Reddit reviews Meet the Frugalwoods: Achieving Financial Independence Through Simple Living

Some memoirs... would probably fall under "practical."

• "No Baggage: A Minimalist Tale of Love and Wandering" by Clara Bensen -- Putting this at the top of the list because I love the concept so much. Girl meets a guy and they decide to go on a multi-week trip to Europe together... with no luggage. Basically, all they have are the clothes on their back and what they can carry in their pockets / purse. (I learned later that said boyfriend is Jeff Wilson, aka "Professor Dumpster," the college professor who lived in a retrofitted dumpster to show people how lightly one can live on the earth. More here: The Dumpster Project )
  
  
• "The Unsettlers: In Search of the Good Life in Today's America" by Mark Sundeen -- About three different couples that attempt homesteading in three remarkably different ways -- one in a traditional homestead on an old Amish farm with no electricity Northeastern Missouri where they teach others, one on an urban homestead in Detroit, and one on a farm attempting to be organic in Montana. This is probably the quirkiest, most offbeat title on the list and the one closest to my heart (possibly tying with "No Baggage.")
  
  
• "The Big Tiny: A Built-It-Myself Memoir" by Dee Williams -- About a Boomer woman who builds her own tiny house to live in.
  
  
• "Living Large in Our Little House: Thriving in 480 Square Feet with Six Dogs, a Husband, and One Remote" by Kerri Fivecoat-Campbell -- About a woman and her husband who were forced (due to financial circumstances) to live in their vacation cabin in the woods and ended up making it their full-time residence.
  
  
• "The Shepherd's Life: Modern Dispatches from an Ancient Landscape" by James Rebanks -- About a guy who still raises sheep the traditional way in the Yorkshire Dales area of the UK. He's also published a photography book (since this memoir was a runaway bestseller across the pond) and has a beautifully quirky Instagram account worth a follow.
  
  
• "Meet the Frugalwoods: Achieving Financial Independence Through Simple Living" by Elizabeth Willard Thames -- About a young woman in New England who decides with her husband to eschew superfluous purchases for a few years so that they can build up their savings enough to buy a farm in Vermont and raise their family without the need to work. While I know reaction to this writer have been mixed (it's very "you can do what we did too", despite the fact that the couple had no student loan debt and were from middle-class backgrounds with self-sufficient parents), it is quite inspiring, and reinvigorated my attempts at making conscious purchases.
  
  
• "Walden on Wheels: On The Open Road from Debt to Freedom" by Ken Ilgunas -- About a post-college guy's adventures in living minimally in his twenties while attempting to pay back his student loans. While there are a number of different experiences he discusses, the main focus is on him deciding to live in a van while pursuing a master's degree so as to save on living costs.
  
  
• "No Impact Man: The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal Who Attempts to Save the Planet, and the Discoveries He Makes About Himself and Our Way of Life in the Process" by Colin Beaven -- About a man with a young family who decides he will attempt, while living in their New York City apartment, to create zero impact on the environment for one full year. (This is also the title of a 2009 documentary about the same man, cataloguing his adventure.)
  
  
• "Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping" by Judith Levine -- About a middle-aged writer who decides, along with her husband, to only buy imperative purchases, like food and toilet paper. No clothes, souvenirs, event tickets, etc. I found this to be quite well-written and another inspiring volume.
  
  
• "The Year of Less: How I Stopped Shopping, Gave Away My Belongings, and Discovered Life Is Worth More Than Anything You Can Buy in a Store" by Cait Flanders -- Similar idea to the prior book, but instead it is a young woman living on her own. An enjoyable read, but I did not find it all that well-written.
  
  
• "Everything That Remains: A Memoir by The Minimalists" by Joshua Fields Millburn -- This book is by the guys who did the "Minimalism" documentary on Netflix. Pretty cookie cutter and not terribly well-written, but again, relatively inspiring. Something I appreciated about this book is that Joshua came from a very tumultuous, working-class background, which sheds a new light on going minimalist. (So often I feel like these memoirs are written by the typical white, affluent, college-educated Boomers or Millennials that have never had to struggle much with want.)

Not about travel, but very much about living frugally whilst achieving your dreams:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Meet-Frugalwoods-Elizabeth-Willard-Thames/dp/0062668137