Financial Independence Milestone: My First 100 Grand |
- Milestone: My First 100 Grand
- My monthly expenses from 1995 to 2018 raw and adjusted for inflation
- As you are / were pursuing FIRE, do you have a favorite story that involves others that just don't get it?
- Those who FIRE'ed or plan to, do you budget money for charity work/donation?
- Job hopping to fast track fire?
- 35yrs, 700k stocks, 215k house, 500k cash: to FIRE or not to FIRE?
- Daily FI discussion thread - June 02, 2018
- Missed a Huge Milestone, But I Finally Cracked $100k! Also, Thank You
- Local financial planner?
- The date is set!
- Am I a bad candidate for FIRE?
- Ee bonds?
- Employee matching but funds locked until 55?
- Housing market and should we sell?
- 22yo lawyer + 50k, long term financial strategy for FIRE at 35?
| Posted: 02 Jun 2018 06:45 AM PDT I've been a lurker on this sub for a long time, and I love reading everyone's stories about how they got on their FIRE path, so I thought I would share my own, even though my net worth is pretty moderate by many standards. I am 31 years old, and have just made it to my first $100,000. I grew up with great parents, but from early on I could see how debt affected their lives. My mom had a six figure job and my dad mostly didn't work. Mom supported Dad financially, especially his gambling habits, which took a big chunk out of any hopes for retirement she had. Mom is now 64 and still working full time. The law firm that she dedicated 30 years of her life to fired her during the 2009 recession. Mom never paid off the house, instead taking out a second mortgage after she got canned. In short, my parents have always spent any money they earned rather than saving it. I was able to go to college for free due to scholarships and some financial help from my grandma. I worked at the financial aid office as a work study during my time there. Every day I would watch 18 year olds sign their lives away for unsubsidized student loans. Most kids didn't even want to know the difference between subsidized or unsubsidized; they only wanted to know how much they qualified for. I made excellent grades and made it out of college debt free, but with a useless Bachelor of Science in Religious Studies. Not a great choice on my part, but live and learn. My first full time job after I graduated was as a cashier at a grocery store. I abhored every minute of it. The plan after graduating was to teach English overseas, but by this time, I was married to a man I had met while in college. He had been going to classes for seven years and still hadn't graduated. My husband worked at a local video game store owned by our friend who was having to file bankruptcy. By combining our life savings, money I had inherited from my grandpa, and two loans we took out from my grandma and his grandma, we bought the video game store. We really turned that place around, and we worked our asses off to pay back our loans. After just six months of ownership, our business was in the black. For the first time in our lives, we were making real money, and it felt amazing. We found a great deal on a house and paid for it in cash. By 27 years old, I had done what my parents could not: paid off the house. It felt great. Even though finances were good, managing the businesses weighed heavy on our marriage. We even opened up two more stores. But the stress combined with our own personal problems swelled and blew up in our faces. We divorced, and my husband took the house and the businesses. I took $50,000 and put it in mutual funds then went on a six month long hike. This was first time since I was 17 years old that I didn't have a job. The feeling of having a basically six month vacation was intoxicating. Try it: it will ruin you to figure out how to retire as soon as possible. The hike also taught me that I don't need much at all materially to be happy. Just living with what I could carry in my backpack was plenty enough to make me content. Since the hike, I have been living a much different life than when I owned the businesses. My jobs have been low stress and low pay, but the money I put into investments has grown to $80,000. On top of that, my grandma left me an inheritance of $20,000. So, sooner than I expected, I have no debt and a net worth of $100,000. My grandma made most of her money through real estate, and I have thought about buying another fixer upper in cash, both as an investment and a way of honoring her. Even if I don't, I will continue to reinvest my capital gains and dividends. Anyway, I don't talk to my family or friends about how much money I have, and it felt good writing it all down. Thanks everybody and best wishes on your endeavors. I admire you people! TLDR: Saved money through frugality, owning business, luck, and help from family. Feels good. [link] [comments]  |
