Financial Independence Daily FI discussion thread - July 04, 2019 |
- Daily FI discussion thread - July 04, 2019
- Well, I FIR'd last week. (Not E unfortunately)
- I'm 23 and I want to thank you all for shaping my thoughts
- Jay Leno on accumulating wealth
- 50 days to FIRE
- Hit a big milestone ($800k NW, 30yo) this past week and wanted to share how I got here
- “Required reading” for those interested in retiring early abroad?
- 180k as of July 4th
- Best investment vehicle to save side money in a tax efficient way
- Cheapest U.S. Cities for Early Retirement
- Thoughts on the pinwheel?
- Finally hit ~200k Mark 6 Years After Graduation!
- What do you all do when you reach a certain milestone in your FIRE journey?
- Buying small business as a way to reach FI?
- One more year syndrome
- What are you giving up on the way to both FIRE and health?
- Is FIRE worth it?
- The FU Salary >FU money
| Daily FI discussion thread - July 04, 2019 Posted: 04 Jul 2019 01:08 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. [link] [comments]  |
| Well, I FIR'd last week. (Not E unfortunately) Posted: 04 Jul 2019 04:57 AM PDT Hopefully it's appropriate to celebrate this here, even though I didn't manage it until over 60. Looking around the rest of the world, I feel very fortunate to be able to retire at all. A lot of people are having a rough time out there, and it makes me determined not to squander this amazing gift. Yeah, I worked hard, but so have a lot of others. Last week was a whirlwind of farewells, parties, happy hours and friends taking me to lunch to celebrate. I left on very good terms, and everyone was genuinely happy for me. They made it clear I was welcome to return later should things change. I spent a few minutes looking around my old haunts, shook hands with my boss one last time and drove home. It feels really weird right now, and I'm still getting out of the mindset that I have to finish something before Monday. I hope to never again set eyes on an Outlook calendar. Maybe a little dorky, but this was my retirement farewell speech for the reception at work: At some point in our lives, we discover we've had our last summer. We don't recognize it at the time, but a year comes along where summer is spent working, then in school, then career, and after a while summertime is just walking across a hotter parking lot at work. My last summer was 1974, with my two best friends -- playing and swimming at the lake. Today I'm restarting summertime, after a 45 year interruption. So no firm plans for now, just short term. Since it's the 4th, I have an appointment with my boat, Jimmy Buffet, and a full cooler of beer. That might be my plan for the next week too! Let the GFYourself's begin! On edit: Just got back, have a warm buzz, and find that this exceptional community of kind redditors have gifted me with my very first silver AND gold. Things just couldn't be better right now. Thank you so much for adding to an already perfect day! I promise to try and respond to any specific questions soon, but the grill is hieating and there's still some Heineken left in the cooler. Duty calls, my friends. Happy 4th to everyone! [link] [comments]  |
| I'm 23 and I want to thank you all for shaping my thoughts Posted: 04 Jul 2019 04:32 AM PDT So I have been financially sound since I started earning(21). I have begun investing already and will be debt free by August 2020. I make about 10lakhs(100 thousand for non Indians here) INR per annum (pretty decent here in India for a 23 year old). I found a girlfriend who shares similar opinion about money. She's the one and combined we make over 20 lakhs per annum. We can comfortably(more like luxuriously) live with 6 lakhs including the occasional trips we make. Investing the rest like crazy and I already feel the sense for freedom it gives :) there's never gonna be another loan in our lives. We live way below our means, yet a comfortable tension free one. We have decided to marry in a simple ceremony. And have decided to be childfree. DINKS + Starting early, I believe is the best way to start, isn't it? Thanks ya all, now I am sure how I am gonna live. A very safe life ahead! [link] [comments]  |
| Jay Leno on accumulating wealth Posted: 04 Jul 2019 08:40 AM PDT Turns out that Jay is dyslexic, and learned at an early age that he was going to have to work twice as hard as everyone else to become successful. Since high school, he would usually have two jobs - he would bank all of his earnings from one and live off the other. And even when he started earning serious money on The Tonight Show, he banked all that money and lived off what he made doing standup shows 2-3 nights a week. Here he is being interviewed by Dr. Phil, and he talks about his work ethic. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 03 Jul 2019 05:54 PM PDT OK its time!!!!! Goal was to FIRE by 50, Im am currently 49 and 3 months. Handed my notice in to current employer and will finish up second week September. 3.1 million in property with a LTV ratio of 59% - Property self funding with approx 20K left over each year. Household net worth of 1.85 million Wife will continue to work for 2 more years as she is on a good wicket (180K+ per year) and will pay for our sons last year of uni and our daughters last year of college. Household budget forecast out until I am 80 (forecast being the optimal word) What is my plan?
