• Our home is within walking distance of a good school, but it wasn't the best fit for my daughter.
• To get to her school, we learned she would have to rely on Washington, DC's public transit system.
• She was just 10 at the time, but the experience taught her independence and confidence.

Just before my daughter was born, our family purchased a house in a quaint neighborhood in Washington, DC. We stretched our budget to buy a home on a quiet, tree-lined street in a "good" school district. Like many families, schools were the driving force behind our decision.

Our house is within walking distance of what were then well-regarded elementary, middle, and high schools. We thought we had created a perfect lifestyle, one that included our children walking to and from school until they graduated from high school. I was grateful for the privilege to be able to do so. The plan worked brilliantly for my daughter's elementary school years. We made the seven-minute walk to school and back together until she was in fourth grade. Then, she preferred walking with a friend. No one batted an eye in our nearly crime-free neighborhood.

The middle school in our neighborhood wasn't a good fit

Everything changed when my daughter started middle school. Although we originally intended to send her to our neighborhood school, we found a charter school that was a much better fit for her. I rejoiced when she got in. However, my joy was quickly replaced by despair when I realized there was no good way for her to get there and back. For the first time in my daughter's life, she wouldn't be able to walk to school.

Our school district doesn't provide transportation to students. Because my four kids attended four different schools, each in different parts of the city, driving her wasn't realistic either. Nevertheless, I wasn't willing to let this logistical nightmare get in the way of sending her to a dream school.

I realized putting my daughter on the city bus was the only feasible option

Washington, DC, is a city with a robust and reliable public transportation system. As I frantically searched for a solution, it became clear that taking the city bus was the best, and perhaps only, solution. My daughter, who has a late summer birthday, was only 10 when she started middle school. I worried about sending a child so young on the bus alone but decided we would have to give it a try.

My daughter has taken public transportation around the city since birth, but never without an adult. Even though she is a born-and-bred city kid, I still worried about her navigating public transportation alone at such a young age. Although she had already been walking to school without supervision for two years, she had done so safely enclosed in a familiar neighborhood, surrounded by families I knew would have treated her like their own if she ever needed help. Now, I was thrusting her alone into a big city. I worried but took a deep breath and committed to the plan.

We taught her the ins and outs of public transportation

My husband and I did our best to prepare our daughter for her new responsibility. We took her on a few practice runs, not telling her when she made mistakes like missing her stop and guiding her as she course-corrected on her own. We taught her lessons about safety, like always keeping her backpack on her lap to avoid theft, sitting near the driver so she could ask for help if anyone bothered her, and never wearing flashy jewelry. We made sure she understood how to use our transit system's app so she could check what time she needed to catch her bus and plan her route.

The first day of school arrived, and she was on her way. She had a couple of mishaps during the first few weeks. Once, she got distracted and rode right past her stop. Another time, she got on a bus going the wrong way. When these mistakes happened, as I knew they would, she called and we talked her through a solution. She always found her way home, more confident in her navigation skills and ability to adapt if something went wrong.

My daughter loves her independence

Some other parents thought I was being irresponsible by allowing my 10-year-old to ride the bus alone. However, my daughter rose to the challenge and thrived. Now, she is 14 and in 9th grade. She not only takes the bus to get home from school, but deftly navigates all forms of public transportation around the city. She loves her independence, and so do I.

When we travel, my daughter is adept at navigating new public transportation systems with ease. College, and even more independence, is approaching faster than I would like. Seeing my daughter find her way in vast, unfamiliar places gives me confidence that she will be okay on her own when she eventually launches.

If I had listened to those who thought my daughter was too young to handle this type of independence, she would not be at the fantastic school she goes to today. She would not be able to zip around the city, go shopping, see movies, or visit friends with such ease and without her Mom's help. She wouldn't have as much confidence as I see daily, confidence that spills over into other areas of her life. It's bittersweet to see my daughter so deft at a skill that takes her one step closer to complete independence, but it's one she needs. I'm glad she developed it early.

• I am a single mom and allowed my son a lot of independence growing up.
• I was leaving him home alone when he was 7. By his tweens, he was navigating the city on his own.
• My parenting may be unconventional but it worked because of how I raised him at a young age.

I wanted my kid to have many of the same freedoms I had growing up in the '80s in the country — full of tree climbing, go-cart driving, and playing outside until the lights came on. My parents were relatively carefree and let us roam with minimal supervision, as long as our chores were done.

By the time my baby boy was 18 months old, I was a working single mother in the city and his sole provider, which meant my approach to parenting was going to take a different direction than I had imagined.

I didn't have the luxury of a partner for help, so I was constantly on duty. In order to coexist peacefully, I needed my son's cooperation, especially since he had a fierce need for independence at a young age.

I let him problem-solve, which sometimes led to a skinned knee

Cooperation required clear, age-appropriate communication of my expectations for him and his capabilities.

When he was 2, he was one of the youngest in our local park to climb the Jacob's Ladder. When he would get stuck at the top, I would explain to him that if he could get to the top by himself, he had to be able to get down by himself, too.

He soon became aware of his limitations and strengths. He would occasionally fall and skin his knee or the palm of his hand, but this never deterred him from going back for another climbing round.

