Books

Your Money or Your Life – a transformational book to get you to look at money differently. Even after thousands of hours or reading about FIRE, I still learned something about finances from this book. It is inspirational and has a nice mix of the psychology of money, how to align spending to bring you the most happiness and a step by step process to getting in control of your finances. I also like that it mixes in concepts of minimalism, environmentalism and social responsibility. I wrote a more detailed review/summary here if you’re interested.

Financial Freedom – The story of Grant Sabatier who went from 0$ to 1 million in 5 years. This book gives great tips on how to get the most out of your working years, how to ask for a raise and ideas for side hustles to speed up your time to financial independence. It is US-focused but still a nice read with some key takeaways applicable to anywhere.

Quit Like a Millionaire – The story of Kristy Chen of Millennial Revolution and her guide to getting to financial independence. It is a very easy read with a human story to follow throughout. I particularly liked the chapter on the psychology of money and what actually happens in our brains when we spend money. Some great tips on how to create a sustainable budget without feeling deprived. Also US/Canada focused but a lot of generic advice as well.

Blogs

Millennial Revolution – This is the blog that introduced me to FIRE so has to get a mention here. It’s one of the only blogs I’ve subscribed to and almost always read every post. They have a nice mix of travel (pre-COVID), philosophical, economics, how-tos and reader cases where they review reader’s situations and analyse the best approach for them to get to financial independence. The husband can be a bit abrasive and comes across as cocky at times but if you can look past that, the content is solid.

Jillian Johnsrud – If anyone says they can’t become financially dependent for one reason or another, Jillian is the woman to inspire them. She has 2 biological kids and 4 adopted kids. One of whom tragically died at 20. Jillian shares her journey, her successes and her failures, she is raw and inspirational. She has a free email course on intentional living and how to design your best life – well worth signing up for if you’re into the more philosophical side of FIRE.

Podcasts

Financial Freedom – Grant Sabatier interviews other well-known finance bloggers/podcasters/writers. He also shares his own reflections on life after early retirement, what he would have done differently and how he is adjusting to life without needing to work for money.

Irish Content

• The Irish FIRE Podcast
• FIRE Dave
• Financial Independence Ireland
• An Irish Investors Guide
• Ignite my FIRE
• Informed Decisions Podcast
• Frugal Personal Finance
• Firehub.eu – not exactly Irish but a good source of European blogs on FIRE. They used to have a newsletter which was really great at highlighting popular posts but that seems to have stopped of late.

Investing

Questrade – The online trading platform I use for RRSP, TFSA and non-registered trading.

Online Shopping

Honey – A Chrome add-on which automatically searches for discount codes. You save money on purchases you were going to make anyway and also gain points from certain websites (like booking.com) which you can exchange for vouchers for places like Amazon.

Mortgage

Ratehub.ca – A great website for comparing mortgage rates come renewal time. They also compare bank accounts, GIC investments, home and life insurance and credit cards.

Expense Tracking

YNAB – This is the tool I use for expense tracking. It allows you to split expenses so I can easily track expenses between my husband and myself. They sync with your bank account as well so keeping it up to date is easy (for Canadian accounts at least). The reports are handy too. I used to use the desktop version which had a once off fee but now they’ve moved to a cloud based paid subscription of 84$/year. I struggled with this cost but I’ve also struggled to find an alternative that suits my needs. I also convert the cost into my hourly wage and figure it will save at least that amount of time per year in maintenance as it has the auto syncing and our historical transactions from the desktop version.

Travel – Accommodation

Air B’n’B – If you don’t already have an account – get 60$ off your first trip!

Booking.com – Great site for finding cheaper accommodation. I usually compare between both Air B’n’B and Booking.com. As mentioned above, if you use the Honey chrome-extension you can earn points which you can convert to Amazon vouchers. So far I’ve earned 40£ just by booking accommodation I would have booked anyway.

Travel – Fights

Google Flights – One of the quickest easiest ways to find flights with easy search filters for max duration, stop overs, price etc. Also really handy to explore destinations by putting in one or two starting airports and seeing where you can get to for little money. Great if you are just getting ideas of where you want to go, or where it’s cheap to get to from your airport. They also have price tracking notifications so you can be notified when prices increase or drop if you have a specific flight/date in mind.

Skyscanner – Similar to Google Flights, easy to search multiple airlines and sometimes has better prices than Google Flights.

Travel – Getting Around

Google Maps – Google Maps is great for showing how to get around a new place, it includes public transport, walking and even Uber prices and times. Street view is also a great way to explore an area before you get there.

Rome2Rio – Sometimes better at the public transport options than Google Maps and even shows much longer journey price and booking options from country to country.

Ex-pat/Cross-border Tax Advice

Trowbridge – When I was struggling to make heads or tails of the non-residents tax filing requirements for rental income from abroad, I received extremely helpful.