| My monthly expenses from 1995 to 2018 raw and adjusted for inflation Posted: 02 Jun 2018 02:03 PM PDT Long time reader, first time poster. I'm FI but still contemplating RE. So I've been religiously tracking my monthly savings rate after expenses since 1995. Every year or so I chart both the expenses as is and adjusted to inflation per https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl . __________________________________________ Here's a post I made almost a couple of years ago: CHART: https://i.imgur.com/yjx5ZRA.jpg __________________________________________ I'm pretty proud of having been able to keep spending in a fairly predictable range in spite of major life changes. Q&A welcomed! EDIT: Formating [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 02 Jun 2018 08:23 AM PDT During college football season, I tailgate with a number of friends and we've done so over the last 24 years. They're all good people. We have our group routines and share food prior to the game. However, beer / alcohol is bring your own. For the first 15- 20 years, I bought the cheapest or nearly the cheapest beer i could find, in bulk (30 pack, as long as it tasted ok). Most of the others would stop on the way to the tailgate and get their favorite 6 or 12 pack of beer from the local store (3x or 4x the price per once as my cheap beer). I always put my empty cans in my cooler to collect the deposit. They often would throw their cans away or give them to a can collector. Nothing wrong with giving to a good cause. For much of that time, my drinking of cheap beer and keeping the returnables was the source of a lot of laughs for the group. My 30 pack was the same price as many of their 6 packs, and certainly less expensive than their 12 packs. Sometimes, one my buddies would throw their returnable in my cooler for an extra laugh. The jokes were never mean spirited and i honestly rarely cared as I laughed along with them. Well, fast forward to today ... after a couple recessions, college payments for kids, etc. I'm the guy drinking the weird craft beer and some of them are drinking the bulk cheap beer. Much of the time, they feel the need to justify their cheap beer choice due to kids in college or some new debt they've occured. i'll often give them one my newest craft beers for them to try as they sometimes did for me. The annual jokes have long stopped but i tell my kids the old jokes still .... save early in your life and that money saved will multiply big time! [link] [comments]  |
| Those who FIRE'ed or plan to, do you budget money for charity work/donation? Posted: 02 Jun 2018 03:30 PM PDT I figure that if I FIRE'ed, I'll have plenty of time to pursue some of my aspirations. Doing charity work or donating to the cause, especially for animals, is big for me. So just want to get people thoughts out there. [link] [comments]  |
| Job hopping to fast track fire? Posted: 02 Jun 2018 02:53 PM PDT So I may have the opportunity to move back to my home town. Nothing set in stone yet, but I'm starting to think of a strategy because moving back home would exponentially increase my savings rate. A HR rep contacted me and after some screening questions decided to request approval to reduce the year requirement from 7 to 2+ because my experience is unique and rare for the area (kind of a red flag since that's a big drop, but I have a lot of questions for my potential interviews) which was successful. If I move back I'll move back in with my parents (already established this would be ok) so I'd immediately save at least $1k per month in fixed costs. My only concern is this would be the 3rd job in 3 years since graduating college... I know job hopping is becoming normalized, but this seems a little excessive. This was addressed in the screening interview where I responded with: I'm successful in my current role and happy with my job, but this opportunity allows me to move back to an area that I would be happy to live in and give me more options to pursue my MBA in a brick and mortar institution (I'm currently in a remote location and the need to eventually move has been discussed with my current boss so this job is a means to an end). The rep mentioned there shouldn't be an issue with that reasoning (again highlighting the unique experience I have), but we'll see if the hiring manager agrees. In summary, I'm trying to weight the "job hopper" brand on my resume (what if I get laid off before I put in a substantial amount of time) against all the pros. If this pans out to an offer should I job hop to fast track FIRE or wait for an opportunity to transfer internally to a location that satisfies my medium term goals (promotion/MBA)? [link] [comments]  |
| 35yrs, 700k stocks, 215k house, 500k cash: to FIRE or not to FIRE? Posted: 02 Jun 2018 09:43 AM PDT Hi guys, My current situation is as follows: 35yr old unmarried male, living in the Netherlands where capital gains tax is 1.62% in my situation. Assets: 1. 700k in stocks; 600k with an asset management company that charges 1% annually. 100k with an index fund that charges 0.5% annually. 2. House worth 215k that I rent out, resulting in roughly 1000 euro net. 3. Co-own a small business that generates roughly 1000 euro net. 4. 500k in cash. 5. I could take a 300k loan at 1.2% on my stock portfolio (not an asset, but interesting option in the future perhaps). So basically I'm earning 2500 euro a month after taxes and I'm trying to decide how to spend the other 500k in order to live out my days comfortably. I'm seriously considering buying two more properties on the local market, each should yield around 1250 to 1350 euro in rental income each month. I'm unmarried, I live with roommates/friends and my monthly costs are around 2500 euro at the moment. I spend most of my money on travelling and having fun with my friends, I own a few older cars just for the fun of it. I'm enjoying my life but I'm not sure which direction to go down next. Real-estate? Early retirement? Perpetual travel? Was hoping for some ideas from the community here. Thank you in advance. [link] [comments]  |
