The biggest change has been the uptick in Tara’s business. Tara started a small business right around when Rhett was born, but just recently has started to pump a lot of time and energy into it. Things have gone really well for her and continues to be a good thing for our family. Check out her shop here. 

We refinanced our home.

Mortgage rates continue to drop to record low levels and home prices continue to rise in the area we live in. Our home appreciated $80k in value a year and half after we bought it! The refinance lowered our payment and got rid of PMI. With the renters in our basement, our portion of the mortgage is now only $600 :). Having the smaller payment has allowed us to save more, have more fun and enjoy our home more. Our home has been such a blessing to us. 

Covid-19.

Like everyone in the world, we were highly affected by covid-19. My job at BYU decided to make everyone who could, work from home. Luckily for me, I was already making a plan to work from home before everything went down so I was ready to make it happen. I moved my entire office setup to Tara’s crafts room and have loved being home all the time. Working from home has definitely changed my outlook on my job and the future of my job. I have so much flexibility because of this and I love it! If I want to eat lunch with Tara and the boys, I just walk upstairs and can be back to work at a moment’s notice. I also can work from anywhere in the US. In fact, I took 8 days to go to Idaho and worked from there. One of the bright spots of this dumb virus!

Investments.

Almost all of my investments took a sharp decline because of covid-19 and the subsequent “recession”. In March, I saw most of my investments go negative before bouncing back to new highs this August. The market has been acting strangely in my opinion. It certainly made sense for the market to drop when everything shut down because of the virus, but it didn’t make sense when the market quickly rebounded despite record highs for unemployment. There was definitely a lot of pessimism to go around, but the stock market kept chugging along. Most recently, however, the market took another sharp decline and may continue with the election tomorrow. 

Net worth.

Our net worth has grown since the last time I gave an update. Our home continues to grow in value and our investments rebounded from the downturn. Accounting for our home value minus what we owe plus our current investments + cash, our net worth is now $133,680. Not bad for being negative in early 2017. 

Thanks for reading! If you have any questions or any future articles you would like from us, please feel free to leave a comment below, or email us at thefundfamily@gmail.com

Index Funds

My #1 choice for investment strategy relies on index fund and more specifically, total stock market index funds. I buy 2 different index funds called VTI and FZROX. Both are basically the same; they cover the entire stock market in the USA. There are a few reason I choose these funds over everything else.

1. Low Fees
2. They don’t charge commissions to buy
3. I understand them
4. I can manage them myself, without having to pay someone

Low Fees

VTI currently has an expense ratio of .03% and no commissions to trade. The .03% ER makes it so you only pay 30 cents per $1,000. FZROX has zero fees. That’s right, ZERO. Because of that, I’ve started putting most of my money into FZROX.

I have always believed that I am the sole person who will take care of my money the best. I don’t want to trust anyone else with my money because they won’t treat it as carefully as I will. Paying someone else to take care of MY money makes no sense, especially if I can do it for free. Vanguard and Fidelity make that very easy.

Understanding Index Funds

One of the biggest deterrents for people not managing their own investment accounts is their lack knowledge. You could spend loads of time trying to understand yield curves and R squared. I try to stick to some basic truths. JL Collins has the best series on stock market advice. I highly recommend reading his series. I follow the same beliefs and would recommend them to anyone.

There are a couple of things to look for when in index funds. 1. The price.

There are a couple of ways to find the price. You can simply google the ticker name (FZROX) and it should pull up with the current price. Or you can go on the site where you will purchase it and search for it there.

2. Risk Potential.

Stocks are “risky”. When you buy index funds, there is always the chance that you could lose money. My advice would be to go into buying index funds with the idea that you are in for the long-haul. “The market always goes back up” -JL Collins.

3. Portfolio Composition.

It’s always a good thing to know what you are buying before you buy it. The portfolio composition has a list of companies in the fund and a list of categories those companies belong to.

4. Rate of Return.

This may be the most important thing to know! How much money can you make on the index funds that you buy?