Just because he got scuffed up a bit didn't mean I wasn't diligent about paying attention to him — I just let him problem-solve on his own through gentle encouragement and minimal interference.

With this approach, I successfully kept him out of the ER despite multiple spills off his skateboard and jumping from the top of the jungle gym.

The day I'll never forget

While I encouraged him to be independent and self-confident, I still felt the need to keep him close when he was a child.

That's why I'll never forget the day when he was 7 and ventured to his friend's home alone without telling me.

He scootered down one of the busiest streets in the city and crossed a huge intersection to get there.

I thought he was in our condo complex riding his scooter. When he called me 30 minutes later to tell me he was at his friend's house, I asked him why he hadn't told me where he was going.

He said it was because he knew I wouldn't have let him go alone. He was right.

Then he added that I'd taught him how to push the crosswalk button and he knew what he was doing. It dawned on me that he was also right about that.

That day, my trust in his abilities grew exponentially. I began letting him stay home while I ran errands.

By his tween years, he was confidently navigating the city bus system and biking across town — activities none of his friends were doing.

Other parents often questioned my free-range parenting approach, but I wasn't concerned. We had a reliable check-in system, and I trusted him completely.

I set clear boundaries and delivered consequences if he broke the rules, like if he didn't call me as soon as he arrived somewhere, he wasn't allowed to go again.

I don't regret how I raised my son

My style might have been unconventional, but now, at 19, he's still marching to the beat of his own drum and we have a strong and trusting relationship.

Watching him fly the coop with the tools and confidence I instilled is one of the greatest achievements of my life, and I can't wait to see where the next 20 years will take him.

• I didn't understand how to set boundaries for myself and my son when he was born.
• He'd make excuses why he couldn't complete age-appropriate tasks, and I'd do them for him.
• When he was nearly 8, I was still unwillingly co-sleeping with him. I felt haggard and resentful.

I grew up on gold stars and participation trophies as an unwitting member of the self-esteem generation. When I entered motherhood in 2011, I took it even further.

My Bay Area enclave of well-to-do hippies was all about attachment parenting, which advocates baby-wearing and bodily closeness, high empathy and responding to baby's cries, and co-sleeping to keep baby nearby.

I don't disagree with these ideas. The problem was that I didn't understand how to honor my boundaries while I went about doing everything for my son.

I didn't know how to disentangle a need from a want, especially in the stressed-out throes of early, unplanned motherhood.

By the time my son was entering grade school, it felt as if he had me wrapped around his little finger. Luckily, I've learned to flex my boundary muscle so I no longer bow to his every whim.

Every moment revolved around my son's satisfaction, and I resented it

When he was nearing 8, I was still cutting up his meat, tying his shoes, and co-sleeping. He was scared to sleep alone, and I couldn't stomach his discomfort.

He'd make excuses for why he couldn't complete age-appropriate tasks like opening water bottles (it hurt his hands) or washing the dishes (the dirty sink gave him the ick). So, I'd open the bottle for him and remove dishwashing from his agenda.

Every moment revolved around keeping him satisfied to avoid arousing my own motherly anxiety at his displeasure and emotional pain.

Meanwhile, I felt haggard and resentful. I finally decided things needed to change, recognizing that if my son didn't learn how to cope now, he wouldn't be able to do it as an adult without me.

I turned things around for me and my son

When my son was 8, I started the slow, but essential, process of making him sleep alone in his room.

We started with extra goodnight hugs and keeping his bedroom lights on and progressed to a quick cuddle and single nightlight.

After months of trial and error, he was finally putting himself to bed and not creeping into my room in the middle of the night to wake me for comfort.

As I started to set more boundaries, I also learned to love the sound of my own voice saying "No." It's a slow process, though.

My son is now 12, and he still asks me to do the simplest things for him like refill his water bottle or bring him pants first thing in the morning while he stays in bed. My answer is no.

We're now working on repairing my son's sense of self

As a preteen, my son has little self-agency. We're working to repair his sense of self, his confidence in his own decision-making, and his ability to persevere.

I've learned that baby steps are key to breaking harmful patterns. I teach him to break down each task into digestible chunks that don't feel daunting or overwhelming. In the past, I'd take it off his agenda completely, but not anymore.

I've found this strategy is essential for me, too. It helps me pace myself while keeping a mostly harmonious household.

We celebrate the little wins like learning to make the school bus on time each morning with some well-placed praise, a hot chocolate, or a sushi dinner.

I frame our work as a cooperative venture that's preparing him for adulthood, and he understands — though often begrudgingly — that we're on the same team.

We used to operate under the false idea that permission equals love. I've rewritten our script to emphasize that boundaries and expectations equal love.

I now respect my son and myself. I know he's capable, and my behavior reflects this back to him so he can believe it, too.

• I'm a very different parent to my youngest, who is 13, than I was to my eldest at that age.
• Some of that change is due to technology, but I also understand child development better now.
• I monitor all online activity for my teen but have learned to relinquish control where it matters.

I gave birth to my first three children between 1998 and 2000. When they were growing up, I knew enough about the internet to remind them never to share their personal information online, but that was the extent of it.

