Hey there! It’s Kayla and Ryan, welcome to Family and FI.
Do you feel like you just can’t get ahead financially? You want to be wealthy but you’re stuck living paycheck to paycheck.
We used to struggle to pay bills, too. In fact, there was a time that we had to depend on food banks to help feed our family.
During those difficult years, we stumbled upon the idea of financial independence, also known as “FI”. We discovered a whole community of people who lived against the grain so they could build a life of their dreams. The FI community not only wants to build wealth for themselves but generational wealth for their family.
Our journey to FI has been a life-changing adventure.
We share the good, bad, and the ugly of each step we take towards our goals.
If you’ve been following our journey, you know that we became 100% debt-free on April 1, 2020. We paid off 200,000 dollars of debt in about 5 years.
We still have more goals to reach, so be sure to subscribe if you want to follow our journey to not just FI, but financial abundance.
Now, allow me to introduce ourselves.
My name’s Kayla and I love Jesus, traveling, coffee, stretchy pants, and Christmas. I’m one of those individuals that get attacked on social media for putting up our Christmas tree in October. What can I say other than… “Merry Christmas, ya filthy animal.”
This handsome guy here is my husband, Ryan. He also loves Jesus and traveling, but prefers his coffee via IV. Ryan’s been an EMS fanatic for most of his life. He has helped save countless lives as a Paramedic and can do a perfect (yet extremely annoying) “siren whistle” to freak you out while you’re driving down the road.
Our Journey So Far…
Ryan and I were high-school sweethearts who started our family much earlier than expected. As you can imagine, being 19 and pregnant wasn’t easy. We had to try to make some quick decisions. Unfortunately, our choices weren’t that great.
We made one financially bad choice after another. For example, Ryan “upside-downed” his car and bought a brand new “family” car. Also, for our wedding, we took out a huge loan and suffered for years trying to pay it back.
We ended up lived in government housing and depended on the state to help us survive. I thought that was a tough life… that is of course until we became homeowners.
There were so many expenses that came with owning a home that we were not aware of. We struggled to make ends meat. When we applied for state assistance, we were denied because we made $20.00 over the income limit. We couldn’t stay afloat.
Almost immediately, we were over $200,000 in debt. That’s a lot of debt for a family of four living on an income of about $30,000 a year. Those were dark times and we could have easily lost everything.
In 2015, I started learning everything I could about finances and discovered “FI.” My goal was to figure out how to climb out of the hole we dug ourselves into and run towards financial independence.
If you want more detail about our early struggles, you can read, “From Food Stamps to Paying Off Over 100k of Debt.”
Now, 5 years later, we have completely paid off all of our debt and became debt-free! We would not have had the financial success we have had so far if we would not have learned to increase our financial IQ.
Our Mission
Increasing your knowledge of finance is key to reaching financial success and that’s why we created Family and FI. Our goal is to share ways to save, earn, and invest money while building generational wealth for your family.
You shouldn’t have to choose between paying bills and taking your family on a memorable vacation. You can build the life you want to live and increase your quality of life.
Becoming FI isn’t difficult. Anyone can do it because it’s simple math. You just might not be there yet because, like us, no one ever taught you how.
You will learn a lot from our successes and mistakes. Maybe you will even share some tips with us! We are wiser together!
You can take control of your finances without sacrificing everything you love to do. We hope you decide to subscribe to our blog and we wish you many successes and blessings in life!
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