If you already own VTI or FZROX, you can look in your portfolio for balances and rate of return:

Active v. Passive Investing

There is much debate over which approach is better. Because I don’t have vast amounts of knowledge on investing strategies, I try to keep it simple. I also don’t plan to use my money anytime soon so I can leave my money invested, without having to worry about it.

These are some of the basics to picking winning investments. This approach has allowed me to grow my net worth in the past 3 years from -$10k to $35k. Not only has it grown $45k, I also get to keep most of it since I am not paying commissions or hefty fees.

I would love to help you start investing! Feel free to email me at thefundfamily@gmail.com or comment on this post. Let me know what you do to invest as well!

The Quadrants

Robert Kiyosaki divides how people earn income into 4 different quadrants. The E stands for employee. S stands self-employed, I stands for investor and B stands for big business. Kiyosaki heavily suggests only doing the B and I quadrants because it allows you freedom. With people or money working for you, you are allowed the opportunity to pursue other things you are passionate about without having to rely on a job.

Building Systems

The biggest point of the entire book is told as a story in the beginning of the book. It tells a story of two people who are given contracts to bring water to a town. The first person gets two buckets and goes to work bringing the buckets to the town every day. They are happy to have the job, but it is a lot of work. The second person disappears for a while and finally comes back with a pipeline that brings water straight to the town without him having to bring the water himself. The pipeline is a business system that worked for the second person. Once his system was set in place, he wasn’t having to work hard every day. He did a lot of work up front, but was able to sit back and enjoy his cashflow after that point.

Being Financially Educated

Kiyosaki’s prior book to the Cashflow Quadrant is called Rich Dad Poor Dad. It is an excellent book that I also recommend. In that book (and in this one) he describes his biological father who is highly educated, but poor financially. His Poor Dad relied heavily on his job and had false beliefs about what it took to be rich. His best friend’s dad was not educated, but a very wealth man. He built businesses that didn’t require him to be there and had investments that had his money working for him. Just like in the Rich Dad Poor Dad book, Cashflow Quadrant drives home the ideas that being financially educated is the most important type of education.

Along the lines of being financially educated, Kiyosaki explains that if you are financially educated, risk becomes less of a factor in your financial decisions. You will start to realize that being on the left side of the quadrant (E and S) are actually the more risky ways to earn income.

Conclusion

There were plenty of “aha” moments for me during this book and it definitely helped open my eyes on certain things. I felt inspired to do things that would help move me from the left side of the quadrant (E and S) to the right side (B and I). It’s not a “how-to” book that is going to lay out exactly what you need to do to start a business, but will help you understand what needs to go on before you create these business systems. It will help you start to become a better business person by changing your mindset now. I feel like it has given me a bunch of ideas on how to move to the B quadrant and the courage to start taking the steps required to get there.

You can buy the book here: https://amzn.to/35SkY9W

To check out my other book reviews, go here.

KIDS!

Shortly after I got my job at BYU Tara and I got pregnant with our first child, Rhett. One of the best things about working at BYU has been the benefits, especially the health care benefits. We’ve always wanted to have kids, but having good insurance made it a lot less stressful on us financially. Rhett was born October 2017 and then 21 months later, Jack was born in July 2019. I am super grateful that I have been able to provide a solid foundation financially for them because of my job.

We Got out of Debt

3 years ago, we were in a small amount of debt and had zero assets. Our debt came from two sources: a car loan and a student loan that amounted to about $10k. Because of this job, we were able to get out of debt and start putting money in our asset column.

We Grew Our Assets

Once we were out of debt, we started saving aggressively. I wrote an article back in August 2018 on how we save 40% of our income every month. We have been pretty consistent at saving close to that every month, despite buying our first home in November that same year. Once we bought our home, our focus shifted from high yield savings to index fund investing. We were already putting money away into my 401k every month, but we wanted to have more short-term investments. We started putting more money into our Vanguard account where we buy an index fund called VTI. Most recently, however, we started putting more money into a Fidelity index fund called FZROX (I plan on writing another article on this soon). Because of good market conditions and our aggressive savings rate, I’m happy to say that we now have over $35,000 in investments! In 3 years we went from -$10k to $35k, a $45,000 difference. Tara and I are super happy with where we are at, but feel like we can accomplish so much more!

