🚀 Exactly How To Start Your
Financial Independence Journey

Anna & Marc

Couple enjoying family life outdoors, embracing financial independence through frugal living and investing for passive income.

How Do I Start Financial Independence & Semi Retire?

If you want to achieve financial independence and semi retirement or Semi FIRE / Semi FI one day, you just need to take the first small step today by learning exactly how you too can:

  • Create A Simple Budget
  • Enjoy Frugal Living
  • Invest For Passive Income
  • Plan Semi Retirement

No matter if you’re new to the concept of semi retirement, to saving and investing or an experienced pro, we’ll guide you on how to optimize your strategies so you can save more money to invest more money and one day generate passive income from your investments. Learn how to use that income to cover your bills (either partly or entirely) while ensuring you never run out of money in early semi retirement.

A Simple Budget & Frugal Living

Creating a simple budget and enjoying intentional, frugal living as a family will allow you to save more money for investing. What most get wrong here: Saving more money has little to do with how much you make. Here are the (free) budget resources that helped us most to enjoy frugal living and saving more money:

A laptop displays the Bare Bones Calculator, featuring a financial spreadsheet helping to start your financial independence journey. A line chart and money cycle graphic are also present on the green-themed screen. Above the laptop, the text Bare Bones Calculator is written in an elegant font, accompanied by the Time & MoneyTree logo with a tree and clock design. The background is a clean, white surface with subtle leaf accents.

Bare Bones Budget Calculator

Your Bare Bones Budget Calculator helps you navigate periods of lower income or higher expenses while still investing. The goal is to optimize your budget to minimize the impact on your finances and financial independence. date.

A laptop displays the Simple Bare Bones Calculator, featuring a line-by-line budget, a pie chart, and a bar graph on a green-themed screen. Above the laptop, the text Simple Bare Bones Calculator is written in an elegant font, accompanied by the Time & MoneyTree logo with a tree and clock design. The background is a clean, white surface with subtle leaf accents.

Simple (FREE) Bare Bones Budget Calculator

Are you unsure how to survive a period of lower income or higher expenses (due to investments or debt payments)? This Calculator helps you to still live a family life you love on a budget you can afford.

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A woman walking hand in hand with two young children across a grassy field towards a small soccer goal, surrounded by tall pine trees.

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ALL SIMPLE BUDGET POSTS
ALL FRUGAL LIVING POSTS

Investing For Passive Income

Investing for passive income is conceptually different from regular investing. Your goal is to earn passive income from your investments one day so you can live off of that and achieve Financial Independence (e.g., using stock index funds). Here are the Financial Independence and Semi Retirement Calculators we recommend using when you want to learn investing for passive income:

Laptop displaying investment growth chart for frugal living, financial independence, and semi-retirement planning.

Investment Growth Calculator (FREE)

See what’s possible for your money when you start investing at least a portion of your money in the stock market every month. How could this increase your retirement income? Check the calculator.

A laptop displaying a passive income calculator with a financial projection table and a graph, accompanied by the Time & Moneytree logo and title text on a clean white background.

Passive Income
Calculator

Your Passive Income Calculator helps you to calculate what you can withdraw from your portfolio adjusted for inflation for 20 years of (early) retirement using and comparing different withdrawal rates while seeing how your portfolio’s value changes over time.

Retirement gap calculator on laptop screen for semi-retirement planning, frugal living, and investing for passive income.

Retirement Gap
Calculator

Your Retirement Gap Calculator helps you to plan Barista FIRE for up to 30 years: stop investing and start withdrawing money from your portfolio while working an easy part-time job. Scan your exact early retirement gap and how long it will take you until you accumulated enough capital to achieve traditional FIRE.

A miniature figurine of a man in a blue suit sits on top of a stack of gold and silver coins, reading a newspaper. The composition symbolizes financial literacy, wealth management, and investment knowledge against a clean white background.

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Building blocks symbolize financial independence through frugal living, investing for passive income, and semi-retirement.

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Semi Retirement With Kids

Semi-retirement is a rising trend among the FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) community. There’s a good reason for the rise of Semi FI (Semi Financial Independence), especially for those raising kids (more in the blog posts below). If you want to map out a semi-retired life as a family, you can use our Retirement Gap Calculator, which helps you plan Barista FIRE for up to 30 years. Otherwise, here are the FREE resources you can start with when considering semi-retirement with kids:

A financial graph visualizing the path to Coast FIRE, showing the relationship between the Coast FIRE number, portfolio growth, and the FIRE number of €750,000. The graph highlights the Coast FIRE point at age 36.9, with a confirmation message indicating that investments are sufficient to reach Coast FIRE. This is part of the online freebies and provides a clear visual representation to help users track their financial independence journey.

