Start Here: An Introduction

Hello! I’m excited to share with you my ongoing journey towards financial independence. I decided to start writing because I was surprised to see such a wide variation of personal finance blogs, but few written through a lens of Christian responsibility. When I searched for a community of financially like-minded Christians, I was shocked to find many articles asserting that the FIRE (financial independence, retire early) lifestyle is incompatible with Christian values. I came across warnings about the dangers of wealth (1 Timothy 6:10), concerns about people relying on themselves and their money instead of God (Matthew 6:19-20), and finger shaking about ignoring our God given command to work diligently (Colossians 3:23-24). For Christians who are interested in achieving financial independence but don’t want to risk damaging their relationship with their Creator, I hope to articulate why I believe this goal is not in friction with biblical values. I firmly believe that Christians can strive for financial independence, including potential early retirement, while growing and maturing in their faith. 

I’m a lifelong Christian, but a relative newcomer to the financial independence movement. God has truly blessed me beyond measure. My husband and I are in our thirties and have a sixteen year old daughter. I work in sales and my husband, Mr. Sense, is a homeschool dad and avid volunteer at our church. Over the years, there have been thrilling times when I’ve been inspired and excited by my faith, and spiritual valleys where I’ve felt apathetic about religion and rarely made it out of the house on Sunday mornings. I’ve attended several different churches over the years, including the conservative reformed church my parents went to throughout my childhood and teen years, a vibrant college-y Methodist faith community that sometimes met in a brewery, and a Unitarian Universalist church defined by the diversity of views of its members. A couple years ago, my husband and I recommitted to our Christian faith and joined an Episcopal church just a few blocks down the street from us. The impetus for attending this church was something I know many others can relate to; we did it for our kid. After Mr. Sense and I got married towards the end of 2019, we immediately got licensed to be foster parents. We planned to stick with short term “respite” care, but soon decided to make the jump to full time parenthood. We met our future daughter on our one year wedding anniversary, and she moved in just a few weeks later. It was a weird time– Covid was raging, and churches were mostly operating remotely. Our Unitarian church stuck with mostly online services, even as other local churches were reopening more permanently. We wanted our daughter, Kid Sense, to experience being part of a church community and hopefully become friends with what we imagined would be the “good kids”-- kids who went to Sunday school! We visited the Episcopal church and I loved it immediately. It was an easy walk from our house and had a choir for teenagers, which I dragged Kid Sense to. Before long, we found ourselves at church constantly for services, mission trip fundraising dinners, and music events. I started reading lots of church history and theology books and decided to make it official, so I was confirmed by the bishop (Mr. Sense was “received” since he grew up Catholic and had already been confirmed). I’m so grateful to be part of this wonderful church family. 

Christianity was at the center of my life growing up, and my parents taught us about being good stewards of our financial resources. They tithed and encouraged my sisters and I to give from our allowances. My dad stayed home with us kids and my mom worked for the government, regulating banks and researching economic phenomena. We lived in a huge old house and went on fancy vacations, but my parents always drove older cars and tended towards thrift shops more often than the mall. I never felt deprived, though I sometimes longed for Hollister baby tees and shoes that were real Chuck Taylors instead of Payless knockoffs. In high school, I started teaching piano lessons to kids from the local elementary school. Suddenly, I had real money! I spent all of it on Starbucks, Chipotle burritos, and eventually gas for the car my parents let me use. Throughout college, I saved money from various jobs and used most of it for typical college kid expenses. When I graduated from college I had a net worth of maybe $200. My parents had generously funded my tuition, apartment, meal plan, and textbooks while I was a student. They also gifted me an older car for Christmas my senior year, and paid my next three months of rent as a final graduation gift. I had almost no money, but I had a job paying just over minimum wage and a very low cost of living. I ate a lot of ramen, yogurt, and peanut butter, and I was happy. 

After a couple of very broke years, I started working in sales. I made a little under $20,000 my first year, and around $60,000 the second year. I felt like a millionaire! I put a decent down payment on a brand new car, did some international travel, and went out to restaurants and bars several times a week. My mom’s warning against credit card debt was tattooed on my brain, so I avoided consumer debt besides the car and even managed to save around $20,000. Soon, I bought my first house. It was a bit rundown and smelled like the previous owner’s three dogs. I learned how to do some home maintenance and improvement projects, and hired out a few jobs that were out of my range. My income kept rising but my savings account grew more slowly, mostly due to restaurant trips, clothing and home shopping, convenience services, and “loans” to friends. 