We Were Able to Travel

Tara and I have always wanted to travel the world, but haven’t really had the money to do so. BYU has given us those opportunities. They offer 22 vacation days a year that also include 12 paid holidays. Those vacation days carry over every year which often means we have lots of extra time left over. Not only do I get vacation days, BYU sends me on work trips that I can bring the family along for. Our trips have included Italy, Disneyworld and an upcoming trip to Cancun.

How I view “jobs” now

My job here has been a huge blessing in our lives in a lot of different areas. It really has laid the foundation for us to grow in so many different aspects of our lives, not just financially. Having said that, I still realize that long-term I don’t want to have a “job”. Working at BYU may be the best case scenario for me, but I still want to have financial freedom one day and the ability to say: “I don’t have to rely on this job”.

Our long-term goal is still the same: we want to be financial independent. My job here at BYU has been the biggest catalyst in us getting closer to that goal and we are super grateful for that! It has been really nice being able to reflect on my 3 year work anniversary and all the things that have changed!

Avoid Debt.

We hope that this will be something that you guys (our kids) will get sick of hearing from us. Avoiding debt also helps teach important lessons about saving and interest. Our hope is to help them not be “normal” as Dave Ramsey would describe and think of debt as a burden, not a ticket into the “good life”.

Save first, Spend Later.

One of the best things we’ve done with our money, is made our saving automatic. Every month, money is deducted from our accounts and added to our “FU” money accounts and our investment accounts. Every month we do this, our money continues to grow. It has helped us not worry about having enough money to save at the end of the month because it forces us to live off of what is left after saving.

Learn How to Budget.

Budgeting is such a simple thing, but is so easy to overlook. It’s amazing to see the difference between the months when we budget and the months we don’t. Making and keeping to your budget will even make spending money the things you want a lot more fun. It takes away the guilt that can sometimes come with purchases because you know you have planned to spend that money.

Invest.

Investing doesn’t have to be complicated. You can learn a few easy techniques and do it all yourself. Doing it yourself will save you lots of money in the long run because you won’t be paying someone else to do it. Just like with saving, always be putting money away before you spend it. 

Learn to be Frugal.

There will be times in your lives when you won’t have loads of cash. Being frugal is the best way to make your money last a long time. Even when you are making loads of cash, being frugal is an excellent way to keep that cash around. Your mom and I have been through times where we had to stretch every dollar we had. Luckily both of us are naturally frugal people, but it is something that can be learned and perfected. Best way to practice this is to budget.

Always Be Learning.

There is always going to be new things to learn and keep up with, especially when it comes to financial literacy. Your mom and I love to listen to audiobooks to help us stay motivated and on the right path. Never be complacent. 

We hope that this will be something that will be taught in our family by example. Some of the best lessons we have learned in life have been through watching our parents. We will probably make mistakes as we go through our financial paths, but hopefully we can provide you with the best tools to make your own financial path successful. 

We love you!

Mom and Dad

Early spring we tagged along on one of Casey’s work trip to Orlando. Each Christmas we like to do a trip in the next year as our family’s present, so for our Christmas 2018 trip we took advantage of Casey going to Orlando and we all went to Disney World! Casey and I both really enjoy Disney, but had always said we’d wait to make a Disneyland/World trip until our kids were old enough to “enjoy it.” (You pay a lot for that Disney magic, we wanted to make sure we’d get our monies worth!) We didn’t know how Rhett would do since he was so young, but he had an absolute blast! It actually changed my opinion on Disney with small kids- he may not remember, but I always will! I loved watching him experience all the sights, rides, characters and shows- it’s true what they say about experiencing magic through your kids’ eyes. The weather was actually pretty cold and rainy while we were there, but we were coming from an even colder and snowy Utah, so it didn’t stop our fun! I’ve been reminiscing on this trip a lot lately and thinking we need to compare it with Disneyland… what do you say, Casey? (;

This spring I also relaunched my shop, Baby Gowns Co, which sells knotted baby sleepers. It’s been a labor of love, especially while I was pregnant and put on bed rest! But it’s been really fun and I’ve loved being able to improve my sewing skills. I’m proud of what I’ve grown and have lots of dreams and goals for my shop and am excited (and nervous, to be honest!) to see where things go.

