This got me thinking and prompted me to make my own list. Here it is:

Ideal Day

• Wake up without an alarm
• Have pancakes/waffles/french toast
• Play Golf with my wife
• Work for 4 hours with a lunch break in between
• Play games with my son
• Play a sport with friends
• Wind down in the hot tub with my family
• Spend quality time with my wife
• Go to bed

Typical Day

My typical day isn’t quite the same. It looks a little more like this:

• Wake up to an alarm that I pressed snooze twice on
• Eat a small snack while driving to work to make it on time
• Work 8-9 hours
• Come home exhausted and eat dinner with my wife and son
• Spend a small amount of time with family
• Go to bed

As you can see, the difference between my ideal day and typical day is vast.

Ideal Day in Practice

I decided to try my best to have an ideal day on a typical day, so I took part of work off and did the following:

• Played Golf with Tara, Jacob and Carlee
• Had brunch with Tara and Rhett
• Went to work for 4 hours
• Played softball with some friends
• Had Dinner
• Spent some time outside by our apartment
• Cuddled while watching a movie with Tara
• Went to Bed

If I could have a day like this one everyday, I would be a lot happier!

Surprisingly, I got about the same amount of work done in half the amount of time. Feeling like I had less time to get things done, motivated me to work harder. I also felt a lot more rejuvenated to take on the tasks at work because it wasn’t taking up a big chunk of my day.

Granted, we can’t all have days like this. Sometimes work requires us to be there for large chunks of the day. It may take a little bit of creativity to find a good work-life balance when this is the case. I usually try to do small things to help even things out. Those small things can be anything from going to lunch with Tara and Rhett one day, or spending time with family on a Saturday. It’s the little things that count.

I suppose this is the appeal to us starting a blog and looking for other passive income ideas. Not having to physically be in an office everyday would allow us to have our ideal days more often.

Is your ideal day close to your typical day? Comment below what your ideal day would look like. Thanks for reading and be sure to subscribe to our blog and follow along on Facebook if you’d like to hear more!

After Tara and I were married, I had the privilege of taking part in this show and have done the show 4 years in a row. It’s one of our favorite family traditions and is something we look forward to every year.

The setup

A lot of people don’t realize how much work it takes to set up a firework show. We usually will get to the park where we shoot off a couple days before the 4th and start our set up. Every year that I’ve been there it’s been over 100 degrees outside. We do our best to split up the work so that we don’t have to spend too much time out in the sun.

The 4th

During the 4th we drop the shells into the mortar tubes and make sure that the fuses are in a good spot to light. The 4th is usually a little bit more spread out as far as work, so we have some time to relax.

Lighting off the fireworks

This is the best part by far. Lighting fireworks this big is always a rush. Tara likes to joke that lighting these fireworks ruins any other fireworks. There’s just nothing that can compare to actually being the one to light it.

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The Cleanup

After we have lit all the fireworks and the firefighters have done their walk-through, we have to clean everything we just blew up. The cleanup is probably the hardest part, because you start to come down from the adrenaline rush of blowing stuff up. Putting the firework racks back in the truck is a lot of work and we usually don’t finish until after midnight. We typically take an entire day just to recover before driving back home.

This is by far one of our favorite traditions! We plan to keep doing this firework show for as long as we can. Do you guys have any cool traditions on the 4th?

Flights

It took us 3 plane rides to get into Italy, which was far from ideal. It made for a long day and a half of travel that ended with an 8 hour flight into Fiumicino from Newark. We would have preferred to fly direct, but it was the cheapest option.

How we got around

We used public transportation the entire trip. Rome has a pass called the Roma pass that allows you to use the metro and buses for 48 to 72 hours (we did the 72 hour pass) and also allows you to get into two attractions for free. We used our two free attractions on going inside the Colosseum and the Castel Sant Angelo.

Rome

We started our trip in Rome and spent 3.5 days there. We got into Rome about 1 pm and into our apartment around 4 pm local time. Luckily, we weren’t jet lagged and were able to spend the evening around the Colosseum.

The Colosseum at dusk is beautiful! We walked around in awe of how massive and pretty this structure was. The best part about going to the Colosseum at dusk is that it isn’t as crowded as it normally is.

Our next day in Rome we went to the Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain and the Pantheon. We planned on spending this day in the middle of the city and because of that, we saw and did a lot. The common theme we had between seeing all of these buildings was that everything seemed so much bigger in person. We just couldn’t believe how big everything was. Pictures don’t do justice to the size of these massive buildings.