I had a mini-wakeup call early in my relationship with my future husband. We fell in love quickly, and within our first month of dating, we had “the talk” about money. We shared our credit scores (both high 700s), our incomes (I made roughly double his salary), and our savings (wait, how was he beating me?). I was a bit embarrassed to be so far behind his savings rate, but rationalized that I had purchased a home, and anyway, he had had a headstart on me since he graduated two years before me. Mr. Sense moved to my small town and started job searching. While he was interviewing, I had an awkward but unmistakable realization: I was spending a crazy amount of money! I had been living alone, but had a maid service, took most of my clothes to a dryer cleaner, and ate restaurant food almost exclusively. Mr. Sense and I realized that if he stayed home and took over the cooking, cleaning, and errands, we’d actually have more money left than if he found a similar job to his old one. We decided to combine our finances completely and make the jump. This went surprisingly well. We continued to live a pretty lavish lifestyle– we bought a couple more expensive cars, upgraded to a larger and nicer house, visited some all inclusive resorts, and ate at fancy restaurants to celebrate any wins we had, large or small. We got engaged and married, and my paychecks grew pretty steadily. When we became foster parents, we received some state subsidies that usually covered the marginal required costs of raising a child. 

Partway through 2021, I discovered the Mr. Money Mustache blog and excitedly told Mr. Sense I thought that we should go from saving 8ish% of our income (mostly through the 401(k) my job offered) to, like, half of it. To my surprise, he jumped on board. We cut our food expenses down dramatically by switching to a less expensive grocery store and cutting our restaurant trips by at least half. Mr. Sense created a spreadsheet and we tracked our income and expenses, sorting them into categories and analyzing how we did each month. It was actually really fun, like a game! I started biking to work every day to avoid a spike in gas prices, and kept it up even when prices eased. Kid Sense thought we were pretty goofy, but she didn’t seem to be suffering any ill effects from being deprived of three restaurant meals a week. After one year of tracking, we added it all up and had come pretty close to saving half of everything that came in, painlessly. 

Mr. Sense and I hope to be financially independent in eight years– to have enough money that neither of us needs paid employment to maintain our lifestyle, permanently. I’m not sure what life will look like then. I enjoy my career, so I may not be ready to step away. But we both feel that having options will make any choice at that time less stressful and more exciting. This is why we continue to track all our incoming and outgoing money and continually look for ways to optimize our spending so we can invest as much as we can. 

To wrap up, I’d like to respectfully dispute the concerns that many Christian writers express about believers striving for financial independence. First, some people worry that Christians who participate in the FIRE movement will become obsessed with wealth and fall into idolatry. The Bible wisely warns against the love of money. Hoarding and obsessing about cash is wrong, but on the other hand, there is obviously no biblical imperative to buy new vehicles and expensive clothing so we can avoid growing a large investment account. We are called to give generously to support God’s mission on earth (2 Corinthians 9:6-8). Mr. Sense and I are committed to giving portions of both our time and money to our church and other charitable organizations, even before we put away money into savings. Secondly, some writers have expressed that FIRE encourages Christians to put their faith in something other than God: their bank accounts. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of FIRE. Financial independence is less about relying on money to get one through the bad times, and more about practicing good stewardship of the resources we have (Proverbs 6:6-8). Becoming accustomed to ever expanding levels of lifestyle inflation is insidious because we start to feel entitled to luxuries that we don’t really need. It’s better for Christians to rely on God for joy and comfort than on buying more material things (Luke 12:15). Finally, some Christian FIRE critics point to biblical commands to work diligently. While financial independence can give people the option to leave paid employment, that doesn’t mean they will stop working. In fact, financial freedom gives people the opportunity to prioritize work that best honors God (1 Corinthians 3:9), instead of what pays the most. 

I believe that seeking financial independence can be a wise decision for Christians. I hope you’ll keep reading my updates along the journey.