Category: Reader Case Studies

Alice and her wife Ann live in a small northern New England town with their two sons and two dogs. Both Alice and Ann are educators and enjoy their work. Their children were adopted from the foster care system and both have significant early childhood trauma. Due to this, they have intensive needs and Alice and Ann have organized their family life around addressing these needs. Practically, this means Alice is the primary at-home parent...

Kate lives in St. Louis, Missouri with her husband Dan in a condo she bought back in 2013. She enjoys her job in marketing and Dan likes his work in manufacturing. Kate is in the process of considering the purchase of a marketing firm with her business partner, which means she’s paying extra attention to her personal finances these days. She and Dan maintain completely separate finances as that’s the system that works best for...

Kay and her husband Max recently moved to rural town an hour south of Minneapolis with their two young children and three old cats. Kay works as a financial operations manager and Max is a government attorney. The couple was able to lower their cost of living by making this move–most notably in the areas of daycare and their mortgage. As they relish this lowered spending, they want to ensure they’re allocating their “extra” money...

Laura and her husband Sam live in Virginia with their two young children and one dog. Sam works for the federal government in a law enforcement capacity and Laura works as a full-time stay-at-home parent. Sam is eligible for retirement (with full benefits) in nine years, but the stress of his job has the couple wondering if he can afford to switch to a lower-paying, lower-stress government position in six years. Laura also wants to...

Elisabeth and her husband James live in New Hampshire with their two young sons. James works as an architect and Elisabeth is a private reading tutor for students with dyslexia. The couple live near Elisabeth’s extended family, which is perfect. What’s not quite so perfect is their fixer-upper home. They’ve invested time and money into renovations and, while they can see a route to staying in this home, they’re wondering if they should sell it...

Tara and her husband Rob live in Texas where he’s a high school teacher and she’s an editor with a publishing company. They are happily child-free and cat-full by choice and own their condo. While Rob enjoys teaching, he anticipates needing to make a career change at some point due to the stressors of being in the classroom. Tara likes her job, despite her somewhat stagnant income. The couple isn’t sure if FIRE is their...

Sam loves her outdoorsy life in Salt Lake City, Utah and is an avid rock climber, hiker, trail runner, ultimate frisbee player and skier. On the professional side, she manages content creation for a company that manufactures work-at-height equipment for careers in vertical spaces. She enjoys her job and the stability it provides, but craves a more independent lifestyle. She wants to explore the possibility of becoming a freelance video producer in order to be...

Jenny and her husband Will live in the Upper Midwest along the shores of Lake Michigan with their two children, Sam (age 16) and Alex (age 10), and their one old cat. Will is 56 and the couple always planned for him to retire at 60 and to pay for Sam and Alex’s college educations. However, now that the date is nearing, Jenny’s not sure this is actually feasible. She’d like our help checking her...

Kait and her husband Dave live in Alaska with their three young children. Kait works as a Postpartum Doula and Dave as a scientist for the state. They love their outdoorsy lifestyle and have created an incredibly close-knit community with their neighbors and friends. However, their beloved home has some serious structural issues that need to be remediated, but will likely be very expensive. Let’s travel to Alaska to help Kait and Dave determine what...