And so it begins. . .

I have been reading personal finance blogs for many years.  I started reading them around 2008 when I realized that college for our girls was coming up fast and we had zero money saved, and every time I had begun to amass some sort of savings, something in the house or one of the cars would blow up or the kids would have a surprise activity/school fee that would help to wipe it all out.

So using the stories, experiences and knowledge shared by so many great (and some not so great) personal finance and frugal bloggers we figured out how to scrimp, and save and make every nickle squeak, in order to not only save a good chunk of money towards college, but also a small emergency fund and a few very frugal vacations.  We also figured out how to push careers a bit to increase our incomes to be able to cash flow what we weren't able to save for college. 

It was a long haul but we were able to pay for both girls to live on campus at our local university, one from 2014-2018 and the other from 2015-2019, without any student loans or other debt.  Both girls had jobs before they even graduated and are now on their own.

We are now in our mid-50s and looking toward our final new beginning - retirement!  What is this last new beginning going to look like?  I have a thousand thoughts and ideas, but they all depend on how we execute these next 5 or so years. 

I've always sort of wanted to blog and share my own tips, stories and successes in our financial journey and everyday life.  This seems like the perfect time to start that.  So follow along as we Work Towards The Final Beginning - to increase our retirement savings, improve and update our home, and pay off our mortgage, and all of the related nonsense - all in time to retire young enough to be active and enjoy retired life.