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    Sunday, September 2, 2018

    Financial Independence Recently passed a major financial milestone but I can't tell anyone in my life, so here I am.

    Financial Independence Recently passed a major financial milestone but I can't tell anyone in my life, so here I am.


    Recently passed a major financial milestone but I can't tell anyone in my life, so here I am.

    Posted: 02 Sep 2018 10:27 AM PDT

    29/M just passed the $500k CAD net worth mark (521k today) but cant share this victory with anyone, as it would change a lot of relationships if anyone found out. So here I am posting to Reddit.

    The details:

    Working as a chemical engineer overseas earning in the low 200s, although taxes are in the 40% range. Able to save 80% of my after tax income to be able to FIRE at 40 with 1 kid budgeted (currently 0). Aiming for 2M with a SWR of 3.5% for annual income of 70k.

    All savings are invested passively. RRSP and TFSA are maxed out first and then the remainder into an unregistered investment account. I tend to favour Canadian bank stocks as they have an excellent track record. They've never cut their dividend and pay an average of 4%. I'm not well diversified here because of this but have averaged about 11-12% over the last 5 years.

    Real estate is a bit of a shit show in Canadian cities so I'm looking for lower CoL cities that don't put me in -40 winters (spoiler: there aren't many). So I'm keeping that 500k liquid and invested, which is working well so far.

    Thanks for reading. Its finally nice to be able to share this information even if it's more brag than humble. I really enjoy seeing people meet their goals and go fuck themselves!

    submitted by /u/cdres
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    I'm here to turn in my member card, I don't think I am allowed here anymore.

    Posted: 02 Sep 2018 04:18 AM PDT

    I've been on the FIRE path for quite a while and have achieved many key milestones along the way but I couldn't reconcile the two halves of my life in conflict here and one side had to win out. I say this in part in jest as I know the two are not mutually exclusive but it really does feel that way sometimes.

    Some time in the last couple of years I crossed LeanFI levels and have been working towards 'current lifestyle FI' (as I called it) or possibly even FatFIRE. My profession is a high intensity extreme travel type life, I've been on the road 250+ days/year for 16 years and my original goal was to get out of this by divorcing myself from the need for income and then find things to occupy my time.

    However, I've always been a 'car guy' and it was the one area where I've splurged a bit though always in modest proportions. For example, about 18 months ago it was time to retire my '03 Cobra for another daily driver, I settled on a low miles '10 Jaguar XKR where at $28k I thought the $ value/fun ratio was well in my favor and generally didn't disrupt my overall savings to any noticeable degree by paying cash for it. I also was hoping that buying the 'poor mans Aston' would satiate my desire for the real thing.

    It did not.

    I'm coming up to my 40'th and felt like I should do something to mark it and indulge a bit. I've wanted an Aston Martin my whole life and it was clear to me that even though the Jag was 90% the same, and even superior in some ways, that I still, for whatever reason, needed to have one even if it meant delaying RE whenever that would be.

    So I did it. I bought my dream car and just about broke all the rules doing it which is why I am here to turn in my membership card.

    So first off, the car. I started out looking for a 'cheap' DB9. As I went through the process I decided pretty early on that I really wanted three things in the car, the first being it had to be in a color scheme I liked (Aston Martin makes a lot of red and blue interiors, I don't think I could live with that), it needed to be no older than a 2009 (there were a lot of upgrades in that year I wanted) and it needed to be a manual transmission (only 5% of production is manual transmission and they carry a significant premium over the Sportshift cars). At that point, the market for a car with everything I wanted was WAY more than I originally intended to spend so I thought 'if I'm really going to spend that much, what else should I look at?' which is where I made the jump from DB9 to DBS, the 'flagship' of the Aston Martin line for the years it was in production.

    In the end, I wound up with this: https://imgur.com/aPvsoVY

    With the stablemates: https://imgur.com/qyM5iYN

    A 2009 black on black DBS with a manual transmission with ~24,000 miles.

    At over $100k it was REALLY hard to choke down spending that much money and there was no real way to justify it or rationalize it with my FIRE plans that I had been working on for years. I really just had to bluntly accept the fact that this means working at least an extra year, probably two or more and that in order to make this purchase I would need to be OK with that. After wrestling with that decision for a couple of weeks I went forward and bought it.