Concerns (fears) Bucket loads - but fear has never stopped me in the past and I always advocate people taking opportunities when they present themselves (good chance to prove LUCK = preparation meeting opportunity) Other peoples negative views and comments (90% of the time severe envy) My career opportunities will be significantly reduced if I need to return as time out of the workforce and younger candidates will affect my employability. Bye bye to the Man!!!!! [link] [comments]  |
| Hit a big milestone ($800k NW, 30yo) this past week and wanted to share how I got here Posted: 04 Jul 2019 03:58 PM PDT I know we've had a ton of these "personal interest" pieces on here over the past month or so detailing individual stories of how people of different backgrounds have reached certain NW milestones and I always like reading these, so I figured I'd share mine. Yeah, it's kind of long. I think virtually of these stories involve both hard work and a lot of fortunate circumstance and if you're like me, you always come to them and immediately skim to try and find the "thing" - the specific piece (or pieces) of good fortune or circumstance that led to the exceptional outcome. I'll save you the skimming and tell you mine upfront - I'm (now) a well-paid software engineer and did well in school - but I think there are still some valuable things I learned, including quite a few ideas and some alternate paths that I wish I had known about before. I'm still years away from my FIRE goal, but looking back is good. First, Some Background
Assets:
Debts:
NW = $1371000 - $565000 = $806000 Getting Here: Early life and college I grew up in a relatively poor household in the midwest (For most years of my youth, we were definitely below the poverty level) and this significantly influenced a lot of decisions I made or was ultimately forced into. Neither of my parents had degrees or worked particularly great jobs - my mom's was at least stable (She worked 30 years in one job, largely due to the fact that it had a strong union; she was their regional chapter's president! Then they were bought and she got laid off and spent years failing to get another job) but my father was between positions pretty regularly and could never keep one for more than a few years. There's a lot I could go into here about it, but I'll spare you most of the details and cut to the chase - the biggest outcomes of this particular upbringing/background that influenced future me:
Due to both of the last two things on that list (No job and no extracurriculars), I ended up with a somewhat limited social life and spent a substantial amount of my free time on personal studying and academics. It also helped that my two best friends at the time (Who I literally met in kindergarten and remain friends with to this day!) were both freakishly smart dudes who also had freakishly smart parents and very good home lives. So when your friends read a lot of books and do a lot of dorky academic stuff, you wanna impress them and be part of the group and so you do the same. All that was a huge blessing in several major ways: when I finished high school, I had already obtained enough college credits to have covered a full year of college (Between tuition and room and board, that saved me easily $20k+) and qualified for some good scholarships. I attended the local public state university where I also maxed my credit load every semester I was at school (My school let you take a max of 20, but only charged you for at most 13, so I got as many free credit hours as you literally can), which got me another extra half year done. All this enabled me to do my BS in Computer Science in 2 1/2 years - this was a big deal both because it meant I saved the money of that year and a half and because it meant I'd be getting an extra year and a half of full time job income. In my industry, that's significant. My debt when I got out was only $14k (Paid it off the first year out). I graduated in 2009, so the economy was in full blown recession mode and as a new grad, even in a field like tech, it was not very fun. I spent at least a solid six months or so, starting before my graduation, hunting for jobs or internships and setting what felt like records for rejections. I must've applied to at least 400, maybe even 500 positions for entry level software engineers all across the country, only got past the phone interviews for a few dozen, and then got rejected on-site at all but one. Getting the job, moving away In what is an extraordinarily telling and typical outcome when it comes to the absolute nonsense that is tech industry interviewing, that one company that accepted me was considered one of the top in the industry at the time (And still is) and decently challenging to get into, so failing a bunch of companies that were supposedly "easier" for months before that was frustrating. The starting salary I was offered was $80k and that freaking blew my mind (Never mind the fact that new grads today at my company now start at well into six figures and get bank-busting stock packages and literal cash signing bonuses before they've ever