Financial Independence I've been reading a book on the Ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus, and the parallels with FIRE are striking. |
- I've been reading a book on the Ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus, and the parallels with FIRE are striking.
- Bogle's New Book - "Stay the Course"
- Is there a workaround to still max my 401k contributions after being classified as "Highly compensated employee"?
- Daily FI discussion thread - January 09, 2019
- Larry Swedroe: Does the Bucket Approach destroy wealth?
- Nervous and trusting your FIRE plan
- Is there a subreddit where lifestyle questions regarding FI can be asked?
- Re-invest dividends vs Money Market
- Weekly Self-Promotion Thread - January 09, 2019
- Dealing with lump sum (inheritance) when maybe knocking on door of FIRE/semi-FIRE
- Article on Retirement - Thoughts on ~.5% returns after inflation over the next 10 years
- I won the rat race
- Being perceived as "cheap" once people know you want to FIRE
- FIREd and now philosophizing..
- Post FIRE Expenses
- FI vs Divorce???
- Is It Work or Is It Passion? Paging the Retirement Police
- 36 years old, no college degree, collected unemployment in 2011, & Net Worth of $2.6M
- In which country, can I afford a nice lifestyle with $1000 / month income?
| Posted: 09 Jan 2019 12:04 AM PST Epicurus was one of the most important philosophers of the ancient world, but unfortunately since his philosophy was not compatible with Christianity (he believed the soul died with the body) most of his writings were destroyed by early extremist Christians, and he fell out of favour, which led to him not being as well-known today. He preached living a simple life, not chasing wealth, status or fame, but rather pursuing more meaningful ends - spending time with friends and family, in nature, appreciating life. He actually FIRE'd in 307 BC, leaving the social life of Athens to retreat to 'a garden' to live the simple life with his friends. You can read more about him on wiki, I suppose, but here are some quotes:
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| Bogle's New Book - "Stay the Course" Posted: 09 Jan 2019 09:27 AM PST I just picked this up at the library, and am excited to learn a little more about the history of Vanguard. I thought some others on here might be interested as well. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 09 Jan 2019 12:55 PM PST I received a letter the other day from my company's 401k plan administrator that says I am now classified as a "highly compensated employee" and I am capped at contribution 8% to the 401k. I spoke to HR and was told that the only reason I was able to max my 401k last year was because I had started at the company in late 2017 and they hadn't factored me in for their 401k tests until now. Since I am capped at 8%, I will only be able to contribute around $12k. This rule is crippling my retirement savings! I am 32 and have been contributing to a 401k for around 10 years but I was never able to max it until last year. My wife is currently a stay at home mother so I feel like I NEED to play catch up here and max out all my retirement options. I'm already maxing out my Roth IRA and a spousal Roth IRA in her name. Is there any workaround for this? I understand that the limit is just within my company's 401k plan. Could I start a sole proprietorship and do some kind of side jobs just so I can qualify for an individual 401k and earn just enough to park the remaining $7k that I am forced to leave on the table into there? [link] [comments]  |
| Daily FI discussion thread - January 09, 2019 Posted: 09 Jan 2019 03:08 AM PST 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]  |
| Larry Swedroe: Does the Bucket Approach destroy wealth? Posted: 09 Jan 2019 09:25 AM PST Link to article: https://www.advisorperspectives.com/articles/2019/01/07/does-the-bucket-approach-destroy-wealth Research finds that a typical 60/40 portfolio, rebalanced regularly, outperforms variations of the bucket strategy, given the same starting portfolio and SWR. [link] [comments]  |
| Nervous and trusting your FIRE plan Posted: 09 Jan 2019 11:37 AM PST Starting to get nervous about the RE portion of FIRE, as it appears to be possible and probable. 49 year old guy with $2M, plus over the next 17 months, will have an additional $400K of bonus and equity vesting. Targeting to exit the current work situation with about $2.5M (includes hopefully a little bit of additional 401K, ESPP, personal savings, plus a bit of market gains). Also, I have about $100K in HSA (but I don't really count that). Lastly, my partner has about $300K in savings. We live overseas on a company assignment, so will need to buy a home and resettle in the US somewhere. Took an overseas role that I am not enjoying (absolutely hate) and am beyond stressed out and work way too hard. I work so much and travel to one specific city so much that I rarely see my partner and I don't even get to see the country/region we live in. Also, my partner doesn't work as it's been really difficult for him to find a role that he wants to do and that works for us (i.e. jobs in his career field require working