We’re trying to build a life we actually want to live.
A Way to Less started with a fairly simple question:
What if the conventional path isn’t the only way to build a good life?
Get good grades. Get a job. Buy a house. Work for decades. Spend less than you earn. Wait until you’re 60-something to finally have the time and freedom to do the things you’ve always wanted to do.
It all sounded sensible.
But we started wondering whether there might be another way.
Not necessarily a life of doing nothing, owning nothing and retiring at 35.
Just a life with more choice, more time and fewer things we don’t actually need.
That’s what A Way to Less is about.
Our Story so Far
There hasn’t been a master plan. We’ve simply kept asking whether there might be a better way to spend our time, money and energy.
● 2013
Early Days
Mr Way entered the world of work in 2013 and, before we’d even heard of FIRE, started developing some of the habits that would eventually lead us there.
Inspired by a financially savvy colleague and a financially literate uncle, investing gradually became part of the plan. At first, it was nothing particularly sophisticated: putting money into a Stocks & Shares ISA each month and letting it grow.
There was no £375,000 target. No grand plan for financial independence. We certainly weren’t plotting an early retirement.
We simply knew that saving and investing seemed like a sensible thing to do.
Looking back, those early habits were the beginning of something much bigger.
● 2019
Where it All Began
We started A Way to Less in 2019 after discovering the world of Financial Independence and Early Retirement (FIRE) a few years previous.
At first, the attraction was obvious: spend less, save more, invest wisely and eventually become financially independent.
But the more we learned, the more we realised that FIRE wasn’t really about retirement.
It was about freedom.
Freedom to change jobs.
Freedom to work less.
Freedom to travel.
Freedom to spend time with our family.
Freedom to say no to things that don’t matter.
And perhaps most importantly, freedom to decide what a good life actually looks like for us.
Our early years of blogging were partly about figuring that out.
● 2019
The First Experiment
One of our earliest big tests of our philosophy was travelling through Africa.
We’d spent years being told, implicitly or explicitly, that the responsible thing to do was to work hard, save money and build towards some distant future.
But we also wanted to actually use our money and our freedom while we were young enough to enjoy them.
So we went travelling.
It wasn’t simply a holiday. It was an early experiment in asking:
How much do we really need, and what is worth spending money on?
That question has stuck with us ever since.
● 2020
Adding to the Family
Having children changes almost everything.
The FIRE calculations change.
The budget changes.
Your priorities change.
The definition of a “good life” changes.
Suddenly, the question isn’t simply:
How quickly can we become financially independent?
It’s:
How do we build financial security without missing the years that we can never get back?
That’s a much harder question.
And it’s one we’re still trying to answer.
● 2022
Leaving the UK
A few years later, we took a much bigger leap.
We left the UK and moved to the Caribbean.
Moving abroad forced us to rethink many assumptions we’d previously taken for granted.
Where should we live?
What does “home” mean?
How much does a different lifestyle really cost?
What do we actually need?
And perhaps the biggest question:
What are we working towards?
Living somewhere very different from the UK was exciting, challenging and occasionally difficult.
It also reinforced something we’d already started to realise:
Money is useful because of what it allows you to do.
Saving money for the sake of watching a number grow isn’t particularly exciting.
Having the financial freedom to make a completely different choice about where and how you live is.
● 2023
Coming Home
Eventually, we returned to the UK.
Coming home was another reminder that life doesn’t follow a perfectly straight line.
Plans change.
Circumstances change.
Priorities change.
And sometimes the decision that makes sense today isn’t the decision that made sense five years ago – or the one that will make sense five years from now.
Returning to the UK also meant rebuilding a more conventional family life.
● 2024
And Then There Were 4
Our second child arrived in 2024, and suddenly the idea of freedom had to work for a family of four rather than just two adults.
The practical stuff changed, of course. More food. More childcare. More things to organise. More expensive holidays.
But the bigger change was what we wanted our freedom for.
With two young children, time started to feel even more valuable. The years when they’re little are short, and there are experiences we can’t simply postpone until we reach some arbitrary financial finish line.
Our FIRE plans still mattered. If anything, financial security felt more important than ever.
But so did making sure that the pursuit of it didn’t mean putting family life on hold.
That tension – between building for the future and actually enjoying the present – has become one of the central questions behind A Way to Less.
● 2027
Six Weeks in Southeast Asia
Thailand → Malaysia → Singapore.
Our next big experiment is already booked.
On 1 January 2027, our family of four will head to Southeast Asia for six weeks, travelling through Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore.
Our children will be coming with us – including our six-year-old, who we’ll temporarily deregister from school before the trip, with the hope of re-registering him when we return.
It’s exciting.
It’s also slightly terrifying.
And it raises a whole new set of questions.
Can we travel slowly with two young children?
How much will six weeks actually cost?
Can we enjoy a big adventure without throwing our FIRE plans off course?
What will our six-year-old learn outside the classroom?
What will we learn?
And perhaps the biggest question:
Why wait until we’re financially independent to start living differently?
We don’t know all the answers yet.
That’s partly why we’re going.
Money still matters – but it’s not the destination
We’re still pursuing financial independence.
We track our spending.
We invest.
We think carefully about large financial decisions.
We have a FIRE target.
But we’ve become increasingly uncomfortable with the idea that life should be divided into two distinct periods:
Work hard and sacrifice now → enjoy life later.
We’re trying something different.
Build freedom while living.
That might mean spending money on a family experience.
It might mean travelling.
It might mean choosing time over money.
It might mean deliberately spending less on things that don’t make us happier so that we can spend more on the things that do.
We’re still learning where that balance lies.
What A Way to Less is Really About
Over the years, the subjects on this site have changed.
We’ve written about:
Money – FIRE, investing, spending less and making better financial decisions.
Life – family, minimalism, work, wellbeing and figuring out what actually makes us happier.
Travel – from adventures abroad to living overseas and travelling with children.
On the surface, these might look like separate subjects.
To us, they’re all connected.
They’re different ways of answering the same question:
How can we build a life with more freedom and less of the stuff that gets in the way?
We’re not trying to live the most extreme version of FIRE.
We’re not trying to be perfectly minimalist.
We’re not trying to travel constantly.
And we’re certainly not claiming to have everything figured out.
We’re simply experimenting.
Trying things.
Making mistakes.
Changing our minds.
And documenting what happens.
Where We Are Now
We’re still working towards financial independence.
But we’re also trying to enjoy the journey.
Our current FIRE target is £375,000 each, and we’ll continue to publish our progress, spending and the financial decisions that get us there.
Alongside that, we’ll continue documenting the other things that matter to us:
Family, travel, experiences, simplicity and having the freedom to choose how we spend our time.
Because ultimately, we’re not pursuing financial independence so that we can stop living.
We’re pursuing it so that we have more freedom to live.
And we’re not planning to wait until we reach the finish line to start using it.
We’re still figuring it out.
And that’s really what A Way to Less is: an ongoing experiment in building a life that gives us more freedom, more experiences and, hopefully, a little less of the stuff that doesn’t matter.
Explore A Way to Less
Money
Follow our journey towards financial freedom, including FIRE, spending and the decisions behind our money.
Life
Family, minimalism, lifestyle, work, health and the things that make life worth living now.
Travel
The places we’ve lived, the places we’ve explored and the adventures we’re still planning.
New Here?
Start with the story behind A Way to Less, then explore the ideas, numbers and experiences that have shaped the journey.