    And broke all the rules doing it. I could have written a check for the car and just been done with it but felt uncomfortable with how much of my taxable brokerage I would need to liquidate to do that. But the thought of taking on debt to buy something with no real 'need' in my life also was incredibly painful. In the end, I split the difference and financed half on a 48 month term at 3.6% interest which I thought was quite a reasonable term for something like this. Turns out that exotic and 'super' car financing is generally pretty good on terms (obviously depending on one's credit). I rationalized this to myself by looking it the loan as a matter of risk mitigation and by setting up the payment schedule as if it were a 12 months loan and plan to reduce my forward looking savings rate by about 50%. If something catastrophic went wrong in my life I still have a good cushion to carry me, if nothing goes wrong then I paid very little in interest and my brokerage account is fully replenished to pre-purchase levels in 12 months.

    It was really hard to shake all the lessons learned from reading things like 'The Millionaire Nextdoor', and other such books where it seems like the 'look rich, or be rich' is an either/or proposition and that if I did this, I would never achieve my FIRE dreams forever condemning me to corporate slavery. And while I couldn't continue to make decisions like this on an ongoing basis my realization is that FIRE does allow for indulgences on occasion, sometimes even great indulgences and that our mantra of 'build the life you want, then save for it' really is a better mindset to adopt.

    submitted by /u/R_Shackleford
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    FIRE ... 100 years ago

    Posted: 02 Sep 2018 01:19 AM PDT

    For anyone who thought FIRE was a new thing, here's Richard Hannay, in the opening of "The Thirty-Nine Steps" in May, 1914..

    "I had been building up those last years in Buluwayo. I had got my pile - not one of the big ones, but good enough for me; and I had figured out all kinds of ways of enjoying myself.... Here was I, thirty-seven years old, sound in wind and limb, with enough money to have a good time..."

    Hannay has been working as an engineer (!) in a LCOL area (South Africa)...

    "But from the first I was disappointed with it. In less than a week I was tired of seeing sights, and in less than a month I had had enough of restaurants and theatres and race-meetings..."

    Luckily fate intervenes in the shape of a (spoiler alert) dead man in Hannay's flat, and from then on it's off for a life of... well, you could say, volunteering, hiking, role-playing...

    Sound familiar?

    submitted by /u/nipfarthing
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    Did you spend more or less in retirement?

    Posted: 02 Sep 2018 10:00 AM PDT

    Am I done ?

    Posted: 02 Sep 2018 10:02 AM PDT

    34 years old. Married with 2 kids. Single income 320k. House paid off. Goal is to FIRE as soon as I can.

    Annual expenses 50K (including healthcare 8k), but expected to go up as kids get older.

    Investable assets 2.6 million, not including our home(500k)

    Asset allocation 70% stocks, 30% treasury bonds.

    Of the equity portion 70% VTI(US index), 30% VXUS (intl index)

    I am hesitating to make the jump because time off from work greater than 6 months often leads to difficulty getting employed and because of unexpected cost of living increase with kids getting older and healthcare being more costly.

    Advice is appreciated

    submitted by /u/Jaf3rd
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    Just cashed out 300k from a startup. What do I do?

    Posted: 02 Sep 2018 08:24 AM PDT

    I just cashed out about 300k in RSUs from a startup and am looking to get it into the market. I've normally just bought low cost index funds like qqq or ivv when I had money left over after expenses. However I'm worried about the risk of entering so much money into the market all at the same time (in other words what if I invest it all on a Monday which happens to be market peak for next six months). Any tips for how to mitigate that risk? Should go without saying that spending it in any way is not of interest.

    If it's helpful I'm 37, single with no house. And I have another 380k in a brokerage account.

    submitted by /u/Mytenthusername
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    I feel like I can finally begin :)

    Posted: 02 Sep 2018 01:02 PM PDT

    All my life I've dreamed of not having to suffer in work till the end of my life. Both my parents were abusive and drug addicts. My dad forced me to work during high school and took all of my money.

    I continued to work hard and made it to the top 10 schools in the world. I've been doing well, but had to take out loans because my parents contributed $0. It was pretty unfortunate. But after a long 2 year process, I am a financial independent and am getting a full ride off of sufficient proof that my parents are not capable of providing care.