weekends and nights, which doesn't give us an opportunity to see each other). I am on a multi-year assignment which is coming up in about 17 months and starting to think that I want to quit, take some time away and then potentially get back into the workforce in the future, but at a less stressful situation. Plus, I have some personal goals that I want to work on during my off time or when I am working in a less stressful situation. I really don't like what I am doing, I have stress pains in my shoulders that travel down my arms, I am not sleeping, and I am starting to pull away from my partner with all the stresses that have been put on us in this situation. Plus, I am not a spender, so other than a house payment and car (which I plan on buying outright), my total outlay is less than $2,000/month. It's hard to walk away from a career that has pretty much defined who I am (right or wrong), plus walk away from such a lucrative position were, presumably, I am at the height of my earnings potential, and truly trust your FIRE plan. PS - Thanks for reading/listening. Don't really have anybody else who understands this situation that I can talk to. [link] [comments]  |
| Is there a subreddit where lifestyle questions regarding FI can be asked? Posted: 09 Jan 2019 07:40 AM PST Title is essentially the question. As I'm working toward FI, I'm finding that the wealth-building part of it is going nicely. However, having money at hand and new options available that I never would have had before is having an effect on me. Sometimes I find it gets me stressed, and I wish I could talk to other FI-minded people about their experiences to see where how they have dealt with the same issues. However, posts about that aren't allowed because they aren't concerned with the financial mechanics of FI, only about the surrounding lifestyle experiences. I know there is the daily discussion thread, but it filled up really fast with all sorts of little side-discussions, which is a good thing, but I'm not sure if it's a good place to ask for advice. [link] [comments]  |
| Re-invest dividends vs Money Market Posted: 09 Jan 2019 03:51 PM PST We're FI, and I'm going on a test "RE" at the end of the month for awhile (at least half a year, could last forever). Immediate spending needs (a bit over a year of expenses) are in VMMXX (Vanguard Prime Money Market), which FYI yields somewhere in the neighborhood of 2.4% right now. From taxable accounts, the dividends on VTSAX (Total stock market) and VASGX (Vanguard Lifestrategy Growth) will work out to be a little over 2% of our account balance, which works out to be around 80% of our yearly expenses. My not terribly important internal debate: Should I have my VTSAX & VASGX put dividends into VMMXX to keep it filled up, or should I have them re-invest, and I can sell funds at a quarterly cadence to keep VMMXX filled? My high level thought is that dividends going into VMMXX feels nice emotionally, because I'm not "selling" things, although I'm well aware that re-investing & then selling is the same thing. Just feels different if my account stays filled "magically". Also, if I re-invest (and separately sell to fill VMMXX a few times a year), I'd be making more tax lots, which could be confusing I suppose (although Turbotax makes it not terribly hard). Otherwise, if the amount of dividends is less than my expenses, there is no real difference in process far as I can tell. Am I missing something? [link] [comments]  |
| Weekly Self-Promotion Thread - January 09, 2019 Posted: 09 Jan 2019 03:08 AM PST Self-promotion (ie posting about projects/businesses that you operate and can profit from) is typically a practice that is discouraged in /r/financialindependence, and these posts are removed through moderation. This is a thread where those rules do not apply. However, please do not post referral links in this thread. Use this thread to talk about your blog, talk about your business, ask for feedback, etc. If the self-promotion starts to leak outside of this thread, we will once again return to a time where 100% of self-promotion posts are banned. Please use this space wisely. Link-only posts will be removed. Put some effort into it. [link] [comments]  |
| Dealing with lump sum (inheritance) when maybe knocking on door of FIRE/semi-FIRE Posted: 09 Jan 2019 10:43 AM PST My mother's estate house is sold and I'm supposed to be getting 99.5% of my inheritance (one last tiny bit is held up) one of these days. It's going to be something like $130k-$140k or thereabouts (I don't have the exact figure yet, either). Then, probably in a couple of months, a final $500 or so and that's it. I doubt we'll ever inherit anything else. My wife and I (48) are psychologically very ready for FIRE, but we don't have enough money to feel definitely financially ready for it. The plan is to probably semi-FIRE or barrista-FIRE this summer and beyond, with my freelancing. Part of our life transition is also finding a good state and community to live in. We'd like to buy a house after living in a rental for a year. But nothing is set in stone. Currently, we're too cash-heavy, with about $50k sitting in cash, though we're