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Angela is a 30 year old frugal friend from Washington who blogs about financial independence, gardening, and recipes on her blog, Tread Lightly Retire Early. Angela and her husband were saving a comfortable 20% of their take home pay, which was just over six figures combined. They recently bumped up their savings rate north of 50% after experiencing some unexpected expenses that required them to dip into their emergency fund. They are huge proponents of frugal living and minimizing their impact on the environment. They also don’t believe you have to spend excessive amounts of money when you have kids. They have a three year old son and do just fine.
We also chat about…
- How Angela and her husband met (we love meet cute stories)
- Their house of pets
- Lifestyle inflation when they started their family
- How they expect to hit financial independence in their 40’s
- Is there a problem with people who are putting off their happiness for FIRE?
- Making every day better
- Angela’s awesome camping truck hack
She was an absolute delight to speak with! Enjoy this chat with Angela, and please subscribe to us in iTunes if you enjoyed it!
Show notes and links from today’s episode
- Tread Lightly Retire Early – Angela’s blog!
- Evernote – How Angela tracks her expenses
- My Fitness pal – How Angela tracks her fitness/nutrition
- Personal Capital – other app for expense and net worth tracking
- Meet the Women of the Financial Independence Movement – The awesome list!
- Teriyaki Chicken Recipe
- Electric blanket
- Find dispersed camping spots
- Angela’s camping truck adventures
- Truck bed air mattress
Key takeaways from our chat with Angela of Tread Lightly Retire Early
1 – Kids don’t have to be expensive
When Angela and her husband had their son, they quickly ramped up their spending.
They bought things they didn’t need, got takeout to help make up for lost time, and they significantly reduced their income when Angela went part-time.
She now goes to clothing swaps for her son.
New parents can easily slip into this lifestyle inflation and it’s something we talked about in our episode with Liz of the Frugalwoods blog. She raised her daughter on entirely used things which many parents aren’t willing to do or don’t think to do but maybe should.
2 – Increase your savings rate by tracking every single expense
Angela started to cut expenses by tracking things more closely. She uses Evernote to capture every single expense manually in her phone.
She gave herself a budget for her lunch expenses and then slowly started cooking more.
She reduced food waste and stopped eating out.
In months, they went from saving 20% of their income to 50%.
3 – You don’t have to grind away wonderful years of your life so someday you can do something else
Angela’s financial independence plan sounds exactly like the life she currently has plus two more weeks of vacation.
We actually called her out on that which led into a nice sidebar chat that was reminiscent of our conversation with Erin Lowry on Ep. 36.
Angela seems to agree with Erin that if folks aren’t trying to make their lives better now, they are doing themselves a disservice.
You never know what medical or life challenges will be thrown your way when you eventually achieve financial independence.
No amount of time is guaranteed for anyone.
Don’t go YOLO crazy spending money but don’t waste your years doing something making you absolutely miserable to achieve financial independence sooner.
4 – You can find a job you love
Angela loves her job and she feels she is doing good in the world and making a difference. (She works to improve the planet).
She doesn’t have Sunday dread and knows work can be good and balanced.
It also helps that she was able to arrange a part-time job that allows her to get off work at 2, get her errands done, spend time with her son.
She isn’t living for the big long vacations because she has good that happens everyday.
5 – Bring more water than you need when you’re dispersed camping
Angela purposely brings extra water when she goes camping with friends because she knows that most people forget to bring enough.
She loves to go camping in the offseason to avoid the crowds and hacked the back of her husband’s truck so they don’t even need a tent.
With a truck canopy and air mattress, LED lights and electric blankets, they are good to go!
Thank you to our episode sponsor, Olivia at Birds of a Fire.
Check out her site at: http://birdsofafire.com/firedrill.
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Mrs. Kiwi says
Yay! So great to hear you Angela! And I will totally second your wildest dream!
April says
Great podcast! I love reading Angela’s blog, and so, I was excited to hear her featured on your podcast. I love her advice to work towards FI while still enjoying life. That’s totally my philosophy, too!
Mike Beatty says
Wise words from a wise person!! Enjoying the present is defo more inportant than reaching FI miserably! Happiness is a habit so chances are you won’t be able to be happy when you reach FI!
Angela speaks really well on the podcast 🙂