, we headed south for Fundy National Park, which lies alongside…
Almost 5 years ago, I promised you that we’d eventually write a Personal Capital review on this blog. Since then, the service has changed names to “Empower Personal Dashboard” (or, more elusively, “Empower Personal Wealth”) — but after all this time, it’s remained free and…
When Steven and I want an adventure, we usually just journey into nature and wander around for a while. It’s a great way to travel because it’s both freeing and free — you don’t need a tour guide to get lost in the woods. But…
International travel forces you to rethink some things that you’ve probably taken for granted your entire life — from getting money out of an ATM to parking your car or even installing an app on your phone. Just when you think you’ve got it all…
Our net worth finally ticked past a million dollars this year, at the ages of 33 and 34. You might expect us to say that we had to "grind it out” with hard work and grit, but the truth is — it was actually pretty…
When you think about “the rich” and the people who constantly seek to be richer, it’s easy to picture someone like that polluting hog dude from Captain Planet. Most people don’t associate the pursuit of money with being “green,” and because of that, a lot…
Every time we scream from the rooftops that you can retire several decades early by working a middle-class job, living frugally, and investing in passive index funds, we get a few common objections yelled back at us. One of those complaints is actually super reasonable:…
Our first experience with Australia — besides watching Crocodile Hunter when we were kids — was making friends with a classmate from Western Australia at our high school. From the stories he told with a heavy accent in TV production class to the pictures of…
Retiring early is normally pretty simple: Just spend less money than you earn, invest the difference in index funds, and follow the 4% rule. The 4% rule says that once you have at least 25× your annual expenses invested, you can withdraw enough money to…
A somewhat literal summary of Walden by Henry David Thoreau might call it a recollection of one man’s peaceful (and inexpensive) life in the woods of Massachusetts during the late 1840s — documentation of an uncomplicated world that’s long since past. But a book review…
Last year, we picked a country off our wishlist and booked a flight. We weren’t a part of an exchange student program or a research project. We didn’t have a work visa or a job offer. We were just randomly going on vacation…for three months.…