also trying to contribute basically 100% of our paychecks to 457(b) plans and a 403(b), and I'll probably make about a $7k solo 401k contribution soon, so some of that was intended to see us through the spring in terms of paying our rent and other bills, plus making sure our summer move is funded (and with a buffer). So, the question: What to do with the inheritance lump sum of ~$140k? Options include invest all of it in our brokerage account, retain all of it in cash for a possible house purchase in one year, something in between, or something I haven't thought of. I stayed out of investing for a LONG time because of "saving up to buy a house cash" and, as you all know, that plan didn't work out quite as well as I thought ;D My instinct now is just invest all this cash into the market (in a reasonable allocation) to not make that mistake again, but back then I wasn't seeing that through a FIRE lens--so I thought I'd check with the folks here first. EDIT: Requested details. Assets breakdown:
Total wealth: this is somewhere around $720k, or $850k with inheritance. Currently, everything but the 403bs are in equity ETFs. We had bonds in the brokerage account, but tax loss harvested them and sold them off at the end of the year. We will be buying bonds again soon, I think, though inside the retirement accounts. FIRE #: I guess a conservative full FIRE # for us is $1.5 million. That allows us to buy a $180k house and draw just 3% as a SWR and have just shy of $40k/yr to live on. A more luxurious FIRE life might start at $1.7 million. Salaries: Currently we together earn about $84k/yr. My wife's job is slated to end in Aug, and we're planning on going to "me freelancing only mode" after that unless something better comes along. No idea on what I can earn, but I'd say no less than $5k/yr. Goal would be like $30k and up. [link] [comments]  |
| Article on Retirement - Thoughts on ~.5% returns after inflation over the next 10 years Posted: 09 Jan 2019 09:30 AM PST https://www.barrons.com/articles/retirement-strategy-51546547866 " Morningstar warns that, over the next 10 years, a balanced U.S. stock and bond portfolio could generate, after inflation, roughly a half-percentage point before fees and taxes." I'm not even sure where the author got this data. Does anyone know where this is from, or what this is based on? I mean I know we are seeing volatility and arguably a bear market, but I'm super curious on this information. My FI estimates have much higher gains baked into them. (As do all of the calculators like firecalc) [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 09 Jan 2019 02:04 PM PST Today is my last day at work. This is the last thing I will type at this desk. I'm 28, and about to be a retiree who gets carded at bars. I won. I first learned about compounding interest when I was an unaccompanied homeless runaway minor, reading all the money books at the small town library. The obvious conclusion -- to do whatever it takes to make money ASAP, on the off-chance I would survive to adulthood -- has paid off. I did all kinds of dumb things for a dollar, like selling homework answers, stealing things knowing I wouldn't be convicted as an adult (yes, I did get arrested and had that record expunged), working in restaurants, cam modeling (which was horrible), fashion modeling, working in factories, etc. I had the great fortune of being 18 in the year 2008 when things were cheap. Compounding interest was on my side, but life was not. I ended up in an abusive marriage and had to drop out of college when things became too much. I taught myself computer science, got a job at a top tech company, and just winged it as a software engineer for the last 5 years. I divorced the asshole I was married to, found a really great partner who just happened to have the same net worth as me within 2k, and today I'm officially coastFIRE. I live a minimal lifestyle with climbing and cheap travel being my favorite activities. I never have to write another line of code if I don't want to. It's boring as fuck. I'm ready for anything now. If another Great Depression happens, at least we're less screwed than most, and I'm grateful every day for the luck I've had along the way. I've worked full-time with only a 6-week break between jobs since I was 14. So while I am young, I did start young. And no, I did not inherit anything except an allele for hemochromatosis. Nor do I stand to inherit anything at all in the future. Peace out. [link] [comments]  |
| Being perceived as "cheap" once people know you want to FIRE Posted: 09 Jan 2019 05:29 AM PST Background: M/31, have been following the FIRE mentality for about 2 years now. I grew up with generous Aunts / Uncles that paid for / helped me out when I was younger. I have since told them that I have these plans, and I think overall they think what I am doing is good. However, I don't want them to perceive me as this cheap guy, thats either doing things to "free load", which I feel I got away with as a youth, but shouldn't still be doing when I'm an adult. I'm still going to their house to eat dinner sometimes, and they often give me a bunch of things to go. Like for example, I offer to pay for a group family lunch, and they say "Don't worry about it, you need to save money for marriage" and at the same time openly telling Cousins etc that hes "very responsible and saves money". What I've learned overtime is that the best thing to do is just bring over things (cooked food) and not just Money, and they are usually more inclined to accept the good deed. I feel that this is to an extent ok with close family members, but being perceived as Cheap to acquaintances / not-so-close friends isn't the best way for people to think of when they see you. [link] [comments]  |