    Now I will get to graduate with only -10k. Which isn't good, but I imagined it being so much worse. And now I can really focus on my school instead of working 3 jobs all year. I like to be humble so I don't share much with people in real life but I feel like I can share here :)

    submitted by /u/dixmvnd
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    Daily FI discussion thread - September 02, 2018

    Posted: 02 Sep 2018 04:08 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.

    submitted by /u/AutoModerator
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    FI/RE in Japan

    Posted: 02 Sep 2018 04:11 PM PDT

    I'm new to FI/RE, but have always been savings orientated. This is manly because I was laid off twice in my 20s and am terrified of this happening again. I live in Japan and find the lifestyle fairly in line with that of FI; national health and dental care and no real need for a car have helped a lot. My question is whether there is anything I could be doing in terms of retirement investing. I max out my Roth IRA and continue to invest outside of that. My company doesn't offer pension matching for contract workers, which I am, so that's not an option.

    I know there are some great tax breaks for home loans, you end up paying ~.7% interest for the first 10 years after that it goes up to 1.7% interest. I 'm considering this, but I am debt free now and would like to stay that way.

    Is there anything I've been missing?

    submitted by /u/Jstarpitch
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    Sell or keep four-plex?

    Posted: 02 Sep 2018 08:34 AM PDT

    Bought a four-plex in late 2015 for $500,000. Put down $150,000. Gross rents are about $46,000 a year.

    I net +/- $1100/month after everything. Property is managed and I haven't had to lift a finger the entire time. Recently saw that a property exactly like mine sold for $605,000 (same area just one street over from mine. same config, same rents) Made start to wonder if I should dump it, take my profits, and throw it into the market. Any thoughts?

    submitted by /u/revest1973
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    FI/RE in UK vs Australia vs USA

    Posted: 01 Sep 2018 07:37 PM PDT

    Hey guys, I thought it would be important to share my experience in the ease of reaching financial independence depending on which country you live in.

    I was born and bred in the UK (London) but moved to Australia (Melbourne) shortly after graduating university in London.

    For those on regular jobs who live in London, FI/RE is extremely difficult to reach due to 3 factors: Housing, Travel and Wages.

    Housing

    In London if you want to live in a decent suburb, not far from the city - you'd be lucky to pay £650 (~$1,200) per month to live in a room in a share house! I live IN the City Centre in Melbourne, in a luxury condo with beach views, a jacuzzi, swimming pool, private cinema room etc etc with my girlfriend and I pay $900 a month which is ~£500. Before this I lived in a share house just 5 km from the City Centre and paid $400 per month i.e. £222 per month.** Living here allows me to have a luxurious living situation, saving more than I would if renting a small room in Londo**n

    Travel

    Travel is amazing in Melbourne, we have a sophisticated tram system which is great, far less crowded than the London tube and COSTS MUCH LESS. In Melbourne we also have completely free travel within the city centre i.e. the Free Tram Zone. Even without free travel, a monthly travel pass here is around half the price of a monthly travel pass in London. Living here allows me to spend ZERO of my income on travel!

    Wages

    UK is a low wage economy, with high housing costs - this alone is the sole problem and barrier to people living in London reaching financial independence in <10 years. The average wage in Australia is around $70,000 i.e. around ~£40,000. The average wage in the UK is nearly half that. The UK has a sharp divide between rich and poor with 20% of its housing being paid for by the government - vs less than 5% here.

    The economic mess of the UK which I feel Australia uses as a benchmark for what works and what doesn't, makes it extremely hard for the average Londoner to FI/RE.

    When I moved here I noticed an immediate upgrade in my quality of life (not just by less crime, better weather, better transport services etc etc but HIGHER WAGES, MUCH CHEAPER HOUSING and ZERO TRAVEL COSTS.

    As a native Londoner who now lives in Australia (which has made it possible for me to be on the path to FI/RE, i can tell you that the struggle in London is real. Even for investment bankers on high salaries, the housing costs are just through the roof.

    USA also has much higher wages than the UK. For anyone on the path to FI/RE in the UK, they would have to be earning a way above average salary and live in a LCOL area.

    If I still lived in the UK and saw the sort of numbers that people are posting on here with respect to their FI/RE journey, I'd know it would be impossible for me to get there.

    My advice is to leave the UK and move to a high wage/lower cost of housing country!

    For anyone who is not in the top 5% of earners, if you thought FI/REing in the UK was easier, you're solely mistaken! It's a huge struggle there and even their minimum wage is much much lower than the minimum wage in Australia - I reckon even someone on the minimum wage in Australia could reach FI/RE easier than someone working a regular job in London. The struggle is real and I feel sorry for those who are in London working regular jobs spending such a huge chunk of their salary (they have no choice) on housing costs.

    submitted by /u/AspiringVagabondd
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    401k vs Roth 401k

    Posted: 02 Sep 2018 01:00 PM PDT

    I wrote this in the daily thread but it doesn't seem to be getting a lot of attention so I decided to make a thread and see what you guys think.