Then, I gave birth to my fourth child in 2011 and quickly realized how much had changed over a short time. I had to adjust my approach to parenting in the digital age.

I'm more strict with monitoring online activity. However, I've learned to relinquish control in other instances where I never would have before.

Parental controls these days are much better

When my eldest three were growing up in the 2000s, parental online control tools were limited.

I also worked outside the home, and so was was unable to monitor everything they did on the family desktop computer, which I strategically placed in a common area. I just had to trust they were being honest about their online activities.

In contrast, my 13-year-old's access to the internet is significantly limited.

I'm chronically online because I now work remotely, and this has helped raise my awareness of online threats and in turn drastically changed the way I parent my youngest.

His personal laptop — like the desktop his older siblings used — stays in a common area. However, I no longer have to rely on the honor system because of improved parental control options.

I now have an app that alerts me of any seemingly suspicious activity. It looks for certain keywords that could align with self-harm, bullying, violence, and anything else inappropriate.

I also limit his cell phone access to texts from his father and siblings and a few select friends, and it too is monitored by parental controls. Apart from that, the phone remains in my possession.

This helps me breathe a little easier, but I know I can't protect him from everything. I also try to give him resources so he can protect himself when I can't.

For example, I keep our home library stocked with books and workbooks for teens on perspective, bias, and how to properly wade through disinformation.

The shift in my parenting style goes beyond technology.

I wish I gave my eldest the same freedom my youngest has

Twenty years ago, I never would have considered placing a bow and arrow in the hands of my 4-year-old, let alone a carving knife.

With age comes wisdom, though, and since becoming a work-from-home parent I've had more time to read parenting books and seek advice from experts in child education and development, which has broadened my perspective.

For example, I made sure my youngest spent his earliest years taking part in a forest school. Afternoons meant nature walks in the woods, identifying insects, and practicing archery with a real bow and arrow.

He was carving wooden creatures with a whittling knife and building fires before he could read or write his full name.

Now, as he enters his teen years, I continue to encourage him to unplug, engage with nature, and explore his creative interests independently.

My eldest kids didn't have that freedom. The activities they participated in were adult-led and centered around indoor, structured playgroups, leaving little room for free play and independence.

Looking back, I wish I would have let them take the lead and hovered a bit less. Today, they're all independent and successful adults, but I sometimes sense they're hesitant to try new things. I can't help but attribute that to my former parenting style.

I hope that by allowing my youngest more freedom to explore the world around him, he'll gain confidence and trust in himself and his abilities that carry him through to adulthood.

Parenting is an ever-evolving journey. If there's one thing my kids have taught me, it's that learning and growing alongside them is essential to maintaining a strong relationship.

• My teens are constantly asking for the latest viral item on social media like $50 mascara.
• I'm fine with letting them buy it themselves but refuse to help out with stuff like that.
• They're learning that some items are not worth the hefty price tag, which is exactly what I want.

If you had asked me what kind of parent I would be a few decades ago, I would have said I'll rule with an iron fist. In reality, I've found that parenting two teenage girls, ages 13 and 15, is far from cut and dry.

The world's much different now than the one I grew up in, and getting older and wiser has helped me recognize the gray areas of spending.

There are so many more ways for kids to waste money these days, from DoorDash, Starbucks, and Sephora to all the products marketed to them on social media.

I can't tell you how many times my teens have asked for a $50 tube of mascara or some other "viral" product only because an influencer shared it on social media. Of course, my answer is almost always "No."

However, as they've grown older I've started to allow my kids to spend their money how they want. It's helping them grow in ways I hadn't expected.

There are certain things I refuse to buy my children

As a parent, I am willing to pay for my children's basic needs including food, shelter, clothing, typical hygiene items, and anything they need for school.

On the flip side, I am unwilling to pay for splurges like high-end makeup or $100 leggings.

My partner and I rarely buy flashy items or brand-name products for ourselves. We live a debt-free lifestyle, pay for our cars in cash, and hardly ever order food delivery or dine out.

I want my children to become the same responsible, thoughtful consumers we are. That's why I pay for their needs and they pay for their wants with the money they earn from babysitting and, in the case of my 15-year-old, a part-time job.

This approach teaches them the difference between essential and nonessential items and has led them to realize that there are many nonessentials out there that they don't want badly enough to pay for themselves.

Case in point: My 15-year-old recently said she would love to order DoorDash at work like some other people do, but doing so would mean forfeiting at least half of her pay for a four-hour shift, which she was unwilling to do.

Tracking their earnings and spending is teaching them the value of money

My teens also see first-hand how quickly their money disappears when they choose instant gratification over savings, which happens all the time.

They have a MONEY Teen Checking account and use the issuer's mobile app, which lets them see all their purchases in real-time and how much money is in their account.

This led my eldest to ask for a separate savings account in her name, which I helped set up. She frequently transfers money to that account and has a small nest egg to show for it, which I'm proud of.

Some lessons have to be learned the hard way, though, and my 13-year-old has had a bank balance below $10 for several months now.

She loathes the feeling of being broke as well as the limited options that come with it.

For example, she found our annual Black Friday shopping trip "boring" this year since she didn't have any fun money to throw around. I may or may not have been willing to lend her any money, but the truth is she didn't ask.

