Why Offset Your Carbon Footprint? If you care about climate change or the environment, you may be interested in offsetting your carbon footprint. A carbon offset is an action intended to compensate the carbon emissions of a human activity. If you have already been tracking your household finances, calculating the

Alright we are back home in Hawaii, nearly caught up with reclaiming our home from the Jumanji-like jungle that had taken over. Twenty-seven nights away from home and I had really started to miss it. But now that I’ve been back for a few weeks, I’m ready to start traveling

Mr. Nerd and I both hit the $100,000 in investment accounts milestone! And on top of that FZROX, Fidelity’s Zero cost Total Market Index Fund, gained 1% yesterday so I made $1,000- all while having a pretty chill day. Have I mentioned how amazing passive income is? I ❤️ passive

Fully vaccinated and travel ready! Here’s how we saved money on our first trip Post-Pandemic (sort-of). House-sitting We had been looking at rental car prices in Honolulu for a while and found that they were ridiculous. We didn’t want to blow all our Chase Ultimate Rewards Points on a ridiculously

Retirement is wasted on the old. Old people hate flying, they don’t have nearly enough energy nor stamina to really make the most out of the freedom that comes with never needing to work again. Young people could make much better use of all those years of unhindered adventure. It’s

We just took a trip to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. It was amazing! We took a long weekend during Christmas and I think that’s going to be our new tradition. We totally loved it. We were really lucky as Kilauea volcano hasn’t erupted for more than two years and just

We’ve been on the FIRE journey for a year now. Over that time we have increased our networth by $140,000 and cut our estimated time to FI from 22 years to less than 5. What strategies did we use to get where we are today? We started with an open

I’m rollin’ in credit card bonuses. A year ago I had almost no credit history. No personal loans, no credit cards or car loans. Now I have 4 credit cards that I love and I can’t wait to get my next one. Start with a secured credit card Because of

The US cell phone market is an oligopoly. That means that just a few companies dominate the market- and they charge way too much. But that’s been changing. These days, there are many great options out there that can save you thousands of dollars per year on your mobile bill-

I can’t wait to start the next leg of our journey through life. This next leg is going to be a nomadic, free-range, work from anywhere, lifestyle. We call this semi-fi because it has many of the benefits of full retirement, without having to wait quite so long. Here’s our

Our largest expenses are housing, food, and transportation. These things can be optimized and we will take a look at some options that may work for you. Then there’s the really easy ways to save- fixing those ongoing costs that you are paying too much for– like your cell phone

We were really looking forward to a trip to the mainland. We were going to camp in the Sierra’s and visit San Francisco. We haven’t been in a long time and I was really looking forward to eating cheap asparagus (it costs $7 a bunch at our local grocery store)

We are born. During our childhoods we are taught how to be productive employees and in adulthood, we become servants. As adults, we are expected to find a way to pay for our lives. The cost of a life is endless toil. If we are lucky enough we realize that

Sometimes good things come in inexpensive packages. I know this is counter-intuitive. All the marketing tells you that the really good stuff is expensive; shiny new cars, diamond rings, designer handbags. I would argue instead that no one would buy that stuff if their marketing budgets ran out. Why do

Embarking on this journey towards financial independence has allowed me to start to see aspects of American culture that were previously so normal they were basically invisible. I can now see invisible things; it’s pretty much a super power. One of those things is how we can struggle with and

The biggest and hardest change for our family has been cutting back on our restaurant spending. I am a huge foodie so I loved to go out and try new foods and we had developed an expensive habit of eating out for convenience regularly. This was a big challenge for

Since we discovered FIRE about 6 months ago, we have been slowly cutting down our spending. We first tackled our recurring expenses like insurance and cell phone bills. And then we started chipping away at those expenses that are wants rather than needs. This was a very gradual process. One

Ah the three R’s. No not reading, writing, and ‘rithmatic. I’m talking about the three R’s that actually start with the letter R; Reduce, Re-use, and Recycle. If you grew up in a crunchy blue state like I did, you may have learned about this in your 5th grade class

I was listening to an interview with Early Retirement Extreme’s Jacob Lund Fisker (what an amazing innovator!) and he described how different generations think about retirement. Something he said really hit home for me. He said that for generation X and younger to reach retirement we have to reach financial

Plant forward? Are you making this stuff up? You know I wish I could take credit for this idea but unfortunately not. Plant forward is how we eat here in the Nerds Catch Fire (NCF) household. Most of our food comes from plants; veggies, fruits, seeds, nuts, beans, grains. You