Coast FIRE Calculator (FREE)

Discover your path to Coast FIRE with our free interactive Coast FIRE Calculator. Easily project your financial journey, calculate your FIRE Number, and see how close you are to financial independence. Start optimizing your investments today!

A Barista FIRE Calculator illustrating the growth of a portfolio with and without Barista FIRE. The green line represents the portfolio with Barista FIRE, while the dashed gray line shows the portfolio without it. A yellow marker indicates the

Barista FIRE Calculator (FREE)

Discover your path to Barista FIRE with our free interactive calculator. Plan your transition from full-time work to part-time freedom, visualize portfolio growth, and ensure financial independence with tailored projections based on your financial situation. Start crafting your dream lifestyle today!

Woman enjoying nature, symbolizing financial independence and semi-retirement through frugal living and passive income investing.

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Child with map in nature explores frugal living and family life, key to financial independence and semi retirement strategies.

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End your day stress-free with this free and customizable Evening Routine Checklist!

Whether you want to establish a new routine or refine your current one, this printable will help you stay organized and unwind with ease. Download it today and set yourself up for a smoother tomorrow!

What you get

  • One page with customizable sections for personalized routines
  • One Page with ideas for your working mom after school routine & night routine for busy moms
  • One Page with (science-backed) inspiration for your evening routine

Get Your Free Working Mom Evening Routine Checklist

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An open trifold printable titled "Mom-Me Time Morning Routine" featuring structured sections for planning self-care, work, home chores, and daily goals. The printable includes a checklist and lined spaces for organizing a productive and balanced morning routine for moms and is part of our online freebies.

Start your mornings with ease using this free and customizable Working Mom Morning Routine Checklist!

Whether you’re looking to create a brand-new routine or tweak your existing one, this printable will help you stay organized and stress-free. Download it today and take control of your mornings!

What you get

  • Two pages with customizable sections for personalized routines in the six most important areas
  • One Page with ideas for your ME TIME and (science-backed) inspiration for your morning routine
  • Simple layout for easy use

Get Your Free Working Mom Morning Routine Checklist

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Laptop displaying investment growth chart for frugal living, financial independence, and semi-retirement planning.

Get your free copy of the Investment Growth Calculator to see what happens if you start investing a certain amount of money every month now. How could that boost your retirement plan? The goal is to visualize that if you start investing (more) money, you can cover your retirement gap later.

What you get

  • 1 Sheet to model your portfolio’s growth after entering:
  • The current value and monthly investments you consider
  • Average rate of return you expect to get for 20 years.
  • See your total portfolio’s value after 20 years…
  • … maybe (a part of) your retirement would be funded.
  • Example: Invest 1.500 p.m. at 10% average return to get…
  • … 1.5 Million (!) if starting with a portfolio worth 81.000.
  • A graph shows the compound interest your portfolio…
  • … generates per year & in total for each new investing year…
  • … compared to the monthly and annual investments you make.

Get Your Free Investment Growth Calculator

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Laptop displaying compound interest chart for frugal living; achieve financial independence and semi retirement with investing.

Get your free copy of the Compound Interest Calculator to learn about the easiest way to double your money in the stock market. Compound interest is a simple dynamic that turns even small investments into big returns over time. The goal is to see how your portfolio grows in the back if you simply let your money sit in the market for decades.

What you get

  • 1 Sheet to model your portfolio’s growth after entering:
  • The current value or one-time investment you consider
  • Average rate of return you expect to get for 20 years.
  • See your total portfolio’s value after 20 years…
  • … maybe (a part of) your retirement would be funded.
  • Example: Invest 100K at 10% average return to get 740K.
  • A graph shows the compound interest your portfolio…
  • … generates per year & in total for each new investing year.

Get Your Free Compound Interest Calculator

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A laptop displays the Simple Bare Bones Calculator, featuring a line-by-line budget, a pie chart, and a bar graph on a green-themed screen. Above the laptop, the text Simple Bare Bones Calculator is written in an elegant font, accompanied by the Time & MoneyTree logo with a tree and clock design. The background is a clean, white surface with subtle leaf accents.

Get your free copy of the Simple Bare Bones Budget Calculator to plan for times when money is tight because of less income, higher expenses or both. The goal is to improve your budget to the point where you can still live a family life you enjoy on a budget you can afford.

What you get

  • 1 Sheet to model the budget you expect to have
  • 5 categories for your (new) income streams
  • 7 Budget categories for your essential expenses to model:
  • Current expense - expense goal = savings
  • Final Result: Total Income - expense goals = total savings
  • Your savings rate calculated as a percentage
  • 2 graphs: a bar chart and a donut showing you:
  • How much a budget category accounts for compared to income

Get Your Free
Simple Bare Bones Budget Calculator

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