| FIREd and now philosophizing.. Posted: 09 Jan 2019 08:56 AM PST I know that will sound like a spoiled rant. But I admire this community and I want to get some other perspectives. So I am not even 40 and I FIREd. Kind of lucky thing. Invested well bought crypto early, got money from an NDA just because the other parties fucked up etc. And now here I am having all this time to travel and think. And I realize that I have money that is enough to feed small villages in Africa for years. Yes the world sucks and I am not a communist because I think it's utopia and it can never work. But still. I didn't use to think about this stuff. Somehow even if I convinced myself that I am smarter, more able, more hard working and luckier than most people on earth doesn't feel so awesome. And everyday I try to convince myself I am not a bad person that I am not donating my excess money. And the funniest think is that I only have 20% more than my ideal FIRE amount so it's not like I have FAT Fired or anything. Thoughts? Edit: Did not understand how negative people would get since I mentioned the dreaded hated word in here. Sorry. I should have said I luckboxed invested in Amazon in 1997. I know how reddit can be but still disappointed since my post is about being good in the world. Sad. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 09 Jan 2019 05:45 AM PST After reading an interesting article in the The Retirement Manifesto on creating a solid retirement spending budget, it got me thinking. While it is difficult to compare to others, due to differences in lifestyle, geography, etc, I thought I'd reach out to this community and try and get at least an idea of what to expect. This may help myself, and others, start to budget our retirement expenses better. When I do the rough calculation, my future expenses drop by 40%, this decrease appears high compared to what research I've done and what calculators that are out there say. Details:
My wife and I are very frugal and don't care much for luxury possessions. We do not plan on having a big house or multiple properties in retirement. We do travel a lot however and plan on home swapping in retirement so we don't double up on the rent. When I put together our rough budget in retirement, it comes in around $6K / month with a $1K / month buffer. Am I nuts or is this what others were able to live on in similar situations of moving from a HCOL to LCOL? I would love to hear from others who have made the transition on what they are currently spending per month, who have similar circumstances. Thanks! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 09 Jan 2019 07:14 AM PST This news about Jeff Bezos getting divorced has me wondering whether there might be a negative correlation between financial independence and marital/life satisfaction? Jeff Bezos is obviously FI and looking at his case and those like Mr. Money Mustache has me wondering whether somehow pursuing or achieving FI has some negative effects on life satisfaction? https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/amazon-ceo-jeff-bezos-announces-145135434.html [link] [comments]  |
| Is It Work or Is It Passion? Paging the Retirement Police Posted: 08 Jan 2019 07:32 PM PST As someone with fuzzy RE plans, I found this a solid, direct look at the concept of 'working after retirement'. "Most people with whom we have this conversation have one particular definition of retirement: You are not retired if you are receiving money for work performed... "We'd like to counter this simplistic point of view." https://retireearlylifestyle.com/work_or_passion.htm Anyone here feel there's a line they'll refuse to cross post-FIRE? [link] [comments]  |
| 36 years old, no college degree, collected unemployment in 2011, & Net Worth of $2.6M Posted: 09 Jan 2019 05:58 AM PST 36 years old, no college degree, collected unemployment in 2011, divorced in 2011, have ADHD and Net Worth of $2.6M I'll preface this by saying my primary reason for posting this is to explain my background since it wasn't the typical route for those who want FIRE. People seem to get motivated when I talk to them about my story, so I felt I'd mention it here since I think most people incorrectly assume you have to be well educated and on the right path right out of college. Not sure if anyone will have questions, but if it helps anyone, then awesome!! Current assets now include: $2M in real estate over 6 properties. Excludes any debt I have which is only $100k on everything. $300k in retirement funds $300k in liquid funds It feels great to be "comfortable" but there's also a