Before embarking on our financial independence journey, our family spent a lot of money on entertainment. Restaurant meals, shopping trips to TJ Maxx and Target, and family outings to trampoline jump rooms and ax throwing spaces– we loved, and still love, getting out of the house together. When Mr. Sense and I decided to make dramatic changes to our spending, I was concerned that the quality of our family time would decline. While we can have a good time at home, there’s something special about getting out of the house as a family and making memories together.

When I was in seventh grade, all the students ran a timed mile run each Tuesday in gym class. The five fastest girls’ and boys’ names and times were posted on the wall of the gym for the rest of the week. I was almost always the third fastest girl, and twenty years later, I still remember the names of the two girls whose names were usually above mine on the list.

Last summer, Kid Sense and I sat down for an hour each week to talk about one of my favorite topics– personal finance! I was blessed to grow up with parents who were open about their financial goals and opinions. While they didn’t share the numbers with us, my sisters and I knew where they stood on giving, debt, and budgeting. My daughter moved in with us as a teenager, and I wanted to make sure she had a strong financial knowledge base before adulthood. Over several weeks, we talked about budgeting, debt, saving, giving, and investing. I was pleasantly surprised to see Kid Sense take an interest in our family saving money on groceries and other items.

I recently passed the one year mark of taking the plunge into bike commuting. I originally planned to shoot for three bike days per week, and I checked the weather forecast and my calendar on Sunday evening to decide which days I’d set my alarm a little earlier to account for the extra time. But now, bike commuting is non-negotiable for me; I make it work regardless of temperature, precipitation, or schedule. Here’s what I’ve learned along the way.

Proverbs 27:17 tells us that “iron sharpens iron, and one person sharpens the wits of another.” I frequently remind Kid Sense that hanging out with a group of college-bound kids will go far towards getting her to college, while a group of smokers in a bathroom will get her stuck working for those college kids one day. This pattern continues throughout our lives. For many adults, the person they end up marrying has an outsize impact on who they become. I count myself fortunate to be married to someone I’m compatible with but who also pushes me to live up to my values.

“Self-care” is a big buzzword these days, evoking images of bubble baths and decadent desserts in popular imagination. Lots of companies, desperate to attract younger employees during a hiring crunch, offer perks ranging from beer in the break room to unlimited paid time off. Benefits like these are supposed to prevent staff burnout and turnover.

Frugality necessitates my missing out on some non-essential purchases. I’m usually able to resist impulse spending by reminding myself of my financial goals. While I believe that pursuing financial independence for the right reasons is in line with my faith, judging others for their spending, which is none of my business, is not spiritually healthy. Let’s think about what this looks like, and how we can eradicate it in ourselves.

You can tell a lot about someone from a quick walk through her home, or even peeking in the window of her car. We surround ourselves with things that we need, things that make us happy, and maybe a few things that we shouldn’t really have. Your Money or Your Life (Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez) recommends carefully listing and assigning a cash value to all of your possessions, an exercise that would require a week off of work for many of us to actually complete. I write this sitting in my living room, which tends to be one of the more presentable rooms in our house. My grandmother’s Emerson piano is the largest item in the room, followed by the couch I inherited from her and reupholstered a few years back.

Part of becoming financially independent is examining where we spend money and consciously deciding if we want to continue to use our resources in that way. Little convenience purchases can add up quickly and build on each other when left unchecked. Here are a few things Mr. Sense and I avoid like the plague.

Last summer, Mr. Sense and Kid went running on the local university’s track every weekday. My work schedule usually allowed me to join them a couple days a week. We would either take turns running one mile and cheering each other on, or do a thirty minute run and try to get as many laps in as possible. On my running mornings, I wore my favorite yoga pants (which I saved for these days, rather than wearing for my normal bike commuting) and planned out a music playlist to keep me pumped up. The first couple laps always flew by, but inevitably I’d get tired and be tempted to slow down. After all, I wasn’t doing this for anyone else (though my daughter and I can get pretty competitive). This temptation to take my foot off the gas comes up in my financial independence journey, too. I tell myself I’ve saved a lot, maybe more than most people– it won’t kill me to treat myself once and a while. But once I step off track, it’s harder to get back on. Here are a few strategies I use to motivate myself even on the days when financial independence seems very far off.

The other day, my Bible app’s daily featured verse was Luke 16:10: “Whoever is faithful in very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much.” What a relevant verse for Christians who are committed to prioritizing their responsibilities to God and neighbors, while also trying to grow financially! This verse appears in the context of one of Jesus’s weirdest parables. In the parable of the dishonest manager, a shady employee of a rich man knows he’s about to get fired, so he makes deals on his boss’s behalf with people who owe the boss money, settling debts owed to the boss for less than the original amount. The scheme is supposed to gain the employee favor with the debtors so they are more likely to help him out when he loses his job. When the rich man finds out, he compliments the employee for behaving “shrewdly,” seemingly showing a grudging respect for an employee who took advantage of him. The story concludes with a verse that sounds very non-Jesus-y on the surface, “And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes” (Luke 16:9), immediately followed by the verse about being “faithful in very little.”