We're setting a good example

My husband and I both work part-time and are on track to retire completely before age 50.

We also live in a nice home with lots of space for everyone, and my kids go on several family vacations every year.

Despite their young age, they have been to more than 40 different countries.

Ultimately, this means they know we can afford to buy the best items and products but choose not to.

In the end, I can only hope that, when they're adults, working hard jobs and trying to raise a family, they'll choose a life of saving over a lifetime of waste and regret.

• Eman and Kristine Vergara embraced minimalism to achieve financial independence.
• They shifted from high spending to saving 75% of their income by reducing expenses.
• The couple aim to travel with their kids while maintaining a frugal lifestyle at home.

Seven years ago, Eman Vergara came across a book that had long collected dust on his shelf. He realized neither he nor his wife, Kristine, had read it, so he dived into "Early Retirement Extreme."

He couldn't put it down or ignore the racing thoughts that followed. The investment banker spent all night playing with online tools, calculating their net worth. He figured out that if they saved more in their jobs — his wife was an accountant — they could retire early, or at least achieve financial independence.

The book catalyzed a realization — and a lifestyle overhaul for the Australian couple.

"We were definitely living a maximalist life, earning big incomes but spending just as big — sometimes bigger," Eman told Business Insider about their 2016 life.

The couple said they were making up to 400,000 Australian dollars. "But at the same time, we were spending most of the money that we were getting," Eman said.

Shift to minimalism

A couple of more books and podcasts later, they turned to minimalism and cutting back on "frivolous" expenses, starting with a two-bedroom central Sydney apartment that cost AU$5,500 a month.

They sold their car and picked up rentals as needed, swapped brand-name supermarkets for Aldi, and cut back on travel and dining out. The lifestyle changes allowed them to pay off AU$24,000 in credit-card debt and about AU$26,000 in student loans.

The couple moved from saving 50% to 60% of their earnings in their first few years of minimalism to as much as 75% after moving from Sydney to Toowoomba, a city close to Brisbane, where the cost of living is lower than in big Australian cities. They bought a car after the move.

After about a year of focusing on debt repayment, they started fully investing their savings, Kristine said.

They have a combined net worth of about AU$3 million, or about $2 million. This is the couple's portfolio breakdown:

• Property in Australia and the Philippines: AU$1.5 million
• Stocks: AU$900,000
• Superannuation account, a mandatory retirement plan in Australia: AU$500,000

The rest of their portfolio is in cash. Business Insider has verified their net worth and breakdown.

FIRE with children

Since they started working toward financial independence, the Vergaras have had two children: a 3-year-old daughter and a 6-month-old son.

The early motivation behind moving to a more frugal lifestyle was having more autonomy — not being tied to a job or mortgage, and traveling as a family before their children are old enough for school.

"We want to raise our children as global citizens," so they can have friends all over the world, Eman said. "That, to me has been the driver of coming onto this journey."

Kristine retired from her full-time accounting role about three years ago, and Eman works in funds management with a flexible working arrangement. The couple refer to themselves as "coast FIRE," a type of Financial Independence, Retire Early scenario in which a person saves up enough money for retirement and needs to make only enough money for ongoing expenses, which for them is about AU$120,000 a year.

Eman, 38, plans to take a sabbatical when he turns 40 and eventually travel nine months of the year while homeschooling the children. They already take about 12 trips a year and are hoping to increase their travel expenses to 40% of their income, from 35%.

Their expenses have increased since having children, primarily for their toddler's extracurricular lessons and flight tickets. But they continue to save where they can, including using hand-me-down toys and clothes.

Their location helps, too.

"The health system is amazing, and I think this is a key nuance between Australia financial independence and American financial independence," Eman said. "Health insurance is just not even something that we think about."

Raising kids with a hunger for work

Since they plan to be partially or fully retired in the next few years, the couple have strategies meant to ensure their children understand the value of work.

"We certainly don't want them to see their parents just sitting at home doing nothing," Eman said about his plans to work part time and volunteer.

"You want to raise kids with that hunger for an ambition," Eman said. "I know what it was like being a first-generation migrant to work hard to succeed in my career and then be able to understand the power of compound interest and saving to be in a position where I am right now."

Kristine said it was important to her that the children be involved in volunteering and community work and pick a trade skill from a young age.

There are three main money lessons they want to teach the children: saving at least half of their income, putting savings into an investment that allows compounding, and staying away from credit cards.

"I know people do credit-card hacking, but it's just the temptation of having that card," Eman said, referring to credit-card points and miles. "We simplified by just cutting all our credit cards when we found financial independence."

• Financial independence writer Andre Nader built a seven-figure net worth before age 40.
• The former Meta employee shares his top money-related books, including 'The Simple Path to Wealth.'
• Another one of his favorites, 'Die With Zero,' helped him become more comfortable spending his money.

At 37, Andre Nader has enough in savings that he doesn't expect to ever have to work a 9-to-5 again.

After 15 years working in tech — nine of which were at Meta — he was laid off in 2023. Rather than job search, he leaned into the Substack publication he started in 2021, FAANG FIRE, and started doing one-on-one coaching. FIRE stands for financial independence retire early.