Day 3 in Rome was spent almost entirely in the Vatican city. We had bought skip-the-line passes to see the Vatican Museum that included the Sistine Chapel. The amount of art and sculpture in these museums is incredible. There were countless times where all we could say was: ‘wow’.

The Sistine Chapel, unfortunately, wasn’t as enjoyable as the other parts of the museum. We felt rushed to get in and out by the staff and it was so jam packed full of people, we were constantly having to try to stay close to each other. Don’t get me wrong, the art was incredible and is a must-see. Hopefully our experience was just bad and others don’t feel the same way we do.

The next day in Rome was our last full day. We spent the morning going inside the Colosseum and the Roman Forum. The afternoon we went inside the Castel Sant Angelo and tried to make it in time to see the Basilica San Giovanni, but weren’t able to make inside. We also made another night trip to the Trevi Fountain in hope that there would be less crowd (we were wrong).

Rome Recap

Rome is an incredible city with so much to see. We felt we did a pretty good job of trying to squeeze everything we could into the 3.5 days we had there, but there was still plenty we didn’t see. We felt that we could have spent the entire trip in Rome and still had plenty to do and see at the end of it.

Florence

Shortly after checking out of our airbnb in Rome, we caught a bullet train to Florence. We checked into our airbnb after a stressful bus ride with all of our luggage on a very small bus, and headed to the Galleria dell’Accademia. We had bought skip the line passes beforehand, but the line didn’t look very long without it. This was a smaller museum that featured the Statue of David.

Once again, we were amazed at how big this statue was. Pictures certainly don’t do it justice. That same evening we went to the Basilica of Saint Mary of the Flower (also the Duomo) and walked around the outside of this massive church.

Getting around in Florence was usually easy because everything was pretty close to each other. Our airbnb was somewhat out of the way, but we could still walk to most everything with 15 minutes. Because of that we were able to see most everything that we had wanted to see that first night, including the Condotta and the outside of the Uffizi gallery.

The next day was our last full day in Florence. We started it off by hiking up close by where our airbnb was to a lookout point. This was probably one of my favorite parts of Florence just because it was such a great view of the city. We found a cute church nearby this lookout point and spent some time exploring in there before heading back down. Back in the city, we went inside the Duomo, which wasn’t quite as impressive as the outside, but still very pretty. We also walked over the Ponte Vecchio, which had a bunch of high end jewelry shops.

Every first Sunday of the month, Florence allows people to enter into museums for free. We took advantage of this by going into the Pitti Palace, which also included the Galleria Palantina.

Florence Recap

Florence is a very pretty city with some amazing things to see. We all felt that we didn’t know what else we would have done in Florence and felt that the almost 2 days we spent there were more than enough.

La Spezia and the Cinque Terre

We took another train through Italy to a town called La Spezia. La Spezia is a port town on the west Coast of Italy. We didn’t spend much time in La Spezia, but the time we did spend there we really enjoyed it. We basically used La Spezia as a springboard to go to the five towns in the national park called the Cinque Terre. The first night there, we went to a town called Riomaggiore and spent most of the time just staring at the sunset and the ocean.

The next few days we spent hoping in between the 5 towns and even hiking from one town to the other along the coastline which is more cliff than actual coast. The scenery is beautiful there and the ocean makes it even better. We found that some of the towns were more crowded than others. For example, when we were in Riomaggiore and Vernazza, the crowds were almost too much, but in Monterosso al mare and Manarola we felt much less claustrophobic.

We were able to spend a little time on the beach and in the ocean. The beach in Monterosso al mare is probably the closest thing to sand, but still is very rocky and can hurt your feet. The water was pretty cold, but was enjoyable after getting used to it.

Cinque Terre Recap

It was really nice that we were able to spend our last days in the Cinque Terre. It was definitely a change of pace from Rome and Florence, but in a good way. We loved being able to see the ocean and the beautiful scenery that the Cinque Terre had to offer!

On the way home

We had another 3 flights to get home, but this time we had a large gap in between our flight from Rome to New York, so we decided to spend the night there and the morning exploring the 9/11 memorial before we headed out. I got sick on the way back and so it was really miserable for me. Being sick on a flight is probably one of the worst places to be.