    Can someone just confirm if my thinking is correct. With a traditional 401k, it is pretax which means I receive a tax shield proportional to the marginal-tax-rate. Then in retirement when I pay taxes on the 401k withdrawals as this will be my only income (ignoring social security for now) it will be taxed at the effective tax rate. As the effective tax rate is always lower than the marginal tax rate, this becomes a net benefit, making pretax 401ks preferable (at least in this respect, assuming same incomes before and during retirement, all else being equal) than Roth 401ks.

    Example: Using this tax calculator to illustrate my point, assume you earn $100,000 per year. If you were to contribute to a Roth 401k you first pay taxes on your income. Using Boston taxes this gives you $7,2069 in after tax income. If you contribute $10k towards retirement then you have $62,069 in disposable income.

    If you want the same retirement "value" using a pre-tax 401k, first we need to figure out how much contributions are required. Using the same effective tax rate of 27.931% (100*(100000-72069)/100000) this means you'd need to contribute $13875.56 (10000/(1-.27931)) to get the same "value" as $10,000 after tax contributions. This makes your taxable income $86,124.44. Plugging this into the tax calculator gives that your after tax disposable income will be $63,125, which is $1,056 higher than if you had used a Roth 401k. This extra $1056 comes from the difference between the marginal and the effective tax rates.

    Now obviously, if you expect your income to be much higher during retirement (or if you just expect tax rates in general to rise) then Roth can make sense, and also since the contribution limits are $18,500 for each (and $5,500 for the respective IRAs) then you can contribute more in "value" to Roth accounts than pre-tax accounts. I just felt that this value in pre-tax accounts never really gets discussed and it has significant value.

    submitted by /u/giants4210
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    A crossroads

    Posted: 01 Sep 2018 10:18 PM PDT

    Hi everyone. I am new to this subreddit. Quit Reddit after fighting in other subreddits and realized this is the one that could have a positive influence on my life. The NYT article reminded me that I have been meaning to connect with you guys.

    Here is my story:

    Ok, I am in my fifties and single (gay). When I got out of college, I was put almost immediately into default for my student loans. That meant I couldn't apply for grad school and it also meant I spent 10 years with ZERO CREDIT. Because this was student debt, i could not declare bankruptcy and there was no 7 year limit. I was depressed and resigned myself to being a loser in life. My only credit card was a secured one. But, I am sure you people can imagine the discipline I learned over 10 years.

    Bill Clinton signed something that gave me a second chance with my $21k in Student Loans. I was a CS/Math major which meant I was able to at least stay employed and make a decent salary, I remember coming up with a long-term payment strategy, at the end of which I would get my credit back. I started paying and had an epiphany "What if I sacrificed and just put every cent I can into these loans? After 18 months, the loans were paid off. My salary was $40k/year and little did I know I'd be making 6 figures within 2 years.

    At that same time, at the age of 32, our CEO held an all-hands to tell us about the power of a 401k. I liked the idea of the company match, and went for it, albeit not as aggressively as I could have. But I stuck with it and never withdrew from it, not even when the dot com's busted up and then 911 happened and Inwas barely employed doing one-off freelance work. The discipline I learned from my twenties cane in quite handy.

    Two years after 911 I got a contract at a Biotech company after working contracts at KPMG and IBM, Both offered me full-time work which I refused. I knew then I was tired of corporate America and never felt welcomed.

    I don't know what you all know about drug companies, but the compensation package is very similar to the tech stories I've read on here. You get a healthy Basel % of vase for bonus, stock grants that vest in thirds yearly and you can buy stock at a15% discount quarterly. 401k match is 200% up to 3% of salary.

    Because this thread is getting too long I'll cut to the chase. Here is where I am today:

    My base salary + bonus barely exceed $200k.

    My 401k consists of mutual funds and cash to total $762k ( I consolidated with my former 401ks ) I am contributing 15%. I moved $250k of that money to a Money Market to stem losses during the next inevitable recession.

    I have $250k in company stock. I also have $100k in Amazon and about $50k in Apple. I bought fb right after it's IPO, but sold after learning how irresponsible they were with a data breach they could have avoided. I made good money on that stock.