The acronym FIRE stands for financial independence, retire early. The FIRE movement grew out of ideas about number crunching and a minimalist lifestyle espoused in “Your Money or Your Life” (Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez, 1992). FIRE was popularized by blogs like Mr. Money Mustache and Early Retirement Extreme, which feature both philosophical musings and practical advice for cutting expenses. Most people living the FIRE lifestyle aim to save and invest at least half their income. The ultimate goal is to grow your investment accounts enough to free yourself from the need for paid employment. Many FIRE writers live and die by the 4% Rule, which says that you can withdraw 4% of your portfolio per year forever without running out, assuming reasonable investment returns and inflation levels. When a 4% withdrawal rate equals or exceeds your annual expenses, you’re considered FIREd.

People who aspire to lose weight are often advised to count calories, especially if they feel like they’re doing everything right but the scale isn’t budging. It’s the same with your finances. If you don’t know how much money you’re spending, how can you be sure if you’re actually making progress towards your goals? Even if you feel like you’re cutting back on some expenses, you may be unknowingly compensating in other ways. On the other side of the equation, do you know how much money you’re actually bringing in? Are you controlling for taxes, paycheck deductions you never see, gifts, tax refunds? As Proverbs 24 tells us, “By wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established; by knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches.” (Proverbs 24:3-4) 

Complaining about our jobs and our bosses is so common, it’s on the same level of boring as commenting on the weather. On Monday morning, we daydream about Friday afternoon, or the next vacation, or even a far off dream of retirement and sitting on a beach all day. Even in our society, where many jobs include free coffee and air conditioned offices instead of hard manual labor, work is seen as something to be endured and eventually escaped. Within the financial independence movement, freedom from mandatory paid employment is valued highly, and placed above desires for other experiences and possessions. Of course, financially independent Christians have responsibilities to work to further God’s kingdom on earth, devoting even more time and effort when they don’t have to worry about how to pay bills. But for those of us still paying mortgages and heading into the office, how can we make sure our attitude towards our jobs is pleasing to God, even as we pursue the ability to eventually quit?

How much does your family spend on food every week? I couldn’t even answer that question a few years ago. Mr. Sense and I enjoyed trying new restaurants frequently, and he whipped up some fancy meals at home, too. At grocery stores, I beelined for the organic section to stock up on little plastic containers of yogurt drinks and individually wrapped fruit strips (like organic fruit roll-ups– they are addictive!). Mr. Sense doesn’t drink much, but I love craft beer. We often brought our chess set to local breweries, which offered an upbeat but relatively quiet atmosphere. Mr. Sense used to bring me lunch at work everyday. Sometimes he would make something, but usually he stopped at a fast food place and grabbed lunch for both of us. One month, I looked over our credit card statement and added up all the restaurant bills, and was SHOCKED at the total. All that money gone, with nothing to show for it! We slowed down a bit after that, and a whole lot more a few months after starting parenthood. There’s something about watching your kid leave most of an expensive plate uneaten, but dousing it in ketchup or whatever so its leftover potential is ruined.

I’ve been biking to work for almost a year now, and I’m convinced that bike commuting is one of the best kept secret blessings. For very little upfront cost, you can convert fat into muscle, save a bunch of wasted money, and make the world a better place! Interestingly, you can get all these benefits without spending much extra time, because you can use a bike to transport yourself to places you were planning to go anyway. Here in Staunton, VA, many people already own bikes, though they seem to be mostly used as foundations for spiders to build webs on in garages. What a bummer! Let me touch on a few of the benefits I’ve discovered from daily biking, and then I’ll give you some tips to get you on the road.

Monday through Friday, both parents in many households rush to get the kids fed and dressed for school, and then hurry their separate ways to different workplaces. Lots of planning, money, and stress go into coordinating all family member schedules so no kid is sitting on a curb for hours waiting to be picked up. And the more kids you have, the more complicated it gets. You have to pay for daycare, arrange carpools and figure out how to get someone out of work when it’s your day, squish everyone’s dentist visits into the same morning, and hopefully not collapse at the end of the day before you make dinner. If your car gets a flat tire, or school gets delayed for half an inch of snow, or your kid breaks a bracket in her braces and has to get to the orthodontist, it’s a nightmare. Or so I imagine. I recognize I am very fortunate, because the truth is I experience relatively little anxiety when little things like this pop up, largely because Mr. Sense is a stay at home parent. And even before Kid Sense, he was a stay at home husband!

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 totally 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 (Collosians 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.