Welcome to A Way to Less
We’re a family trying to build financial freedom without putting life on hold.
For years, we’ve been questioning some of the assumptions that come with the conventional path through life: work hard, earn more, buy more, work for decades, and eventually retire.
We’re not convinced that’s the only way to do things.
Instead, we’re trying to spend less, make our money work harder, simplify where we can, and create more freedom over how we spend our time.
And we’re trying to enjoy the journey along the way.
So, who are we?
We’re a family of four from the UK, working towards financial independence while figuring out what kind of life we actually want to build.
Our journey has taken us from discovering FIRE and experimenting with a very different way of travelling, to moving our family abroad, returning to the UK, having children, and continuing to rethink what “enough” looks like.
We’re certainly not experts with all the answers.
This site is our attempt to document what we’re learning — including the decisions that work, the ones that don’t, and the things that turn out to be more complicated than they looked on paper.
If that sounds interesting, our story is the best place to start.
What is A Way to Less about?
There are three main parts to the site.
💷 Money
We’re pursuing financial independence, but FIRE isn’t simply about retiring as early as possible.
For us, it’s about having more choices.
We track our spending, investments and progress towards our FIRE target, and explore the financial decisions that help — or sometimes get in the way of — that goal.
Start with:
🌱 Life
Money is only useful if it helps you build a life you actually want.
So we also write about the things that sit outside spreadsheets: family, minimalism, work, health, mindset, experiences and the ongoing challenge of figuring out what is genuinely important.
We’re interested in having enough, rather than endlessly trying to have more.
Explore Life →
✈️ Travel
Travel has always been an important part of our story.
We’ve travelled extensively, lived abroad, moved countries and discovered that some of our best experiences have come from stepping away from the conventional path.
We’re particularly interested in travelling as a family — and in finding ways to make travel fit alongside our financial goals rather than putting those goals on hold.
We’re not waiting for FIRE
One of the things we’ve gradually realised is that financial independence shouldn’t necessarily be a finish line.
If we’re spending years building freedom, why wait until we’re completely financially independent before using some of it?
That’s something we’re increasingly trying to put into practice.
Our next big experiment
Six weeks. Three countries. Two children.
In January 2027, we’re heading to Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore for six weeks with our two children.
Our eldest will be six, and we’ll be temporarily deregistering him from school before hopefully returning him to school when we get home.
It’s not a decision we’ve taken lightly.
We’re interested in what happens when you step outside the normal routine for a while — and whether six weeks of travelling can become a meaningful educational and family experience in its own right.
We’ll be documenting the practical reality too:
What does it cost?
How does travelling with young children actually work?
What does our six-year-old learn along the way?
Does taking time away from normal life feel worth the financial cost?
And, ultimately:
Would we do it again?
Where should you start?
👋 New to A Way to Less?
Start with our story
Find out where we’ve come from, why we started the blog and how our approach to money and life has evolved.
💰 Interested in FIRE?
See how we’re doing
Follow our progress towards financial independence, including our investments, spending and changing FIRE target.
🧾 Interested in real-life spending?
See what we actually spend
We’ve been tracking our household spending for years. See how our spending has changed as our circumstances have changed.
✈️ Here for the travel?
See where we’ve been
From our earlier adventures to living abroad and travelling with children, explore the travel side of A Way to Less.
🌱 More interested in the life than the numbers?
Explore Life
Family, minimalism, work, health, experiences and the question behind all of this: what does “enough” actually look like?
Follow the journey
We’re still figuring this out.
That’s kind of the point.
We’ll share the numbers, the decisions, the successes, the mistakes and the occasional change of plan as we work towards a life with a little less stuff, a little less financial pressure and a lot more freedom.
If you’d like to follow along, sign up for occasional updates from A Way to Less.