    My total taxable is $461k,

    I paid cash for my AMG CL 45 which has a book value of about $35k.

    Our company stock jumped over the summer. I still owed $100k on my mortgage. If our promising drug is approved, the stock could double or triple. If not, it could halve. I imagined hating myself if the stock halved, so I decided to sell $100k of company stock to pay off the mortgage.

    I am new debt free.

    So, what is my problem?

    I hate Massachusetts and want badly to move to New York. I am getting older and life is passing me by. I plan to rent my condo and use the proceeds to subsidize renting in Hell)s Kitchen, NYC. I am ready to go tomorrow with or without a job.

    BUT, I suspect I am up for a promotion at work which would happen between now and February. Yes, I am anxious to move but I didn't get here by making irresponsible financial decisions. A promotion would bump my bonus up quite a bit and possibly increase my pay substantially. It would be a Director role.

    So...

    Do I just say "fuck it" and move, or do I wait a year and save more money? If I choose the latter, I hope to rent a place in NYC and go up,on weekends. I would probably need to move in with someone looking for a roommate to do that. Is it possible at my age?

    I have $250k in company stock,

    submitted by /u/MiltonManners
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    How accurate is Personal Capital’s You Index?

    Posted: 02 Sep 2018 10:02 AM PDT

    I've been with PC for over two years and receive their weekly portfolio performance update emails. This year my You Index is significantly outperforming the S&P 500 Index.

    I invest in MF in my 401k and a mix of MF, ETF and a small percentage of individual stocks in my IRA.

    My You Index this week is 1.48% for the week and 18.67% for the year.

    submitted by /u/mymrmark
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    Pulling the trigger and retiring early?

    Posted: 02 Sep 2018 07:13 AM PDT

    Most FIRE articles talk either about accumulating assets or about life after early retirement. This post is about making the decision to pull the trigger and retire early. I'm at the point where I have more than enough passive income and assets to retire and live very comfortably with minimal risk of depleting my assets. And I have access to subsidized health care insurance for life from a past employer. So why haven't I retired?

    1. I am in my peak earning years and am able to live very comfortably while also saving ~100 % of my earned income while living on my wife's earned income and my pension income.

    2. My wife isn't ready to retire. Perhaps in a few years.

    3. I enjoy working. My current jobs (including a side-hustle) are interesting, low stress, and flexible.

    4. I haven't come to terms with the notion of drawing down assets instead of accumulating assets. Many years of being in the habit of accumulation is a hard habit to change.

    5. I don't have a clear vision for retirement. Traveling for a year or two after my wife retires would be fun. But then what? I'm in good health and I anticipate 30+ years in retirement.

    6. I like the concept of volunteering and have volunteered for a number of organizations. But I'm not very patient and can't stand to be used unproductively. I'd rather work my side hustle and use the net proceeds to hire people that need the income and the opportunity to be productively employed.

    My definition of retirement is the ability to do what you enjoy and to not do what you don't enjoy. I don't enjoy lounging around the house or working around the house or yard. I'm not a blogger. I like intellectual stimulation, learning from others, and succeeding at efforts that have a measurable impact. I wonder if my definition of retirement is inconsistent with the concept of FIRE……

    But I haven't given up on the possibility of retirement. I've reduced my hours in my day job to part-time status and I take a 2+ month unpaid vacation from my day job to travel over the summer. My side hustle requires that I work on demand – but I can usually schedule that work in the mornings or evenings and do it from anywhere. Essentially, I am giving up a portion of my income to purchase free time and test drive a retirement lifestyle.

    It would be great to hear from others that are also having trouble with the RE part of FIRE.

    submitted by /u/FIRE-When-Ready
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    Finding a partner

    Posted: 02 Sep 2018 07:03 AM PDT

    Single 31/M living in a LCOL area with even lower paying jobs that it's difficult for many. I am very fortunate to have a well paying Union construction job that requires traveling for work occasionally, working odd hours, and risk of long layoffs when economical times are tough. I've also been fortunate enough that these risks haven't affected me nearly as much as some of my peers within the same industry so I'm thankful for that but they are still a threat that is always in the back of my mind.

    Money/finance is a big part of my life, realizing I'm in an area where I believe I can get ahead in those areas rather quickly relative to my location (Small town, Northeast US).