We grew a garden, which was definitely Casey’s labor of love (you can read about it here) and it was so much fun to watch grow and eat from it all summer and into the fall! He spent so much time tending to it and learning all about the fruits and vegetables he grew, and honestly really has a talent and true green thumb! We’ve been missing it these past few weeks since the frost came and killed everything off!

We spent a few days in McCall, Idaho, where Casey’s dad lives. My sister-in-law Sierra got married in the most picturesque wedding there on the lake. She made all of her own decorations and gave me allllll the DIY project goals! Casey’s dad walked her down the aisle and Rhett kept calling for “grandpa!” He kept doing it during the ceremony as well and couldn’t understand why his grandpa wasn’t turning around to play with him. He was being so cute and sweet, but I’m sorry it kind of ruined the ambience, Sierra! It was such a beautiful wedding and a fun trip spent with family.

The biggest event of the summer was definitely the arrival of our second son, Jack. He was induced three weeks early since I was high risk with preeclampsia. Everything went well, other than my epidural wearing off right as it was time to push- that was real fun. Not really, it wasn’t fun at all haha! He has a head of dark brown hair, which was a total surprise to us since Casey, Rhett and I were all bald babies- we didn’t know we could make a baby with hair! He also has the sweetest bright blue eyes, which none of the rest of us have, but I’m hoping they’ll stay that way! Rhett is obsessed with Jack, always wanting to hold, kiss and love on him, which I feel has helped make the transition a lot easier. He is such a sweetheart and the perfect addition to our family, we seriously love him so much!

After Jack was born I blinked and now it’s three months later. I wasn’t kidding when I said this years been the fastest! Rhett turned two, which also blows my mind! He’s at such a fun stage right now, so celebrating his birthday was extra special. He knows every word to the Happy Birthday song and looooved that everyone kept singing to him haha! We woke him up by filling his crib with balloons, which are one of his very most favorite things and we’ve decided we’ll continue this tradition with each of our kids forever haha! He is the most loved little two year old and just the best. These boys bring so much fun, joy and cRaZy into our lives.

We’ve also started making changes to our home, which is really exciting to me. We have lots of big plans for the house, so it’s fun to see things finally happening. I’d love to share our ideas, before and after’s and progress here on the blog- let me know your guys’ thoughts and if thats something you’d all be into!

I have a feeling these next two months are going to go even faster, but am excited for the upcoming festivities, holidays and fun with our two little ones!

If you follow Dave Ramsey at all, you’ve probably heard him talk about avoiding eating out (“Beans and Rice” ring any bells?). He believes that it’s the most important thing to get rid of when trying to get out of debt. When we were trying to get out of debt, we had a really hard time with this, because we LOVE food and especially food we didn’t have to make ourselves. Although we didn’t eliminate eating out entirely during our debt free journey, we did minimize it as much as possible. We are big believers in Dave Ramsey’s principle to avoid eating out if you are trying to get out of debt and strongly believe you should budget a specific amount every month.

Tara and I have been trying to save more and more money every month for a variety of things. Because of this, we have put our budget under scrutiny over and over to see where we can get better. The “eating out” portion of our budget seems to be the biggest culprit for times we haven’t saved quite as much as we would have liked. To avoid going over budget, we’ve tried a few methods to pinch down on our expenses.

No-Spend Months

One of the best ways to avoid eating out all together is to go on a “no-spend month”. Tara and I have done this a few different times and have always had good results. I wrote an article that details this a little bit more in depth that you can read here.

Having “no-spend months” can be difficult and isn’t our preferred method, despite it’s benefits. To compromise, we came up with a plan to use cash every single time we ate out.