worked a day in the job! Whatever normal people tend to assume they pay software engineers, it's usually more). That was double my parents' combined income at the time. I had never in my life imagined seeing that much money. I was floored. But anyway, I packed up and moved across the country (And they paid for it all!) to a city in which I knew not one single person, and I did it just for that job. Fun fact: My interview with that company was the first time in my life I ever rode an airplane. I was 21. Bonus fun fact: I didn't get my first paycheck until two weeks after I started...and I had no money (We're talking $0) when I moved. For my first few days (Before I applied for and obtained a credit card), I literally ate microwave popcorn from a gift basket the company left me in a swanky temporary corporate apartment they put me in. The irony was not at all lost on me. But everything that happened after that has taught me the power of high income and the safety net it creates. Working: The power of high income overcomes all I was not a financially savvy individual. I picked this field for every reason but money. I didn't even know it paid particularly well. I had no idea what I was doing and wish someone had given me some guidance because it feels like virtually nobody did. I picked it because I did a google search for "best jobs" back in high school and in 2006, #1 on some list was software engineer. "I like computers", I thought, and that's was that. Literally that is how I chose it. My parents didn't even know it was my chosen major until after I finished. If you need more proof of my ineptitude - my company offered 50% 401k match and I didn't even start contributing to it until middle of 2013, 3+ years after starting. Didn't even know what a 401k was (Did you know schools don't teach that? Nor do parents whose companies never offered them or who could never afford to contribute into them). They also offered a 10% discounted ESPP, didn't do that or know what it was until 2014. I just kept money in low-interest savings accounts and any stock I earned from the company sat in a brokerage account that was never looked at. Still didn't have a license, so I had to use public transportation, which it turns out saved me a ton of money. I was used to eating cheaply and at the outset had only cheap habits (Though those have evolved over time - looking at you, photography), so I just tried to have fun and live as I normally would, though I did live in a not-cheap apartment in the city in order to be close to that public transportation. But never considered the cost of it against my monthly wages or anything. Now I own a house and it was also definitely not cheap and buying was a long, awful experience because Seattle real estate for the last 3-4 years was unreal (by the way, the market went ahead and just died after I bought it - another less-than-ideal NW growth decision by yours truly). I've had numerous people (mostly romantic partners) live with me for years during my near-decade in the region and never charged any of those people a dime of rent or utilities simply because I never felt financially burdened, but it is yet another example of more savings/money I've just regularly left on the table because I didn't know what I was doing. The one thing I did do is start tracking all my accounts with Mint in 2011 because my coworkers all did it and I thought it was cool technology. But with pretty much no active money management or deliberate budgeting, it just kept growing. And growing. And growing. A textual breakdown:
But the real rub is my salary grew pretty quickly (It turned out I was pretty alright at this computer gig) - that $80k became $83k, then $100k -> $104k -> $108k -> $116k -> $120k -> $133k -> $142k -> $158k -> $165k -> $171k, and with most of those changes came bigger bonuses, bigger stock grants, up to a fairly good annual compensation today. I know my salary growth is anomalous for the general working population, but for many dozens of American tech companies and tens of thousands of employees at them, that progression is downright ordinary. Again, whatever normal people assume this industry pays, it's probably higher. And this gets me to what I learned about all this. tl;dr Some lessons learned
Oh, and just for fun - one final bonus fact about dumb luck and money management if you've made it to the end of this excessively long read: once I did start actively managing my finances and discovered all this, I liquidated my immensely overinvested portfolio of company stock (For both house down payment and to diversify)...The company's share price has increased by over 200% since that day. Had I not sold, my NW today would be $1.1M. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ [link] [comments]  |
