Homestead
Alex Prokaj’s Birth Story
Birth stories are fairly common now and each and every one is unique. Here is our own son’s birth story, which occurred this October 2019. Saturday. October 19, 2019 It was a rather rainy day. We had a full day planned ahead but unfortunately most of it got derailed by the weather. Our morning was supposed to start with us going around our community looking for garage sale finds. When the rain finally let up around 11am, we went out and walked around our street to see if anyone was selling anything but maybe the weather put everybody off the garage sale. Oh well. There was a Choose FI meetup…
Baby Stuff For Cheap (or Free)
Welcome to our second trimester post! I’m sort of back to my normal self, but I get tired really easily and my brain seems to have succumbed to my pregnancy when I can’t think clearly. Other than that though, I’m still taking it easy, hence, the lesser amount of blog posts you see here (apologies!) On our first trimester post, I’m pretty much a zombie who’s always sick and tired all the time, so I did not have much time to devote to researching and planning. Now, I will have to make the most of the next 3 months (well, 2 months now), to try and learn how to get…
Why We Bought A House (even if we travel a lot)
To own or to rent: an eternal question that boggles us who have been in the workforce long enough to have saved a bit of money and want a place to live in. After the huge housing crisis circa 2008, we fast forward to 2015, when the prices of homes began to go higher, making it harder for most folks to own a house of their own. After a few years of renting, Peter and I buckled down and decided to buy a home. Here’s part one of our journey through home ownership — the hows, what & the why. Why We Bought A House: A Background Peter and I used…
How Much Are We Spending? – January 2016 Edition
Hello there! Every month, when I (Peter) do the budget, I take a look at how much we spend as a percentage of our income on all of our expenses, from utility bills to mortgage to dining out to travel. How to read our spend report: For privacy purposes, we don’t actually put in the actual numbers of our earnings. We earn our income through a variety of means: By both having full-time 9-6 type jobs. By side hustling for extra cash: By renting out our spare bedroom on AirBnB (to get $20 off your first booking, let us know so we can email you a referral code). You…
How much should you spend on Travel?
This is one of the most important questions that we ask ourselves every single chance we can: How much should you spend on Travel? I was doing the December 2015 budget a few days ago, and I got the idea to look at not just how much we spend per month on different things, but also how much we spend on travel as a percentage of income. The answer was pretty illuminating, actually. You get to see that the biggest expenses are essentially out of your hands, and that you don’t always need to sweat the small stuff. I’ll be posting these every month this year after I do the…
