Life Update 2025: The Chaos and Joy of Goals Evolving

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Good news: higher income! Bad news: expenses got out of hand.

In our original 5-year plan, we anticipated potential disruptions like children or buying a house. However, we thought these milestones were still years away. But after some reflection, we asked ourselves: why wait to be happy?

So, in a whirlwind of major life decisions, we got married, switched jobs, moved back to Aarhus, bought a house, a car, and had two kids. The past few years have been a joyful, chaotic ride, but one downside has been losing track of our financial plan amidst the upheaval.

We tried to stay frugal—meal planning, avoiding unnecessary purchases—but the reality of moving from an apartment to a house meant buying furniture, garden tools, and the essentials for two small children. While we made an effort to buy second-hand, it wasn’t always possible. By 2023, our finances felt more like survival mode than strategy.

Thankfully, 2024 brought more stability, allowing us to review our spending, reassess our goals, and determine how to continue pursuing financial independence.

Assets: Where We Stand in 2025

The big milestone? We’ve hit 5 million kroner in assets!

This is a huge win, and we reached it in just over three years. However, this total includes money tied up in our house and pensions—funds that aren’t easily accessible. Here’s a breakdown of our current assets:

As you can see, over half of our assets are in real estate. We currently own a house that we live in and our old apartment that we are renting out. While this is a great foundation, it doesn’t help generate the passive income we need for financial independence. To address this, our new goal is twofold:

  1. Shift our asset balance: Over time, we aim to reduce the percentage tied up in real estate by selling the apartment and our house and moving to a less expensive area when we retire.
  2. Double our investments in three years: Specifically, we’re targeting 1.5 million kroner in our stock trading accounts by 2028.

We’re also keeping our long-term goal in mind: 10 million kroner in total assets. While this goal is still far away, reaching 5 million kroner marks a significant milestone, even if it’s not exactly the way we imagined. So we’ve set our sights on a new shorter-term target: 1.5 million kroner in investments within three years. This intermediate goal will help us maintain momentum and bring us closer to financial independence.

Budget: What Changed?

In 2024, we spent time reviewing our finances. Unsurprisingly, having kids, buying a house, and managing two jobs significantly changed our spending patterns. While our income has increased (yay!), our expenses have grown too.

Here’s a snapshot of our 2024 spending:

A few key observations:

  • Childcare: A completely new (and significant) expense that will only grow as our youngest starts daycare this year.
  • Food: Inflation and feeding four people added up. On average, we spent 2,000 kr monthly on takeaway and restaurants—a clear target for savings.
  • Personal items: This category (furniture, electronics, clothes, streaming, etc.) ballooned as we settled into the house and replaced old appliances.
  • Fun: Travel to Canada is expensive, but with two small kids, we plan to pause long-haul flights for a couple of years, reducing this expense.

The New Budget and “Købestop”

To regain control, we’ve implemented a “købestop” (buy stop) for 2025. Inspired by Jane Ibsen Piper’s work on minimalism and saving, this approach means no new purchases unless something essential breaks and can’t be fixed.

We’re asking ourselves three questions before buying anything:

  1. Is this essential?
  2. Can we borrow it or buy it second-hand?
  3. Can we postpone the purchase?

This mindset should reduce our spending on non-essentials, especially furniture and hobby-related items. While we’re hopeful that most of our big expenses are behind us, we acknowledge that surprises (like a broken appliance) could still arise.

With that said, here is the new budget reflecting these changes:

Our goal is to save 15,000 kr per month despite higher daycare costs and reduced income from parental leave. This would maintain a savings rate of around 18% (or 40% if you include mortgage principal payments).

Looking Ahead

While our savings rate isn’t what it used to be pre-kids, we’re optimistic about our long-term goals. By sticking to the købestop and adjusting our budget, we hope to reach 1.5 million kroner in investments within three years.

We’ll also be doing monthly financial check-ins to monitor progress and course-correct as needed. Life is unpredictable, but with the foundation we’ve built and the lessons we’ve learned, we’re confident we can stay on track.

Here’s to a new chapter of pursuing financial independence while enjoying the chaos of family life!

Playing with FIRE

Reading Time: 3 minutes

What is FIRE? 

FIRE stands for Financial Independence, Retire Early. Your first step towards FIRE is acknowledging that retirement is not an age. The age of retirement is a myth. That is just when you qualify for state pension. Retirement is possible when your passive income can pay for your lifestyle; meaning your savings gives you enough income per year to live off of. This can be like a normal pension where you both live off the interest and withdraw approximately 4% per year (Read more about the 4% rule here if you want). OR you can be really ambitious and try to get enough passive income to pay for your lifestyle without digging into the actual investment.

Given that we have no plans of retiring early, as we are workaholics, our focus is on building a passive income, in order to make life less stressful and less cumbersome.

There are many people around the world on the journey to FIRE. And for everyone it means different goals and lifestyle changes. For us, we are aiming for our passive income to pay for our living expenses.

We consider two factors:

  1. The amount you have invested and other forms of passive income (e.g. rental-income, interest, dividends).
  2. Living expenses cost. Decrease your expenses and you will reach your goal faster.

For amount invested, there is only so much you can do. You can get a better paying job (maybe) or start a side hustle. Related posts will be put under the category “money hacks”

For living expenses there is A LOT more you can do. By decreasing living expenses, you not only save more, but you can also further increase your passive-income. So, it’s really a win-win. Related posts will be put under the category “Budgeting”

A potential third factor is investing in yourself. That is, investing time and money in education, as this can lead to getting a better paying job or a more fulfilling job (equally important). For us, we are fortunate to be happy in our chosen fields of study, so for us it is a matter of reading and staying up-to-date with new developments.

There are many blogs out there if you want to know more about what FIRE is and why people do it. But If there are so many blogs and people who have tried this FIRE thing, why are we writing this one?

When we were looking, we found most money saving tips and books on the subject are from people living in North America. Ms Canada, being from North America, can understand how these people achieved their goal. She can see how their tips on saving money work. However, often she can’t see these suggestions translating to Denmark. For example:

Some top tips for saving money in North Amercia:
Big changes
  • Get rid of your car
  • Pay off credit card debt
Smaller changes
  • Stop with to go coffee
  • Buy in bulk

While these are valid tips to save money, for many Danes, these wouldn’t apply. For example geting rid of your car would save a lot of money, in gas, insurance and maintenance. However, a lot of Danes, especially those under 30, don’t have cars.  There is probably only one country that loves cycling to work more than Denmark and that is the Netherlands.  Or stop with the to go coffee, again it is a perfectly good money saving tip but there isn’t a Starbucks on every corner in Denmark like there is in North America.

We are guilty of falling into the mentality of looking at people who have completed their FIRE journey and thinking, “Ah but they started early”, “they didn’t have to pay for university”, “they have a really good job”, “their parents helped them start a business”. Everyone has a different situation but the fact is, it’s no excuse for you not to start. Everyone can do something to get to retirement early, you just need to find your own path. So what if you can’t get to 5 million kr? What about 1 million? At a 6% return, that is 60,000 kr a year in income. What could you do with that extra income?

We are almost 30. We admittedly have some savings to get us started. It is still a long journey to the 5 million. We are thinking about kids at some point in the not so distant future. We are normal people. But we believe we can get there.