| “Required reading” for those interested in retiring early abroad? Posted: 04 Jul 2019 01:33 AM PDT Hi, I'm US-based and interested in retiring early abroad (potentially Western Europe or Japan). Has anyone found good, financially in-depth reading material on this topic? Google searches have only given me basic, romanticized articles for the most part. I'm familiar with www.theearthawaits.com (a great resource!) and not looking for COL comparisons. Thank you! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 04 Jul 2019 08:28 AM PDT I'm an acountant in the state of Texas and my net worth just passed 180k as of the close of business. I just became a CPA in March so I expect a large raise. I'm thinking I can get to 1 mil by 35 if I keep going. I'm currently 27 and I save 36k a year and any raise or bonus will be saved. Has anyone had any troubles with friends as you had toward FI? I'm starting to notice that my net worth is growing and some of my friends are in the save more later boat and it makes things akward when they want to go out and blow money. I don't talk about my net worth with them but they know I save quite a bit and I'm the only person without debt. Any ideas on how to stay on the path and avoid losing friends? Any ideas on finding more FI or FIRE people? [link] [comments]  |
| Best investment vehicle to save side money in a tax efficient way Posted: 04 Jul 2019 04:34 PM PDT Currently I'm a 22 yo male and I make $80,000 at my full-time job. I have a 401k with my employer which I max out each year. I also am heavily invested into cryptocurrency mining and profit roughly $60,000/year with that. I also own a rental house which nets me about $15,000. So with all things said I have $75,000 in untaxed income. What would be the best way to invest majority of this money to minimize the amount of taxes I need to pay throughout the year? I was looking at a SEP IRA and profit sharing plan but I'm unsure which would be the best fit for me [link] [comments]  |
| Cheapest U.S. Cities for Early Retirement Posted: 04 Jul 2019 10:59 AM PDT News article published just a few minutes ago - https://www.kiplinger.com/slideshow/retirement/T037-S001-cheapest-u-s-cities-for-early-retirement-2019/index.html [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 04 Jul 2019 02:39 PM PDT I'm heavily weighted in equities about 80/20 and thinking about being a bit more defensive. I've been doing a fair amount of research on other portfolio options. One of them I've been looking into that seems inline with my thinking is the Pinwheel portfolio, anyone else here using that one? For the longest time, I've been opposed to gold but I see that when everything else begins to tank it normally goes on a tear. [link] [comments]  |
| Finally hit ~200k Mark 6 Years After Graduation! Posted: 04 Jul 2019 11:29 AM PDT Hi FI People! Finally hit a threshold I've been aiming at for some time and wanted to share how I got there. Very long post but I've really enjoyed reading other's experiences on this sub and thought I would share to help contribute to our knowledge base. Hopefully people with similar backgrounds and anxieties will find inspiration and avoid the same financial mistakes I've made. My savings were almost purely from labor income. Because I was overweight cash, value, and EM equities my annualized return rate is something atrocious like 4% as opposed to the 10%+ experience by others on this sub over the last 6 years. Initial ConditionsInitial Net Worth: ~-$20k debt (student loans)Family obligations/dependents: NoneGraduated in June 2013 with a liberal arts degree from a good school. I grew up in a LCOL U.S. state and my parents were non-tenure-track biologists, one of the only white collar fields I know of that gets paid lower than teachers. Even though I felt solidly middle class growing up, my college classified me in the bottom 25% of family income and I got 50k a year in need-based-aid for tuition. The remaining room and board costs were covered by savings from my prior summer internships + some Perkins and Stafford loans. Mistakes in hindsight:If I could do college again, I would probably have majored in computer science, statistics, or some other form of applied math. I was aiming for a consulting job because we all knew they paid well and you didn't have to take those hard math classes. But then Google and Facebook started paying fresh graduate engineers 6 figures... which I really wish I learned about earlier. Year 1, Salary ~55kMajor Spending: Rent $900/mo (studio), Food: $500/mo, Travel: $2000/year, Clothes and other misc living expenses: ~$1000 a year (not repeating this because its the same every year)Net Worth: ~10k (3k cash, 5k Tax Advantaged Investments, 2k Robinhood gambling account)Because I'm socially awkward and failed my consulting and banking case interviews, I instead started my career at a megacorp in the Midwest. I was basically a gopher that crunched numbers in Excel and made Powerpoint decks for whichever executive I was assigned to for the duration of the rotation. I earned like 40% less than all my friends in SF/NYC/Boston but the cost of living was minimal and I had a ton of fun and met some good drinking buddies. Plus I learned all about how the capitalist machine worked to exploit laborers and how you need to be a yes-man to get ahead. Mistakes in hindsight:Should probably not have aggressively paid down my 6% interest student loans. Instead