Use Cash

At the start of the month, Tara and I decide on a fixed amount of money that we want to spend on eating out. Once we have this figure in mind, we go to the bank or ATM and withdraw that exact amount. This money can be used at any point during the month, but should only be used for eating out. Once that money is gone, it’s gone and we can’t use any other money to eat out.

Dave Ramsey’s envelope method is very similar to this and has helped countless people. This has been the best method to help curb our overspending. We aren’t perfect at this, but it’s definitely been the best way to help us stick to our budget.

It’s simple tricks like these that sometimes can make the biggest difference to a budget. Eating out is definitely one of those things that can eat into your budget and wreck havoc.

What do you guys do to avoid overspending on eating out? Have you guys tried a similar method? What has or hasn’t worked for you? Leave a comment below. Thanks for reading!

The strawberries came up on their own from the previous owners, but we added the white one. The white Strawberry is called a Hula Berry, which tastes like a pineapple. Super delicious!

We grew big beef, celebrity, sun gold cherry and martian giant. Most of our tomatoes were small, but we had a couple decent sized ones.

Unfortunately, our pumpkin plant was attacked by squash bugs and so we only got two pumpkins from this plant.

Cantaloupes are still growing as I write this. I think they are almost ripe. We have about 5 right now that are about the size of a softball.

We probably ended up with about 30 cucumbers. They were a nice snack that I would pick in the morning and eat at work for lunch.

We grew a garden! We had a lot of fun this year and hope to get a little bit more before the weather cools down. I plan on doing an even bigger garden next year and with my experience this year, everything should grow a lot smoother.

Did you do a garden this year? What’s your favorite thing to grow? Any suggestions for what we should grow next year?

We Bought a House

In October 2018, we bought our first house. We had been saving up for quite a while and were happy to finally find something that fit in our price range. If you haven’t read about how we got our home, read it here.

While our house has been really nice to have, it has also stood as our biggest hindrance to FI. Our mortgage is the biggest expense we have and the only debt we have. Tara and I have talked on multiple occasions and have agreed that paying off our house is our top priority going forward. This follows Dave Ramsey’s baby step 6 and is the second to last baby step.

We’ve done our best to make sure our home is a blessing and not a burden. The best thing we’ve done is remodel our basement to have a mother-in-law apartment that we rent out. This helps offset our mortgage costs and helps us save for other things. To read about the remodel process, go here.

We Invest and Save

Ever since we got married, Tara and I have always had a really high savings rate. After we paid off all of our debt in 2017, we started to invest very seriously too. In total, we invest or save about 30% of our income. Our favorite investment is an index fund called VTI through Vanguard. We use that for our personal investments, as well as for our two sons’ college/mission funds. 

We welcomed another son into our family last week, but have already been saving for his future. It was decided early on that we would start saving for both of them even before they were born. As of right now, we put $50 for each son into Vanguard. My goal is to up that amount to $100 each in a year. We aren’t sure how we want to go about giving our sons that money yet, but are open to suggestions if anyone has them.

I recently discovered a new index fund called FZROX through Fidelity. They are a total stock market index fund just like VTI, but have ZERO fees. I also like how they are only $10 per share, but I’m not sold on moving all my money over to it yet. I will write an article on it soon to go over my experience thus far. 

A big chunk of our saving is going towards FU money. If you don’t know what FU money is, read more about it here. Not only does FU money help in unplanned emergencies, it also gives peace of mind. Tara and I both agree that having a big chunk of cash lying around would feel really nice, so we’ve put a decent amount of money towards that. 

I put our FU money into Marcus for a while until just recently when they lowered their rate from 2.25% to 2.15%. Which I was happy with them for the most part, but another account I had with Wealthfront had just announced that they were offering 2.57%, so I decided to switch over. I still have my account open with Marcus, so I may go back at some point. 

My 401k continues to grow. I put in 5% to get the 4% match. I am not super fond of the investment options that they provide nor the fees they take, but you can’t beat a 4% instant return. My work also provides a free 3.5% of your salary every month that helps out. 

