Hello and welcome to Forbey Financials where family and finances will be the topic of discussion….my very first readers(EEEKKK). My name is Tunisia and I’m new to the world of blogging. I look forward to sharing some fun and exciting things with you, all while we pave our way to Financial Independence.

I am a wife, mother, TeeTee (Auntie), daughter, and Registered Nurse. Me and my husband live in South Jersey with our 3 kids, fur baby and my daddy. My kids are 9 (girl), 5 (boy) and 2 (boy)….yes! we have our hands full. But we love this little life we’ve created for ourselves.

We (well me 😕) are new to the world of finance and are just beginning our path to FIRE, financial independence retire early.

Until a few months ago I had never heard of this term or knew it was something I needed to be working towards. But now that I’ve discovered it, it’s all consuming.

I stumbled upon this concept while looking for ways to invest a small inheritance. Last year, May 26th…the day after my youngest turned 1, my mother transitioned after giving cancer the fight of its life for a full month. It was just too late to fight that beast.

My mother was never great with money but she was a very hard worker and had two really good long term jobs, 18yrs with Sears & Ro. and 23yrs with the City of Chicago. She faithfully contributed to her retirement accounts as well as having 2 pensions. The really sad part is that my mom was truly looking forward to retirement so she could finally enjoy life and do some of the things she always wanted to do. Well just 10 short months after retirement she was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer with metastasis to her lungs and liver. 1 month later I watched her take her last breath….it was so fast and none of us were prepared. After the initial shock and hurt what really haunted me was knowing that my sweet mother worked so hard and depended on her retirement years to live the life she always wanted….just to never get the chance. It was a sad reality. Although I have always lived my life to the fullest I knew that I needed to do more, that there had to be a better way.

So I began to research investing…which lead to the stock market. I took 2 paid online classes to learn about retirement savings and how to invest. Then somehow I stumbled upon the Journey To Launch Podcast (Hi Jamila👋🏽) and my life was completely changed. I could not stop listening, no way were regular old people like me retiring early😱😱😱. I just couldn’t believe it. Well I just had to know everything about FIRE because if others were doing it, I surely could. After listening to ALL of Jamila’s episodes, one of which had Brad and Johnathan of Chose FI on, I binge listened to their podcast as well. I was totally hooked. But now what? I had to figure out how to get started on our path…come back to find out what we did next!