should have maxed out my 401k to defer taxes even more, my marginal tax rate would've been trivial after. Also should've bet 100% on VTSAX as opposed to betting on VT. I'm a huge believer in the Schiller CAPE and the Fama-French value factors and think the U.S. market is overvalued. I've probably "lost" at least 30k in investment returns because of this decision but because I'm stubborn and still hoping for a crash that never happened, even in 2019 I'm still underweight domestic equities. Year 2 Salary ~80kMajor Spending: Rent $1100/mo (4 roommates), Food: $500/mo (free lunch at job), Travel: $500/yr (churning ftw!)Net Worth: ~35k (23k cash, 10k Tax Advantaged Investments, 2k Robinhood gambling account)Oy vey! This was a whirlwind of a year career-wise. My boss at megacorp refused to give anyone in my cohort a raise, citing budget reasons. The new CEO apparently wasn't fond of this trainee program which was a pet project of the old CEO's. He thought that since all these kids were doing 2 years here then leaving to get a fancy MBA, it wasn't worth retaining them. Thus I asked to be transferred to a field office in a higher cost of living area where my salary would remain the same, but I would get a housing allowance of $1200 a month! But fortune had other plans! Just one month into the new rotation I got contacted by a recruiter representing my dream company/job ever since high school. They lowballed me on the initial offer, but I managed to negotiate it up to 100k which I was super super thrilled about. Finally I had caught back up to all my classmates from consulting/banking club in college!!! Once I got there though things were not great.... I was basically working on the white collar version of an assembly line, which sucked because I lack attention to detail when I'm bored. They are a very successful company with a secretive mystique and I unfortunately didn't do a good job teasing out what exactly I'd be doing before I signed on. It was no surprise that right before the end of year 2, just 6 months into the new job, I was fired. Like not FI fired, but just fired because I was deemed bad at my job. Mistakes in hindsight:From a purely financial perspective, getting fired from a job 1.5 years out of school is not great. If I stuck it out at the firm instead, I probably would have at least doubled my current net worth since the firm did really really well the last few years. Also as a result of getting fired I was uber conservative with my money and decided to always have a cash/bond pile of 50k ready for 24 months expenses in case I ever lose my job again. This effectively means I didn't catch the SP500s massive appreciation for the next 2 years as I was building my savings pile back up. Year 3 Salary ~100kMajor Spending: Rent $1180/mo (4 roommates), Food: $700/mo, Travel: $500/yr (churning ftw!)Net Worth: ~60k (38k cash, 20k Tax Advantaged Investments, 2k Robinhood gambling account)A new hope! Exactly 3 days after my last severance check came I ended up being hired by a series A tech startup as employee #20. I thought I'd be doing operational/financial analysis to help with fundraising and stuff, but instead I ended up having to learn basic statistics + how to code in 2 weeks. Extremely high stress the first 6 month as I was faking-it-till-I-make-it churning out regressions for for our client deliverables. However being recently unemployed lit a fire under my butt and I worked super hard and somehow became employable within tech! Mistakes in hindsight:My friends back in the midwest started a company that now 3 years later its valued as an unicorn. Because I'm bad at managing interpersonal relationships, I didn't even think to call them up after I lost my job to use my network to help me get a job. Side note: they actually hired our old boss from the megacorp who couldn't to give us a raise... oh how the tables have turned. Also I got hit by a car this year and had to rehab my knee. The cab's insurance company denied all my claims for physical therapy. Because the taxi company's insurance is in bed with our states lawmakers/regulator, no lawyer would take on my case since I didn't look injured. Yeah I'm still bitter about this one. Year 4 Salary ~115kMajor Spending: Rent $1250/mo (2 roommates), Food: $800/mo, Travel: $500/yr (MASSIVE churning ftw!)Net Worth: ~95k (50k cash, 35k Tax Advantaged Investments, 10k Robinhood gambling account)This was an excellent year for me professionally and personally. I got even better at moving data around and copying and pasting things from stack overflow. The startup raised a series B and started offering a 401k which I maxed to help keep Uncle Sam from touching my hard earned cash. I finally found a group of friends I meshed with and the ultra HCOL city finally felt like somewhere I could call home. Also I decided to help my parents pay off the last bit of their mortgage. It was only $10,000 but it felt really good paying them back for feeding me for 18 years. Mistakes in hindsight:My non-compete expired and I had an opportunity to switch jobs back into finance for more money than what I was earning