He and his wife, who works as a designer for Uber, had been preparing to retire early and had already built a sizable, seven-figure nest egg. Between her tech income and their savings, they had enough to sustain their family of three in San Francisco. While Nader is technically retired in his 30s, he says he'll consider himself "semi-FIRE'd" until his wife walks away from her job.

The financial independence blogger and coach shared three books that changed his money mindset and helped him build wealth.

"The Simple Path to Wealth" by JL Collins

JL Collins' 2016 book is a popular choice within the FIRE community.

The author delivers on his promise of providing a simple path to wealth — his main advice is to buy stocks via Vanguard's Total Stock Market Index Fund — which Nader said he appreciated as a former tech employee: "Particularly in tech, a lot of our work involves being hyper-creative or being extremely analytical and doing very complicated things in our day-to-day. We think we need to take the same approach to our finances."

Collins rejects that belief and suggests the opposite, Nader said: "It doesn't have to be complicated. You can rely on the math that other people have done and then keep it boring."

Nader didn't always keep things simple: He said he lost a good chunk of money trading options in his early 20s. However, once he learned about low-cost index fund investing, he was sold on the effective and hands-off strategy. He's built wealth by investing primarily in Fidelity and Vanguard index funds, including VTI and VXUS.

"Die With Zero" by Bill Perkins

Nader says his spending philosophy shifted after reading Bill Perkins' unconventional financial guide.

While saving money always came naturally to Nader, which was a good quality for someone pursuing FIRE, his frugality sometimes prevented him from spending on things that would enrich his life.

Perkins' book was "a good counter for me," he said. "I'm naturally frugal and naturally live within spreadsheets. 'Die With Zero' forced me to think about experiences more in the same way that I think about my finances: Just like my finances can compound, life experiences can also compound."

Nader says that one of the frameworks detailed in the book particularly resonated with him: Think about your life in five-year buckets. Then, maximize the experiences that make the most sense during those timeframes.

For example, in the first five years of his daughter's life, "maybe those aren't the best years for going to Disney World," he said. "Maybe that's going to be when my daughter is five to 10."

At 37, he's also thinking about prioritizing more adventuresome activities while he can: "In my 55 to 60 bracket, I probably don't want to be downhill skiing because maybe my knees aren't going to be in a place they are while I'm in my 30s and early 40s. So having those experiences matched up with my life stages is helpful."

"Enough" by Jack Bogle

When Nader decided to pursue FIRE, one of the first steps he took was establishing his "enough number," a concept he read about in Vanguard founder Jack Bogle's book.

It's essentially the amount of money that would allow him to never have to earn another dollar.

"'Need' is the big thing," Nader said. "You can continue earning more, but you don't necessarily need it to hit your goals and to live the life that you want. For me, that was always a big motivating factor."

As of late 2024, his "enough" number is around $5.6 million, which he calculated by considering his family's annual spend in San Francisco and future costs like healthcare and his daughter's education.

Having experienced a layoff in 2023, he's hyper-aware that life happens, and his expenses and circumstances will continue to change. For that reason, "I'm constantly running my numbers and trying to calculate how much enough is."

• Abigail Weidmer moved to a new city and wanted her kids to find playmates in the neighborhood.
• She hoped they would develop friendships by playing on their block with other children.
• The mom found that kids rarely played outdoors in the area. She set up a play club to help them do so.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Abigail Weidner, 36, a mom of three from Billings, Montana. It has been edited for length and clarity.

My kids socialized with a lot of kids in our former city of San Antonio. They had friends who lived on our cul de sac and we'd meet other children in the park.

By contrast, when we moved to our current home in Billings, Montana, we found local kids weren't really around. We'd hang in the driveway to try to meet neighbors, but nobody was out and about. It made it hard for my two older kids — a 7-year-old daughter and a 5-year-old son — to make connections.

So, I took matters into my own hands and set up a play club called "Free Play Friday." I was inspired by Let Grow, a non-profit that encourages children to play independently without parents or teachers hovering over them.

I invited the kids of some moms I'd exchanged numbers within the neighborhood. It felt a bit odd reaching out to people I barely knew.

But I explained my vision from the beginning. The children would choose their own activities with minimal adult involvement. This would be a throwback to our childhoods in the 1990s and early 2000s when kids were less scheduled with after-school activities and often left to do their own thing.

The older kids help the younger ones

The parents stayed the first few times as we got to know each other. After a while, they dropped off their kids or walked to the club on their own. I took turns hosting with another mom.

It felt especially important for my daughter and another child her age to take ownership of their play. They helped the younger ones participate in things like pop-up art classes.

The older ones rotated as "the teacher" and invented various projects. Around Thanksgiving, my daughter prepared a turkey craft ahead of time. She cut out the pieces they'd need and walked them through the steps without my involvement.

Another time, one of the kids brought in some papers that were different colors. "Let's make them into flags," he said. The project was the kids' self-assigned activity that afternoon.

Other times, I've seen them setting up cones in the backyard to do sports like soccer or ride their bikes. They found a kite and ran around. It was refreshing to them because it was unstructured play.