| Daily FI discussion thread - June 02, 2018 Posted: 02 Jun 2018 04:09 AM PDT Please use this thread to have discussions which you don't feel warrant a new post to the sub. While the Rules for posting questions on the basics of personal finance/investing topics are relaxed a little bit here, the rules against memes/spam/self-promotion/excessive rudeness/politics still apply! Have a look at the FAQ for this subreddit before posting to see if your question is frequently asked. Since this post does tend to get busy, consider sorting the comments by "new" (instead of "best" or "top") to see the newest posts. [link] [comments]  |
| Missed a Huge Milestone, But I Finally Cracked $100k! Also, Thank You Posted: 02 Jun 2018 04:18 PM PDT Hey everyone, Long time lurker, but first time poster here. I hadn't sat down to really go through my finances in a couple of months, and I received a bonus at work, so I totally missed this milestone. It's nowhere near some of the numbers I've seen here, but it's a big one to me! Cracked six figures net worth @ 32 and single. Although my mortgage debt is pretty heavy, it's very low interest and my investments are performing well, so I haven't had the incentive to pay it down. Assets: $252,520.93
Debts: -$138,945.29
Net Worth: $113,575.64 Just wanted to say a huge thank you to everyone here for showing me that it's OK to embrace my frugality and avoid getting caught up in the web of consumer culture and lifestyle creep. Edit: I should point out the car is included in NW because it's a rare and collector car, and has historically appreciated since I came to own it. As such, I felt it reasonable to consider it in my assets. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 02 Jun 2018 04:09 AM PDT Hi all - I was wanting to get advice on how to find a local financial planner (I'm in San Antonio, TX) that I know would be on board with helping us plan for FI? I have several mutual funds/stocks I would like to sell and place the money in Vanguard index funds instead, but I want to make sure I do it correctly as to minimize paying taxes. Any tips on where to find/how to find financial planners that are "down with FIRE" for lack of a better term? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 01 Jun 2018 04:50 PM PDT USA here. I post here regularly, but this is a throwaway, because I'm pulling the trigger, and I've let my management know. I gave about 4-5 months' notice, time enough for some additional restricted stock units to vest, another bonus, and for my managers to search for a replacement. I'm highly valued, so I'm not worried about being cut adrift. I'm hoping for some input on anything I've missed. My plan is to spend very little (I'm quite frugal) and let my net worth outpace inflation for a few years. I'm not knowledgeable about tax mitigation strategies or other fancy-schmancy things. ASSETS
BILLS
That's all! :-) EDIT: Here's the bulk of it, in case anyone wonders about allocations. [link] [comments]  |
| Am I a bad candidate for FIRE? Posted: 02 Jun 2018 01:41 PM PDT So I've been a big follower of r/fi and r/leanfire. Made pretty drastic cuts in cost of living in order to save money (since I made 40k). I decided to take a sabbatical (was going back to school, and afterwards took me awhile to find a job). The first few weeks were awesome for me. But after that it was just boring. I kept trying new hobbies but nothing stuck longer than a month or so. I wasted hundreds of hours on hearthstone, but I think I was just killing time because I don't even play the game anymore. It was a big big disaapointment. Also, another thing is that I'm not super crazy about travel. I think one of the big benefits of FIRE is that you can easily do a multilong month trip somewhere. I just don't think I'd care. A 3 day weekend spent in the next state as sort of a small getaway is enough for me. So what do you think? I really admire the thinking of FIRE. I never hang out on r/personalfinance, I almost read these subreddits daily. But I don't think it's for me. What do you think. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 02 Jun 2018 08:02 AM PDT Anyone here investing in EE bonds? If you hold them for 20 years, they double in value. [link] [comments]  |
| Employee matching but funds locked until 55? Posted: 02 Jun 2018 12:40 AM PDT Hello friends, I'm based in Sweden and therefore our pensionrules are slightly different than those in the US. I'll try to explain them briefly: We basically have three pension systems. A government pension, an employer pension and a private pension.