Final Thoughts

We had an incredible trip! We definitely felt that we could have used more time, but felt happy with what we had and what we were able to do with it. Italy is such a beautiful country and the people are so friendly. Everything about our trip made me really want to go back to Italy soon.

If you would like to hear more about certain things about our trip, let us know!

Something to note before I go on…

We started this blog to be able to write about things we are passionate about, the two focuses being personal finance and travel. The more I think about it, the more I realize the reason why I want to be financially independent is not to have a bunch of money saved up in my bank account by the end of my life, but to be able to create meaningful experiences for my family and me that we can remember and cherish forever. So although I am passionate about personal finance, I’m more passionate about the idea of traveling the world and having amazing experiences!

But before I continue my rants about making your travel dreams happen, it is important to note that we at the Fund Family still have principles we recommend and are striving to live by. For a brush up, you can read the article we wrote about Steps to Wealth Building, but as a quick recap, we recommend to save, avoid debt, invest and give. So when we talk about travel, we want to make sure that we all remember not to let travel derail all of our goals! Sometimes we have to sacrifice for the long-term benefits of wealth building. But sacrificing doesn’t mean you can’t travel! That’s why Carlee wrote about Discovering Your Own Backyard recently. Take advantage of what is around you when you are unable to splurge on more extravagant trips, and if you keep living by sound financial principles, the opportunities to travel bigger will come!

Our First trip to Europe

A few years ago, I was just finishing up the most grueling semesters of my college experience and I was talking to one of classmates about my desire to travel to Germany and other surrounding countries with my wife. I explained to him how we were thinking about doing it, but weren’t sure how to make it work with the timing, money, etc. That’s when he told me: “Dude, just do it!” Simple, but powerful advice! He went on to talk about the time that he and his wife had, before kids, to travel and have other experiences was so awesome and important to their marriage. He said he wouldn’t have traded that for anything. That conversation we had was very motivating to me, so I went home to talk to my wife about it, unsure of whether she would agree. To my surprise, by the end of the conversation with her, we decided we were just going to do it, and a few days later we bought our plane tickets.

Prior to this, my wife and I had talked about it, but for whatever reason we were hesitant to make it happen. I’m not sure if it was fear, lack of belief that we could make it happen, or uncertainty of traveling when we were the ones in charge and not our parents. Regardless of what it was, we overcame it by making the steps to organize our first big trip together. Looking back, I have no regrets whatsoever! Those two weeks exploring Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, and Denmark were some of the highlights of our early marriage. Never before had we had so much uninterrupted time together, and it did wonders for our marriage!

You think after a big trip like that, our wanderlust would’ve subsided for awhile. Not at all. In fact, as soon as we got back, we were already craving a return to Europe or some other exotic destination! Italy was towards the top of our list, and here we are about 2 years later about to go back on an epic adventure to Europe! We are so excited.

Don’t let life hold you back

Going to Italy was actually in the works for a while now. In fact, our original plan was to go a year ago… but then we had a baby and that plan was put on the back-burner. We weren’t sure after that when we would have the time, money, etc. to make another trip happen, especially with a baby. But not long after we had our baby, we decided we could make it work.

We also decided we were going to take our baby with us! I’d imagine for some, the idea of bringing an infant on an international trip seems quite daunting and crazy. I can also imagine that this holds a lot of people back from travel, and I can definitely understand that. We are only a few weeks away and there are definitely a few things we are nervous about (particularly the flight). That being said, there are always uncertainties and reasons not to do something you want to do. In the end, you can either make it work, or wait for a day when life is more convenient and it becomes easier to travel. For us, we don’t want to wait for that day, if it ever comes. That’s why we are just going to go for it and find a way to make it work!

How we are learning to make it work

We are still learning how to make travel work, especially while our family is still young and growing. Call me impatient, but I don’t want to wait until I’m retired or until my kids are out of the house to travel. I want to experience things along the way as well! Carlee and I are very driven to travel, even with our young family and future kids. We’ve often talked and wondered how our travel is going to evolve as our family grows, and that is TBD. But we don’t want life to escape us because we are just waiting for some future time when life makes it easier to travel. We want to be in control. So I want to share a few thoughts and ways that help us to make our travel dreams happen!

