Keep Thrifty Audio

One of our spending categories that we’ve had the toughest time mastering is our food budget. Neither of us loves to cook and convenience often wins the day when dinnertime rolls around. But when I looked back at our food spending for last year in Thrifty, I found a pleasant surprise. Listen to the article

I can’t believe that we’re already six months into our one-year mini-retirement! It feels like just yesterday that I was packing up my belongings at work and at home as we flipped our life upside down to try something crazy. Listen to the article

From the outside-in, frugality and minimalism often look like acts of self-deprivation. After all, eating out is easier and tastes better than a home-cooked meal and getting a new gadget or outfit puts a smile on your face. Why would we deprive ourselves of these little luxuries? Listen to the article

Earlier this year, we experienced a culinary tragedy - our pizza cutter broke. Our initial reaction was to go out and buy a replacement, but we were in the middle of our Nothing New Year challenge so we held off. A few days passed, then a week, then a month. We hadn’t replaced the pizza cutter and somehow, amazingly, we were still surviving. Listen to the article

The personal finance world has been abuzz with talk of automation. It started with automated bill-pay and has grown into automated savings, robo-advisers, and algorithm-based investing. We dream of letting the machines take care of our finances so we can free up our time. Listen to the article

Ok, so my husband, Chris, has officially been on his One Year Mini-Retirement since July first. And as of September second, he started working here on Keep Thrifty full time. We are still early in this whole mini-retirement thing, but it feels so much longer. Every week brings a new challenge in our marriage. It’s exciting and exhausting. There are tears and laughter. It’s a rollercoaster of emotions. Here’s how it’s been going. Listen to the article

Patience is a virtue, but it’s more than that. It’s an incredible source of passive income. OK, maybe not income in the traditional sense, but at the end of the day, patience leaves you with extra money in your bank account for doing absolutely nothing. Listen to the article

Before our mini-retirement, we were focused on building our finances. We were prepaying our mortgage, saving for vacations, contributing to a 401K, and building our emergency savings fund. Then we decided to temporarily step away from getting a paycheck for a full year. Our focus on our finances had to change. Here’s how: Listen to the article

Do you ever get to the end of the month and wonder where all your money went? There’s a negative force at work against your journey to financial freedom called the Frivolous Purchase Threshold. It’ll steal your money and leave you with worthless trinkets you didn’t need. Let’s learn how to identify this bugger so we can exterminate it from our lives. Listen to the article

There’s one phrase we’ve heard over and over again since revealing our mini-retirement: “I mean, if you can make that work, it sounds amazing.” It pains me to hear because the person assumes that achieving a mini-retirement isn’t possible for them. But I know that they can. The formula for getting to a mini-retirement is simpler than you might think. Listen to the article

If you’ve got a mountain of debt, there are two awesome ways to shred it - the Debt Snowball and the Debt Avalanche. Read on to learn how to choose which is right for you and what to do if you can only pay your minimums. If you’re already well-versed, check out the end of the post for an awesome spreadsheet to show how much better Debt Avalanche is. Listen to the article

Today’s article is a special one folks - you’re getting an awesome article from the one and only Mrs. Keep Thrifty - better known as my wife, Jaime. Going forward, you can expect to see her writing here about once a month as a great way to change things up and get a different perspective. Today, she’s going to talk about how she used to “suck” at money management and how that’s changed. Take it away, love! Listen to the article

Who doesn’t want financial freedom? Getting to the point that your passive income can cover your expenses buys you opportunities and time in a way that most people can’t imagine. Despite the allure, I took an active step away from financial freedom this year, choosing to delay my freedom date by over 2 years. What siren could have pulled me away from my destination? An even better one - mini-retirement. Listen to the article

Some people have great clarity of what’s on their bucket list - the things they want to accomplish with their life. But others struggle, not even knowing where to start. If you’re struggling with finding big dreams worth chasing, consider seeking inspiration from a younger version of yourself. Listen to the article

UPDATE (Decemeber 11, 2017): After trying out Patreon for 3 months, we weren’t able to get the traction we had been hoping for. We’re still going to keep this site free of ads and sponsored posts, but we will be bringing in a small number of affiliate links for things we use and love and think you will too. We’ve gotta keep the lights on! Listen to the article