I left the garage door open so other kids could join

Rules were kept to a minimum. No one could play in the front yard alone, and they had to clean up after themselves before they went back home.

It gradually became more natural for the children to interact without interference. We trusted them to work things out on their own and manage arguments. It fostered independence — a quality that will help them in the future.

Meanwhile, it was unseasonably warm this fall. I deliberately left the garage door open in case any kids who were passing by wanted to join in. It was a sign that we were a household that welcomed kids who wanted to experience the fun of free play.

Do you have an interesting story to share with Business Insider about your style of parenting? Please send details to this reporter at [email protected].

• Andre Nader sold his Austin rental due to stress outweighing financial benefits.
• He and his wife, who moved to SF in 2014, have found renting to be more cost-effective than owning.
• Nader says he doesn't need to own real estate to hit his FIRE goals and focuses on index fund investing.

Andre Nader has been both a homeowner and a landlord — and neither are for him, at least at this moment in time.

Shortly after getting married in 2012, he and his wife bought a home in Austin. When they moved to San Francisco in 2014 for a job Nader landed with Facebook, they kept it as a rental rather than selling. Their original plan was to move back to Texas.

Nader decided to self-manage the rental from nearly 2,000 miles away, which he did for a year and a half. When his tenant gave notice to move out and Nader flew back to Austin to deal with the turnover, he was surprised with what he found.

"The place was just kind of trashed," he told Business Insider. "It needed all-new carpet. It needed a lot of work."

While the extra income had been nice — he said the property generated a cash flow of a couple of hundred dollars a month — ultimately, it wasn't worth it.

"The stress and the mental overhead were drastically outweighing any of the short-term financial benefits," said Nader, who decided to sell rather than find a new tenant. Plus, he and his wife, who had started working as a designer at Uber, were enjoying the Bay Area and found themselves pushing out their timeline. "I was never convinced we would stay in San Francisco for the long term, but I became more and more confident that we wouldn't be immediately back to Austin."

Choosing to rent to save on housing in SF and leaning into index fund investing

Nader, 37, has been pursuing FIRE (financial independence, retirement early) since his 20s. He and his wife have always lived below their means, and for years, they kept their expenses low enough so that just one of their tech incomes could cover all of their household expenses, allowing them to invest about half of their combined income.

When they moved to the Bay Area, renting made sense from a budget perspective: It was cheaper for them to rent in the pricey city — and it still is, said Nader: "Right now, San Francisco really favors renting. It's really hard from a pure numbers standpoint to make owning make sense."

There are exceptions, he noted: "Particularly in a place like San Francisco, a lot of the math can change with the appreciation of property values. If housing prices continue to increase, then maybe buying can come out, but if you take conservative approaches to any future increases in housing, renting just ends up making a lot more sense mathematically."

Plus, Nader was never convinced he and his family would stay in San Francisco long enough to make buying worth it.

"The Goldilocks timeline has historically been, five to seven years is when buying starts being more advantageous than renting," he said. "Now when I do the numbers, it's even longer — closer to the 10-year timeframe — and I'd never been confident that I would be in San Francisco that long."

While prudent real estate investing is a viable path to wealth, Nader doesn't believe he needs to own property to hit his financial goals.

His investment strategy revolves around low-cost index funds. He owns various Fidelity and Vanguard index funds, including Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund ETF Shares (VTI) and Vanguard Total International Stock Index Fund ETF Shares (VXUS).

Nader describes the strategy as "super boring," but it's effective: It's helped him build a seven-figure net worth, which BI verified by looking at a copy of his investment report.

It's not lost on him that bringing in two tech incomes was a major advantage.

"I won the income game by being in tech, by being a dual-income household. I didn't need to be taking these outsized risks by investing in extremely speculative ways. I could be boring in my portfolio," said Nader, who worked at Meta for nine years before he was affected by the company's 2023 layoffs.

He and his wife had enough between their savings and one tech income that he didn't have to find another job, but he says he'll consider himself "semi-FIRE'd" until his wife also walks away from her job.

Nader, who spends his days writing on Substack and doing one-on-one financial independence coaching, says his investment strategy has remained the same since the layoff. He likes the hands-off approach to index fund investing, especially after experiencing what it's like to own real estate.

When he was managing the Austin rental, "I kind of quickly realized that the promise of real estate being a clearly passive investment, even if you have property managers, wasn't something that, for me, proved to be true, so it further reinforced my view around focusing on super boring, low-fee index funds," he said. "I could have a few hundred thousand dollars in real estate and maybe a million dollars in index funds, but I would be thinking about the real estate three times as much, so it would be a disproportionate amount of mental exercise, at least for me."

• A study found older couples living apart experienced more mental-health benefits than single people.
• A dating expert said older people tend to be more independent and set in their ways.
• Being open to living apart also widens the dating pool, particularly for older women, she said.

Moving in together is one of the biggest relationship milestones. How well you blend into one unit often precludes other big changes, including getting married or raising kids.

But for older couples, there's another appealing relationship setup: living apart, together — also known as LAT.