• Live after sound financial principles. As mentioned earlier, if you are living after the financial principles we are writing about, being able to travel becomes much easier. One of the big reasons why we are able to make our Italy trip happen is because we are debt free, we save money, and we seek to live within a budget. If any of these weren’t the case, traveling would be much more difficult and foolish.

• Decide what is important to you. We all have things that we spend money on unnecessarily. It can be clothes, eating out, video games, expensive electronics, etc. Regardless of what it is, you have to ask yourself what is most important to you. Would you rather buy the new iPhone or Android model each year it comes out, or go travel the world? If traveling is important to you, then exercise more discretion and restraint in your spending in other areas that aren’t necessities of life. If traveling isn’t important to you… then I’m not sure why you are still reading this article

• Inform yourself. Information is power. We spend a lot of time researching ways to travel inexpensively. I wrote a little bit about it in a prior blog post, so I won’t go into depth here, but knowing how to find good deals makes traveling easier. And if something like having young children is holding you back (like it almost did us), then do some research to figure out tips and tricks from people who have done it so you know what you can do to make traveling easier and possible! Hopefully after our next trip, we will have some good tips to share as well.

• Plan ahead. We are a little guilty of not planning far enough ahead for our traveling… That being said, what we plan on doing in the future is planning out our travel plans for big trips far in advance. We want to have time to save up for and prepare for these trips more fully. Being able to save for these trips so you don’t have to pull from savings makes trips far less stressful and it won’t derail you from your financial goals!

And for the final thought…

Just go!

If you are financially able, just make your travel dreams happen! Don’t let years pass you by without being able to experience things you’ve always wanted to experience. If you have the means necessary, then make the time to travel. If you don’t have the means, then make the time to get your finances in order so you can go experience the world! If you aren’t able to go now, don’t get distracted or discouraged by the endless Instagram and Facebook pages that show the travel highlights of the lucky few who get all of their travel paid for by sponsors. Shut those off, make a plan, and attack your plan to get your finances to where they need to be so that you can travel the world! In the meantime, discover your own backyard and create meaningful experiences that you will remember forever!

Don’t wait for life to happen. Make life happen!

What holds you back from traveling? What are you doing to overcome those barriers? Let us know in the comments below!

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• You can make money. Lots of people make full-time salaries from their blogs and have built lucrative businesses that make 6,7, and sometimes 8 figure salaries a year. With relatively low costs to run and maintain a blog, the return on investment has the potential to be a lot
• It can be a journal for yourself
• It provides a stage to reach lots of people.
• You can write about things you are passionate about. A blog is the perfect way to let people know how you feel about your topic.
• It’s fun.

There are plenty of other reasons, but these seem to be the most popular. If you can combine these together, your blog can turn into something really special.

Setting up your blog

We set up our blog on bluehost and installed wordpress to the site. We recommend that you do the same.

The first thing you will need to do is to check for a domain name. This will be what you want your website to be called. There are a number of ways to check if a domain name is available. WordPress’ site is simple to use.

Or Google’s

Once you have found a domain name, you’ll want to register that name. Bluehost is the way to go. Bluehost offers web hosting, which is “a service that allows organizations and individuals to post a website or web page onto the Internet“. Click on this link, which will give you a discount with bluehost and a FREE domain and site builders. The best part about bluehost is that they give you a 30 day money back guarantee. They also have 24/7 support if the need ever arises.

The basic plan should cover most of your blogging needs. This plan is only $2.75 a month if you use our link. This includes the free domain as long as you sign up for 12 months or longer.

From there, it will ask you to pick how long you want to host for. Depending on how long you choose to host for, the price will vary. The minimum option is for 12 months ( remember you can always cancel within 30 days). It will ask if you want some security options as well.

The next step would be to install wordpress. This has been made really easy by bluehost. All you need to do is click on the “Start Building” button and it will give you the option to install.

Configure your blog

Your blog is now set up! From the wordpress dashboard, you can configure it to how you like. The default themes that wordpress give you aren’t all that great, so you’ll probably want to go in and pick your own.

Once you have a theme picked out, you’ll want to make your site “live”. You’ll do this by going to the settings tab and general. From there you should see this: You’ll want to have this off.

To wrap up, here’s a quick recap:

1. Find a domain name
2. Set up web hosting through bluehost
3. Install wordpress
4. Configure your blog
5. Start posting!

You are now ready to start posting! If you have any questions about this process, you can always give us an email or go to bluehost support. We are happy to help with anything we can! Happy blogging!