    My struggle is dating/meeting people. I don't want to sound like a jerk but I would really love to find a nice girl with a decent career but more importantly a similar mindset in the benefits of money and what's capable with it. But it's so hard to find these things out early on in a relationship to me in my area and so far I haven't met anyone where that isn't a deal breaker. This mindset in a woman I find very attractive. Seems like everyone in my area is struggling financially or is just swimming in debt. I grew up like and with all these people, I love it here.

    So after all that, anyone else in this sub in a similar situation as me and have any advice/tips on how to approach the subject, find like minded people, or to just share your experiences so I don't feel like such an outcast in my hometown.

    Thanks :)

    submitted by /u/IzaacNFJack
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    What is the sweet spot for saving/enjoying life?

    Posted: 02 Sep 2018 01:53 AM PDT

    I feel like I always stress about every dollar I could be saving. I'm 21 Y/O and not quite sure what savings rate will set me up nicely in the future 20-30 years from now. Currently I'm saving 70-75% after tax and I feel like my quality of life would go up if I spent some more on myself and didn't sweat the small things, but I keep thinking the small things will add up in the future, oh that $100 now could be $3000 in 30 years! This stuff just stresses me out... So should I save more than 50% after tax, or is it worth it to not sweat the small stuff and treat myself more? For some background info I am single, and take home roughly 5k monthly in a medium COL metro.

    submitted by /u/Individual_Fee
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    21yo student in a gap year: how do I get on FIRE?

    Posted: 02 Sep 2018 10:01 AM PDT

    Hi there,

    I'm a 21 yo student who's having a gap year, now I'm working for around a year and then I hope to go further with my study. Currently I live with my family which allows me to save more money. My bills monthly are around $300, I'm earning around $700 to $800.

    I have been thinking of purchasing land as an investment but since I'm earning not so much and I'm a student I do not think I can get a mortgage for the land. What else is there, that's possible to achieve with saving around $400 to $500 a month (for the next 10 months)? Should I be looking into stocks or something else?

    My goal is to build up enough money to retire early.

    Thank you for your time.

    submitted by /u/Hamadryaden
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    New to this - First time here - hello

    Posted: 01 Sep 2018 05:14 PM PDT

    I see folks posting their situations so I figured if I posted mine, I might get some optimization suggestions. Also this is just a hello post I'm actually pretty new to Reddit itself...just one of those things I studiously ignored over the years only glancing occasionally at a googled item.

    Although I do invest, I've let large amounts of cash sit idle for a long time which is a mistake. Currently in about 25% cash. If I'd been better about investing 10 years ago we could have retired by now.

    I'm 45, my wife is 43.

    We're both self employed - I do video production part time and make between $50-100k (it varies) per year gross at that (or have the last 6 years or so) and my wife is a piano teacher part time, she makes around $38k. We have 2 kids that are 4 and 7.

    I think our net worth is about 1.4M

    ~$360k in taxable brokerage accounts

    ~$25k in Roth IRA's

    ~$112k in SEP IRA's

    ~$164k in traditional IRA's

    ~$50k in HSA's

    ~$42k in kid's 529

    ~$30k in cash/checking/savings

    Our expenses come to about $60k a year - this excludes saving for retirement or college, but does include HSA's.

    A few musical instruments that have quite a bit of value - my wife's steinway cost more than our cars put together. But we're not selling them ever so no point in assessing value.

    Our house, which we bought in 2004 is probably worth about $600,000 and we owe $87k on it - should be done in 7 years or so at current rate of payments.

    Anyway, I feel like we're doing pretty good considering we haven't invested super aggressively and for the most part our earnings have always been modest - there were a few years in there where I made almost nothing and we've never had a penny of matching funds from an employer (neither of us has held a "real" job more than a year or so).

    My current video production contract is over in 2020 and after that I have to figure out what I'm going to do...not sure - I'm unsure what the market will be for people like me. My wife will probably work until she's 80, which is typical for piano teachers. I'll probably have an decent inheritance at some point but who knows - however my folks have been very aggressive in trying to grow the trust and protect it - and they have pensions that go till both are dead so they should be covered ok - so I think my share should be around $750k in today's dollars.

    Anyway, my wife and I were talking the other day about that it feels like we're doing better than most of our peers except those that are clearly rich folks (and have high paying jobs) and we're kinda clueless as to why that is. All our friends seem like they are stressed about money and don't have much saved for retirement, but I think we'd be ok if I quit most work in a couple years and the house is almost paid off - I can probably find something that makes 25-50k; just jobs here and there.

    submitted by /u/wallbobbyc
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