Why Simplify and Enjoy? :A Quick Intro

Hello; thanks for visiting me here on Simplify and Enjoy!

I'm Elle 🙂

Since 2009, I've been writing about marriage and money over at Couple Money.

I originally started Couple Money because we needed it. Back when we engaged we quickly found out we had different approaches to money.

Trying to find solutions, I hopped online and found some great personal finance blog, but there wasn't much that specifically addressed how married couples can work together to tackle their financial goals.

Marriage and money is so layered because you have two people with different backgrounds coming together. Pretty much all I saw at the time was focused on individuals.

So started documenting our debt free journey as well as wins and disagreements.

It's something I love, but today I'm starting a side project that I'm thrilled about sharing – Simplify and Enjoy.

I guess the best way to start is to explain the why behind the site.

Why ‘Simplify and Enjoy'?

I do believe the goal financial independence is not about the money, but about the freedom.

To save enough to ‘retire' or where work is optional takes a big chunk of money.

(Not as much as some of those retirement calculators like to recommend, but even if you want to live off of $30,000/year, you'd need around $750,000)

That means making choices about where and how you're spending your money now.

We've found the process of simplifying to be the best, most sustainable way for us to reach our goals.

Reviewing regularly what matters most to us and minimizing what doesn't helps us move forward and closer to what matters.

It also means that we enjoy the journey of becoming financially free and eventually independent while raising our kids.

Are You Hard Core FIer?

Not really.

Which may seem weird, but we're really focused less on the numbers now.

When we were paying off $35,000 of debt, we tracked our progress fairly regularly. That made a huge difference.

But now that we have built that financial muscle (and also automated our money), we have more time to focus on the kids plus our projects.

Now that's not to say we're not savers. Last time I checked, our average savings rate was around 45% range.

If you'd compare to the average American family, then we'd most likely be considered hardcore savers.

What Are You Going to Cover on Simplify and Enjoy?

Basically, we'll share a bit of how we're raising our kids while trying to simplify our finances, home, and lives.

I'd love to share some of our discussions about balancing saving more versus enjoying the season of life we're in.

So while we'll get into the path we're taking towards financial independence, the real focus will be on the journey.

I'll share projects around the home we're working on. Some of them we'll do ourselves and gain some new skills. Other projects we're going to outsource.

You'll get to see how we design our yard to make it better suited for us.

I'm learning about using permaculture principles to grow more of our own food and work with what we have.

We're looking to creating spaces for the kids to play, us to relax, friends to visit and hangout, and grow our own food.