298 | Habits For Wealth Building | Rich and Regular

<ul> <li>We are checking back in with our Households of FI family, Martin and Ayesha, who have been paired with mentors, Julien and Kiersten of Rich and Regular.</li> <li>Kiersten and Julien live in Atlanta and started working toward FIRE before they married five to six years ago and have paid off $200,o00 in debt, including their mortgage. They now share their journey on their blog <a href="https://richandregular.com/" target= "_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">rich & REGULAR</a>.</li> <li>Ayesha and Martin live in Chicago and found ChooseFI in January 2020 and jumped in with both feet. Martin is a natural saver and had been a positive financial influence on Ayesha before finding FI so they had done a decent job managing their money.</li> <li>Martin was researching dividend investing after it was recommended by Ayesha's uncle who retired at 55. Ayesha felt like her aunt and uncle had the most fabulous retirement life she'd ever seen. Thanks to his example over the last 25 years, their goal is to get to where he is.</li> <li>Julien had a similar retirement role model in his life. A close family friend was a Registered Nurse who retried early and showed him that there is a lot of life left after 40.</li> <li>Since finding FI, and partly thanks to Covid, Martin and Ayesha's savings rate has increased. It has made them aware of all the frivolous, non-essential ways they spent money before.</li> <li>Ayesha hates budgets and doesn't want to track every penny of her spending. She was out of work for four months during Covid and they found that they didn't miss her income and it showed them that they could save a good amount of money without feeling constrained or deprived.</li> <li>Having a quantifiable goal and a clear target has helped provide clarity in what they are trying to accomplish.</li> <li>Martin enjoys trying to optimize their spending and counting the dollars they save. When they decided to get a new television, he used Offer Up to do his research and purchased a flat-screen plasma HDTV for $40.</li> <li>J