A new study found that couples living apart experienced more mental-health benefits than single people. The study examined data gathered on over 15,000 British people between 60 and 85 years old and found that while LAT relationships didn't confer more mental-health benefits than being married, people who exited LAT relationships had fewer negative mental-health consequences than couples who divorced or left a shared home.

Ury, the director of relationship science at Hinge and an on-air expert in Netflix's "The Later Daters," told Business Insider that she's been seeing this trend thrive.

"They're like, 'I have my house set up the way I want. You have your house set up the way you want,'" Ury said. "'Why don't we be in a long-term relationship, but we don't need to live together?'"

It's not just logistical. Ury said living apart, together has a ton of perks — particularly for older daters.

It widens your dating pool

If you're comfortable living in separate homes, it can broaden your dating options. You can manage differences in social lives or hobbies more easily by living independently than by trying to find someone who matches your lifestyle.

Ury said this is appealing to older daters. When you're younger and looking to start a family, "you want someone maybe with the same religion, the same lifestyle, the same education," she said.

But for older daters who aren't looking to raise kids together, ticking off all those boxes is often less important. Living apart allows each person to live in their own world — and that could be a boon for some relationships.

You don't have to compromise as much

LAT gives couples the opportunity to keep living how they want, with the benefit of romantic companionship.

The study's authors concluded older women would likely benefit the most from the arrangement. Women often take on more domestic labor in marriage or cohabitation, so they "may have more to gain than older men from LAT" by having more autonomy, they wrote.

Ury said it makes sense that older women are drawn to LAT. Her research shows older daters typically have a "stronger sense of self" than younger people. She added that older people have reported having more satisfying sex because they know their bodies better and are more capable of asking for what they want.

Knowing yourself also makes it harder to compromise, whether it comes to sharing a bedroom or eating the same meals. "People are stuck in their ways, Ury said. "They're less flexible and they have their ways of doing things."

Ury said younger couples are like startups that grow together, whereas couples are more like mergers. "Mergers are notoriously hard because each one has their own HR department, their own CEO," she said. "It can be hard to blend those things."

• FIRE blogger Andre Nader and his wife have been working toward early retirement for years.
• When they were both working full-time in tech, they lived off of one income and saved the other.
• Nader broke down their household budget from March 2023 to February 2024.

When Andre Nader sat down to calculate his "enough number" — the amount of money that would allow him to never have to earn another dollar and give him the option to retire early — the first thing he did was analyze his spending.

From there, he could work backward and estimate how much he'd need to sustain his family of three's lifestyle in retirement.

Members of the FIRE (financial independence, retire early) community typically use the "4% rule," which suggests that you can safely withdraw 4% annually from your nest egg. For example, if you retire with $1 million, you should be able to withdraw $40,000 from your retirement funds each year without running out of money. To figure out your number using this rule, you simply multiply your annual spending by 25. Nader prefers to use a more conservative 3% safe withdrawal rate, which you can calculate by multiplying your annual number by 33.33.

He and his wife, who works as a designer for Uber, had been preparing to retire early together. They were on track to do so until Nader was affected by Meta's 2023 layoffs. The couple had enough between their savings and one tech income that Nader didn't have to find another job, but he says he'll consider himself "semi-FIRE'd" until his wife also walks away from her job.

They built a seven-figure net worth thanks to a variety of factors, including high incomes — "I won the income game by being in tech, by being a dual-income household," said Nader — but they've also been disciplined savers and investors.

Nader, who describes himself as "naturally frugal," said that he and his wife always kept their expenses low enough so that just one of their tech incomes could cover all of their household expenses. This allowed them to invest about half of their combined income in low-cost index funds.

Between March 20203 and February 2024, the family of three residing in San Francisco kept their annual expenses around $140,000.

Nader, who writes about financial independence on his Substack, FAANG FIRE, broke down his family's annual budget:

Housing: $60,000 a year ($5,000 a month). The biggest chunk of their budget (42%) goes toward rent. "Running the numbers for my personal situation, I have never been able to make home ownership pencil in within San Francisco," he wrote on his blog.

Shopping and personal: $21,473 a year ($1,789 a month).

Children: $18,136 a year ($1,511 a month). This spending category, which includes education, childcare, activities, and necessities like clothing, decreased significantly after Nader's daughter graduated from preschool and started at public school as a kindergartner.

He broke down the costs within this spending category between March 2023 and February 2024 in a separate chart.

Food: $16,284 a year ($1,357 a month).

Travel and vacations: $10,443 a year ($870 a month). Now that his daughter is getting older and travel is more manageable, Nader says he's intentionally trying to increase spending in this category.

Bills and utilities: $6,241 a year ($520 a month).

Health and wellness: $5,363 a year ($447 a month).

Transportation: $2,741 a year ($228 a month). Nader and his wife share one fully paid-off car. They also are on a pre-paid maintenance plan for the next four years.

Miscellaneous: $1,201 a year ($100 a month.)

Increasing his budget heading into 2025

After being laid off in 2023, Nader is hyper-aware that life happens, and his expenses and circumstances will continue to change.

His spending has already increased since he ran his numbers in early 2024. Most notably, his family moved so that they could be within walking distance of their daughter's school. The move bumped his rent from $5,000 a month to $8,000.