at the startup. But I liked my startup job so much this year I turned down the offer. Plus I was thinking that within 6 month there was a decent chance I'd be going to business school. I feel like if I made that move and stuck it out in finance for 5 years, I'd probably be much closer to FI. But my stress would be higher and my happiness would probably be lower sooo yeah.... I guess I'm still traumatized by my previous experience. On the flip side, not going to business school was probably the right choice.... If I keep working after age 40 I think getting an MBA and getting into management faster would probably win for wealth generation. I can already feel my brain slowing down compared to when I was a teenager and acing video game tournaments, so an MBA would help me get into a more crystallized intelligence field before I become irrelevant. But then again I don't enjoy networking so I could've just burned $200k and ended up with the same fluid intelligence job I'm at now so who knows. Year 5 Salary ~130kMajor Spending: Rent $1280/mo (2 roommates), Food: $900/mo, Travel: $3500/yr (no more churning....5/24 hates me.... also skiing is expensive)Net Worth: ~150k (55k cash, 60k Tax Advantaged Investments, 35k Robinhood gambling account)Professionally this was an uneventful year. Same job, same role, just more responsibilities and clients. However towards the second half of the year there was a coupe in the management suite. The board really really wanted us to grow revenues faster. We gained alot of salespeople who got us contracts by overpromising on capabilities we don't have.... I still liked my immediate team a lot but dark clouds were forming... Mistakes in hindsight:I didn't buy travel health insurance when going on vacation in a developed country and ended up paying $2500 for surgery and pills since I got sick.The irony is even with my health insurance in the U.S. my copay would've been like $1500 for the operation. Its fascinating how broken our healthcare system is. Also, some thieves pushed me and stole my $1000 new phone while I was visiting one of Trump's "****-hole" countries. I'm normally a libertarian leaning democrat who supports the free movement of labor, but for that entire weekend where I couldn't take pictures, I really really was pro "Build that wall"! So yeah I buy travel insurance with explicit theft and medical coverage now... Year 6 Salary ~120kMajor Spending: Rent $1350/mo (2 roomates, upgraded to master bedroom now!!!), Food: $1000/mo, Travel: $3000/yr, Tuition : $5000Current Net Worth: ~200k (60k cash, 90k Tax Advantaged Investments, 40k Robinhood gambling account, 10k private equity)My boss who taught me everything I know about tech quit the startup. He was burntout about not being able to change our impossible contracts and didn't even have a job lined up and decided to backpack around Europe for a while. I inherited alot of his projects and immediately felt burnout too 1 month later. This time though I was prepared and used my network! One of my favorite coworkers had quit a few months months ago to join a company doing cool stuff I read about in the news and I was super super jealous. I reached out and got the job. Unfortunately I had to take paycut but the work is super fun and my new coworkers are all smart, ethical people and I only work 40 hours a week. With my new found free time, I decided to pursue a part-time master's degree as a insurance policy against my imposter syndrome. Mistakes in hindsight:Didn't properly tax loss harvest in December 2018!!!!!! If I just sold all my Vanguard index funds and bought the equivalent Blackrock index funds and there wasn't crazy volatility while I was trading, I could've literally netted like $2k in <2 hours of work. Also I bought my startup options which was more of an emotional buy rather than a rational financial decision. Based on the recent series C they're worth $50k and I'll have to pay significant taxes on my gains, but I'm only valuing them at 10k because I feel like this company might go belly up any day now and be the next Theranos. Or they might convince someone to acquire them before that happens and I'll get a nice pay day :) Current life aspirations:I'm pretty happy with where I'm at financially and career-wise. If I keep doing what I'm doing with no major life changes, I should be able to barista FIRE in a LCOL city in 5 years and actually be truly FI in ~10 years. I was always cheap, but started the whole FI mentality and stalking this sub and other blogs right after I was fired from my job and never wanted to feel financially vulnerable again. When I hit the 100k mark 2 years ago I finally started feeling secure again and started loosening the purse strings a bit trying new hobbies like volunteering to teach poor kids STEM (I felt like its impossible to make a difference), improv (not fun) and skiing (fun but painful). Now at the 200k mark, the only financial worry I still have is housing in my geography. Whenever I decide to no longer rent with roomates, my rent would immediately double, which would cut my savings rate drastically from 66% of