Now my question: employer matching is unheard of in Sweden, but they offer it at my new job. Besides the extra 4,5% that my employer pays to my pension every month, I have the option of putting more money aside and my employer matches it by 50%, so 500 dollars turn into 750. The catch is that the money is locked for withdrawal until I turn 55, but I am free to invest the money how I see fit in that time. Now I'm almost 30, and we are at a good point money wise, we save half our income every month and I think we can retire well in 5-10 years. So knowing all this I have a hard time figuring out if I should take the offer, it's obviously a direct 50% ROI which is awesome, but I likely won't be able to withdraw it until ~15 years into our retirement. Another 6-10 years later the guaranteed pension will kick in and we'll be in a very good spot. But will we need that much money then? I need your advice, what would you do? Take that sweet ROI knowing it's completely locked for another 25 years? Or take the money and invest it outside the system? Also please let's not make this is a discussion about which country's system is better ok?! :) [link] [comments]  |
| Housing market and should we sell? Posted: 02 Jun 2018 09:20 AM PDT I bought a house December last year and I'm regretting it. My spouse and I agree it was too much money for our FIRE goals, but my parents needed to sell and they gave us a great offer. My worry is that when the market crashes again, housing prices will fall and I'll be stuck in California for another 5 years. (What was I thinking?! Trying to help my parents out backfired) I'm thinking we admit it was a mistake and sell next spring/summer. What do you think housing prices will do with the next recession? [link] [comments]  |
| 22yo lawyer + 50k, long term financial strategy for FIRE at 35? Posted: 02 Jun 2018 10:11 AM PDT Hey! 85-15 % USD bond-stock relative conservative portfolio constructed of South-American stocks and national bonds in the 9%-5% USD IRR spectrum each with rate yields every 6 mo (2024-2035; amortization starts in 2020). I've been working since 18, starting up with a shitty salary and getting promoted, while aiming to invest 80%+-15 of income each payday in a bond-ladder with 9% USD IRR (+20% cap gain since). Therefore, I get an interest payment every 3 months that I consequentially reinvest to optimize the feedback loop. 100K targeted by end of 2019. The strategy consists of building an influx-cash retrofed bond ladder that would be held until finish, in an age of rising rates with J P and thus an incremental flight to quality effect, the country has to circumstantially pay 9% IRR 20Y. I'm getting my diploma cum laude this December, local law determines you get a +20% pay increase! As a bizz lawyer in the digital age Ive determined that im just gonna focus on the stuff i genuinely like: a career change into finance. On the academic front, I speak 3 languages (fra-sp-eng) and would like to get fluent in mandarin. An MBA in the near future sure would be great, while learning some python'd also interest me! Im looking for comparative advantages.
Next diversification phase after 100k goal would be to spread across currencies, some real state and agro-bizz in a local 50-acre family owned farm (currently un-used). [link] [comments]  |
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