I got a raise at work

In February I got a raise at work. 10% increase. I was pretty excited, especially since I didn’t expect it to be such a big increase. I like what I do at my job a lot and can see myself staying there for 5 more years or so. My work also has a pension plan if you stay for 5 years (I have been there 2.5 years). Plus, they have really good benefits that allows me to have babies without breaking the bank. 

 We cut back spending

A few times this year, Tara and I have had a “no-spend” month. We basically only spend money on the essentials like food and gas for an entire month. We aren’t perfect at this because we often get invited to something like a birthday dinner and don’t want to turn it down. 

These no-spend months help keep our expenses in check. We aren’t typically big spenders anyways, but we do love to eat out. We usually end up with an extra $500-$1,000 the month we do these and we highly recommend trying it!

Passive income and Side hustling

Although this hasn’t had a huge impact, we have started making some money on the side. Our blog has earned about $200 since the start of 2019 and continues to make us a little bit of money. 

Tara started a business selling home-sewn baby clothes called Baby Gowns Co. She launched her business about a month ago and has been able to make decent money.

I have also been referring businesses to a company that processes credit cards for merchant accounts and gives me a portion of every business I refer on a monthly basis. 

Besides saving more FU money, accruing passive income has been our 2nd most priority. Passive income and FI go hand in hand and is one of the fastest ways to get out of the “rat race” and into FI. Hopefully we will have more updates on this to come. 

Net Worth

I’m not totally sure how to calculate our net worth with our house. I’ve seen some people only calculate the debt portion while others subtract the home’s worth by what they owe. For now, I am not going to include our home in our net worth.

Our liquid net worth has grown substantially since we started blogging in 2018. There’s been some market volatility, but that really hasn’t hurt us too much. Plus, having a decent chunk of our money in online savings accounts has made it so they haven’t been touched much. 

We plan on continuing to have increases in our net worth from year to year, just like this year. With our savings rate and compound interest, we will start to grow substantially in the coming years. 

Thanks for reading! We have really enjoyed being able to share our road to FI with you and hope you have enjoyed it too. If you have questions for us, feel free to comment below or email us at thefundfamily@gmail.com. Feel free to share your road to FI as well. 

Atmosphere – B+

Atmosphere is rated by things like how involved the crowd is or fun things to do around the stadium.

We arrived to the ballpark about 45 minutes early to walk around the park and see what sort of options they had. We noticed a lot of kids in baseball uniforms running around and a lot of families. Our seats were on the 5th row of the 1st baseline just past the infield. The majority of people around us were fully engaged in the game and seemed to know what was going on and when. There were some that seemed more interested in drinking and didn’t appear to know what was going on in the game unless there was a big moment. During the 3rd inning, they had their mascot available for pictures and an autograph with kids. We took Rhett out and he LOVED it. That was probably his favorite part of the entire evening.

Food – A

Tara and I went to the game expecting to spend a lot of money on food. We know that prices in ballparks often tend to be inflated and the portions not very large. We were pleasantly surprised when we bought a nacho plate for $11 that filled us both up. This nacho plate was also ridiculously good, so we were very satisfied. We also got a funnel cake that was average, keeping this grade from being an A+.

Stadium – A

Coors Field is a beautiful stadium that was very clean. The stadium had trees and water fountains in center field which added a really nice touch. One of my favorite parts about the stadium was their HUGE screen that displayed all the stats in detail (I love baseball stats). Our seats were typical stadium seats, but had enough leg room for us to have Rhett on our laps and still not feel cramped.

Parking – B

We went to the closest lot we could because we didn’t want to walk very far with Tara being 6 months pregnant. It was $23 bucks to park there, including a shuttle that would take you right up to the gates. It was convenient for us, but the price was steep.

Value – A+

For our 5th row tickets we paid only $80. They were great seats and probably the closest I’ve sat to the field at an MLB game. The food was also really good and at a decent price. We spent $30 for soda, food and dessert. In total we paid $133 for all three of us to eat, park and watch a really entertaining game.

Overall – A

This was our experience at Coors Field. We had a really good time and enjoyed all of it! If you want a good place to buy cheap tickets to sport events or concerts, try this link. Have you ever been to this ballpark? How would you rate our Coors Field review?