We're all about creating and curating things that help you align with the freedom, purpose, and abundance you were made for.
Tico + Tina
est 2004
Hey, we're David (tico) & Chris(tina). We think the stuff that holds people back from living anything less than a dangerously free and wildly beautiful life (stuff like fear, discouragement, oppression, lack, and the like) can respectfully go to hell where it belongs.
Some of our experience includes living debt free since 2005, working together from home since 2010, homeschooling year-round and traveling up to 8 months of the year since 2012.
Our Simplify and Streamline content will help you "un-complicate" and "un-clutter" your life to make room for greater peace, passion, purpose, and productivity.
Our Scale content is for those who want to level up and change the world!
We share tips and resources for creating a successful location independent life with a family, as well as a higher quality of life in general, all on a budget: small business and passive income, minimalism and travel, better relationships, flexible education, and uncommon spiritual life. You can also find the more personal, behind-the-scenes stuff here.
*We strongly prefer not to have ads plastered on the site, but it was our main source of income for awhile, (along with sharing affiliate products we use and love). We appreciate your patience as we continue working on developing less intrusive streams of income.
1999-Today
Our journey so far in a nutshell...
David came up with TicoandTina when we wanted to make a new couple email address for our upcoming nuptials. I thought it was brilliant (Tico, a nickname from college, means Costa Rican, which he is.)
I (Christina) have always been the main person behind the content, and I got David to help me with all the tech-y stuff. As I started to transition the blog from personal to more professional, I floundered around a lot about how to deal with branding because "Tico & Tina" obviously doesn't have any immediate connection to how we might help someone who happens across our little space on the web.
The first tagline I used was "Embracing the Journey", then at some point I really liked "F(orget) Normal. you were made for an uncommon life", which eventually evolved to "Designing an Uncommon Life" (a nod to my design background). Then I tried on "Make Room for Greatness" for a while because it fit better with the minimalist content that was really resonating with people at the time. We even bought the domain and started branding our pins that way, though it always just redirected here.
Although we had good traction and traffic with the minimalism audience, I sort of internally freaked out about getting stuck in having to focus on that content forever, because even thinking about being pigeonholed into any one topic feels very suffocating to me. So between that and going through a big spiritual deconstruction, I completely lost momentum for yeeeaars.
I needed to resolve my internal friction of how to tie together all the types of content I wanted to make, and freedom has always been the underlying theme of my life. So I thought maybe using The Liberation Collective *curated by Tico+Tina would feel right. I still like that concept, but I've kinda come back around to wanting to build our personal brand into all things practical for a freedom-based lifestyle.
All this identity shifting has probably given anyone trying to figure out wth we're doing some sort of whiplash - certainly David, and not least of all myself. The thing is, I've realized I can't get excited or build/maintain any sort of momentum if I feel like I'm just creating into some sort of content black hole. I have a deep need for some sort of structure of meaning. It's like I've been trying to construct a skeleton out of this pile of bones...maybe it will always be a work in progress.