post tax pay to 50%. I'm now exploring taking advantage of the low rate environment and using most of my cash pile for a downpayment on a 1 bedroom in my ultra HCOL area. However, even at a $500k price-tag, they all kinda suck and it only makes sense for me to buy if I'm sure I won't need to move for 5+ years. Still at least with a mortgage as opposed to rent, I'd be saving that 16% delta into home equity as opposed to giving it to a landlord. Since money's no longer a main worry, I'm also trying to focus more on my health and not being foreveralone. Finding a partner in particular is something that I would like to put way more focus and energy into. I've never been in a relationship, or even had reciprocated love and feel like I'm missing out on half of the human experience. Wondering lately maybe if I should pay money to go see a therapist/psychiatrist to help make me more dateable. Indeed if I did manage to find someone else similarly FI minded, the journey should be even easier (eg. split 1 bedroom cost would be similar to current rent with roommates). --BTW, for those wondering, my Robinhood account isn't actually that much gambling. Probably I have about ~1k to 2k of actual alpha bets on things like the VIX. Because I never sell the older buys and I have a lot of $100 small bets I make for fun each time I read the news, they all end up balancing each other out to be collecting beta pretty close to what the market does as a whole. [link] [comments]  |
| What do you all do when you reach a certain milestone in your FIRE journey? Posted: 04 Jul 2019 07:12 AM PDT When you hit $100k, $500k, $1M etc., do you celebrate or is it just a normal day? Any traditions? Do you share the news with anyone? [link] [comments]  |
| Buying small business as a way to reach FI? Posted: 04 Jul 2019 12:56 PM PDT I was listening to this podcast from Harvard Business Review https://hbr.org/ideacast/2017/02/why-you-should-buy-a-business-and-how-to-do-it.html They talk about how people find and buy established small businesses which can generate a very large income. This seems a lot less riskier than a start up. Considering I am in a management role and making pennies compared to what the owner of the company is making, this seems like a really appealing next step. Would this be a realistic way to achieve FI in a relatively shorter timespan and a regular 9-5? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 04 Jul 2019 01:37 PM PDT I was 100% debt free as of 2 years ago. Currently I am investing maybe 2/3 of my pay check. I really want to quit my job and travel abroad but I just can't shake the thought that I don't have enough savings and I don't know if I will ever be able to make this amount of money again. My plan is to go abroad but work as english teacher, translator, etc. to compensate for my lack of savings. On the other hand if I stay on my current saving trajectory for 5-10 more years I can definitely see myself being able to Retire Early. Has Anyone else struggled in this area or have any advice for a newbie? [link] [comments]  |
| What are you giving up on the way to both FIRE and health? Posted: 04 Jul 2019 09:40 AM PDT We are all giving up something now to (hopefully) have more in the future. I have been reading several books including one regarding a whole foods plant-based diet. I have also looked into environmental factors. For me I am giving up: car ownership, meats, dairy, sugars (including no alcohol), video games, 40+ hour work weeks, movies, and even porn. Pleasure can become an addictive poison. I gain back time, health, and wealth. There is a lot of consumption I am (correctly) removing which has helped me become more fulfilled with what I have now and realize what ultimately is enough. However the main issue is how linked/interconnected a lot of these choices feel towards socializing and dating. And as a result of my direct choices, indirectly I have given up on romantic relationships and closed off some friendships. There is a very real and powerful societal force that states what people should value. Someone who 1. Has no car 2. Has weird diet choices and 3. Works part-time is someone that is risky and should be silently avoided. But I would rather stick to the principles I value than have them deteriorate for the approval of others. So what are you giving up? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 04 Jul 2019 06:09 AM PDT I have been working towards FIRE for the last couple of years, but an acquaintance passed away today at 34. Is FIRE worth it? Should you save/invest some, but enjoy now? It can come so fast. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 04 Jul 2019 01:04 AM PDT Hey guys ,I have been having this thought lately and would love to see what kind of response I would get from the community here. what kind of salary bump will force you to have the "one more year" syndrome even if you have FU money. Let me start, if I had a $750k per year salary it will definitely force me to do one more year even if I had my FU money (4M) [link] [comments]  |
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