He's thinking about 2025 as an experimental year and is doing some "boundary testing" on their spending, particularly while his wife is still working.

"It's much easier to increase spend while someone in your house is working, so right now, we're like, 'Hey, what would it be like if we did live in a single-family home in San Francisco? Is that the life that we want?'" he said.

His spending philosophy has shifted after reading Bill Perkins' "Die With Zero," he added.

The book was "a good counter for me," he said. "I'm naturally frugal and naturally live within spreadsheets. 'Die With Zero' forced me to think about experiences more in the same way that I think about my finances: Just like my finances can compound, life experiences can also compound. That led me to prioritize travel to a higher degree."

Nader doesn't want to sacrifice a certain quality of life or experiences in his pursuit of FIRE. He recognizes that what he and his family value will shift over time, which is why he periodically revisits his spending and "enough number."

"What 'enough' is in 2022 ended up being different than what I thought 'enough' would be in 2024," he said. "I realized that I did want to spend more in certain places, so I explicitly forced myself to spend more on things like travel. I realized I was unnecessarily saving more than I needed to, and I wasn't spending in a way that was bringing me happiness."

• Andre Nader switched from an EPO health insurance plan to an HDHP to get access to an HSA.
• Nader found the mental burden of managing healthcare costs outweighed HSA tax benefits.
• He plans to switch back to an EPO plan in 2025 for simplicity.

Andre Nader spent years on Meta's growth team, where his work involved experimentation and testing to determine how to improve specific products.

"I like to use that same testing methodology in my own life," the 37-year-old founder of financial independence blog FAANG FIRE told Business Insider. After getting laid off in 2023, Nader didn't have to job search thanks to the seven-figure net worth he built after years of investing in index funds and transitioned to writing on Substack full-time.

In 2024, he decided to put the popular, triple tax-advantaged health savings account (HSA) to the test. One requirement of using an HSA is that you must have a High Deductible Health Plan (HDHP), so he switched his family from an EPO health insurance plan, which he'd used for most of the past decade.

Nader said the EPO plan would be the simpler choice for him and his family — he wouldn't have to think about deductibles, the co-pays would be low, and all major hospitals were in-network — but he couldn't help but wonder if the savings from having an HSA would outweigh the extra hassle of having an HDHP, which offers a lower premium but comes with a higher deductible.

The benefits of using an HSA, which he describes as a "magical account," were obvious to him. It is a unicorn in that it offers a triple tax benefit:

1. You can contribute pretax dollars, which reduces your taxable income.
2. You can invest your HSA funds (the investment options vary by provider), and your contributions and earnings grow tax-free.
3. You can withdraw your money tax-free to cover qualified medical expenses (including things like copays, lab fees, and vaccines). After 65, you can use your HSA money to cover any expense without incurring a penalty, but the funds are subject to income tax.

Consider other tax-advantaged accounts. With a Roth IRA, you contribute after-tax money (and eventually withdraw it tax-free); with a traditional 401(k), you contribute pre-tax money (and eventually pay taxes when you withdraw).

"It's very rare to have an account where you're putting money in pre-tax and then also taking it out without paying taxes on it — and the entire time it's there, it can grow tax- and penalty-free," said Nader.

To maximize HSA gains, investors will invest their funds (rather than letting their HSA money sit in a cash account) and avoid touching it so it can grow and compound over time. Not touching your HSA funds means covering your medical expenses out of pocket, which is what Nader did throughout 2024. He saved all of his receipts from health-related expenses, so he'd have the option to reimburse himself later if he needed to (there's no time limit on when you can reimburse yourself from your HSA).

"In a spreadsheet, this is very lucrative," he said of taking full advantage of an HSA. Some companies will even contribute a certain amount to their employees' HSAs, which is essentially free money. "However, life isn't always about what happens in a spreadsheet."

Changing his coverage in 2025: 'I don't want to be living a life where I'm thinking about the cost of my healthcare'

As Nader's year of experimentation comes to a close, he's confident that an HDHP is not the right fit for his family and is switching healthcare plans in 2025. He says he'll likely go back to using an EPO.

"Even though the HSA is an amazing account that I can grow tax- and penalty-free forever, for me, the incremental benefit wasn't there," he said.

His main issue with using an HDHP and HSA was the mental bandwidth it required.

"The reason you're saving so much is you need to actually be thinking about your medical expenses more," said Nader. "Every single time that you go to urgent care, you're paying out of pocket until you hit a deductible or your out-of-pocket maximum. Every single time you go to a specialist, you're paying out-of-pocket until you hit your out-of-pocket maximum. So there was a lot more mental overhead in thinking about my healthcare decisions."

He felt like he couldn't be on autopilot like he was with an EPO plan, where an urgent care visit may cost him $10. With an HDHP, that same visit may cost hundreds of dollars, enough to stop and think about whether to get care.

"What's been happening over this year is, every single time I've needed to go to urgent care, I've thought about it a little bit, and I really didn't like that my health decisions were intersecting with my financial decisions," he said. "I didn't want to think about whether I should go to the emergency room if I had a cut; I should just go to the emergency room and not factor in the expenses."

At the end of the day, "I don't want to be living a life where I'm thinking about the cost of my healthcare."