lot of stress I place on myself since I always want more. That's part of the reason (read: problem) that I've been able to overcome some previous hardships. Personally, I'm not where I want to be yet, but I know I could retire early now if I wanted too. Will probably give it another 5-9 years and then "retire early" by 45. By retire early, I mean I'll likely take on something that will involve working 20 hours a week or less as I can't imagine not working at all. Would like to get to $10M net worth by the time I'm 45, and I have a pretty good plan for that already. I currently work about 80 work weeks, as my own boss, so it's all self imposed. I generally start working at 5:30/6am, and wrap up around 7 or 8pm. Another 10 hours on the weekends as well. I'm working on cutting this back to around 50-60 hours. Takes a toll on family time. I love being able to provide and take my wife on $500+ dinners, take my family out on vacation, buy most of what I want, and not have to worry about money. It's great. But the money definitely does not make me happy. The pursuit and end goal is what drives me. I live for setting and reaching goals, crossing off milestones, and honestly beating other people. I'm competitive by nature, but also never satisfied, which is a huge problem, and another story in and of itself. Now for the backstory: I grew up poor until a teenager when my parents hard work made things better. Spanish was my first language and I was in ESL until 4th grade. I dropped out of college due to ADHD. Was generally one of the smartest kids up until 7th grade and then school became difficult, but not due to the material, but due to not being able to fully read and memorize the material I was reading. I understand difficult concepts, and taking Vyvanse in the last 6 months has been a big help, but never took medication before. After high school, I went to a local university but wasn't getting the needed grades and had to stop going because my GPA wasn't going to cut it anymore for the business major I wanted. My GPA was 2.1, and the business school needed about a 2.75. I started working with family in my early 20's and continued into late 20's. Once the recession got deep, I was laid off at the very end of 2010 and collected unemployment for about a year in 2011. Got divorced in 2011. 2011 was a very low point in my life with no real end in sight. In hindsight, it was the reason I had to reevaluate my life, but at that point, I wanted it to end. My saving grace has always been a natural understanding of business, marketing and real estate. I've never been a sales person, but have been more of a business person. I'm too honest to be a sales person, but I'm great at getting my point across and understanding how things work from A to Z. Before getting laid off, I was making about $40k-$75k per year with no real benefits or stock options. I was able to purchase a couple great properties for dirt cheap (under $50k) through REO foreclosures before getting laid off. One of which was a small 1 bedroom duplex which I had to end up moving into due to money issues in 2011. I went from a 3k sq ft home to 550 sq ft in order to save money. I also got money out of credit cards and bought a few properties that I flipped, and finally got my real estate license in 2012. I hustled hard, dated and married an amazing woman with 2 children of her own, and we have 1 more on the way! Before obtaining my license in 2012, I struggled to find out what to do since the industry I was previously in was not in demand anymore and without a college degree, you're pretty much screwed unless you have some type of valuable experience, which I didn't. I thought about managing restaurants, but they wouldn't hire me because I had no experience. I was a jack of all trades and a master of none, big mistake! Same thing for other industries, so I got my real estate license since it had a low barrier of entry, and without any help or handouts. Fast forward from 2012 to now and I went from making $60k in 2012, to $600k last year, including 4 years now of income over $475k+. I've made great investments in real estate, private lending, and now hopefully the stock market. I'm now considering investing in other businesses since it's relatively easy for me to understand the concepts, risk, and potential of most investments. My biggest obstacle now is having too many ideas and goals, and not enough hours. Wanting to spend more time with my family is also something that motivated to FIRE. Hope this helps! Edit 1: Adding more info as to the steps and what changed after I lost my job and pushed me towards the FIRE path, which honestly wasn't something I even remotely considered at the time. I just start doing what I felt was wise. This all started in 2011 and might help someone in a similar situation.
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| In which country, can I afford a nice lifestyle with $1000 / month income? Posted: 09 Jan 2019 08:56 AM PST Suppose I have a small family and I'm not a huge spender. I was thinking Thailand. Also, how do I manage the visa situation? [link] [comments]  |
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