Financial Independence Daily FI discussion thread - Friday, April 30, 2021 |
- Daily FI discussion thread - Friday, April 30, 2021
- An Important Lesson Learned - A higher savings rate isn't worth personal safety and mental health
- 100k Update! 27, no kids, married. chugging along.
- Went from $1k to $501k in exactly 7 years!
- What was your financial rock bottom, your best moment, and what links those two?
- Weekly FI Frugal Friday thread - April 30, 2021
- Finally decided to get serious about financial independence! THANK YOU!
- Retired and looking at REITS for passive income - are taxes really that big of a deal?
- Financial Advisor ETF's
- How should I invest $190,000 at age 19?
- Mix of net worth in brokerage and retirement accounts - a model
- How can I turn 500$ into a investment?
| Daily FI discussion thread - Friday, April 30, 2021 Posted: 30 Apr 2021 02:00 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]  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| An Important Lesson Learned - A higher savings rate isn't worth personal safety and mental health Posted: 30 Apr 2021 11:01 AM PDT Hello FIRE fam, I wanted to share a recent experience of mine that has totally changed how my SO and I think about FIRE. If possible, a quicker path to FIRE shouldn't come at the expense of your mental health and safety. Perhaps this is an obvious fact to most of you, but it wasn't until recently we realized how important this was to us. We recently moved because of work from a HCOL area on the east coast to a VHCOL area on the west coast. We weren't sure exactly what to expect and our first apartment was a small one bedroom. It was more expensive than we were used to, but it was a nice commute and the area around us was pretty good. I come from a lower-middle class background and we didn't always live in the best places, so no complaints from me at all. We wanted to save some money and ended up moving at the beginning of the pandemic to another neighborhood. It didn't seem like it at the time, but this is definitely the roughest place I've lived. I've been accosted on the street more than a few times and I've been followed/harassed by people. We recently had a close encounter where someone tried to attack us. I wish I looked at more in depth crime data before moving because apparently we were in one of the worst neighborhoods in our city. As a result of covid my SO hasn't had to commute, but she'd be walking these types of routes alone. I'm a bigger than average guy and it's rough for me, so I can't imagine what it'd be like for her. The timing of the recent incident was good in the sense that it happened right before we had to renew our lease. Needless to say, we found ourselves a different living arrangement ASAP. The crazy thing to me is that there were hidden costs of living in that neighborhood that I hadn't thought of before moving in. Our car insurance went down $100 (!!) since moving and our renter's insurance, despite being in a bigger and more expensive apartment, is also $95 less. We're in a more expensive place now, but it suits our needs way better. TL;DR - A marginally higher savings rate isn't worth sacrificing your personal safety and mental health. [link] [comments]  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 100k Update! 27, no kids, married. chugging along. Posted: 30 Apr 2021 09:12 AM PDT TL;DR - philosophy majors and retired baristas sold soul to the man to get freedom to waste more time in school later I tally up NW every month at the end of the month, and it finally crossed the 100k threshold! I've been a reader in this community for a while but never had anything to post. My husband and I haven't made stupid money the past few years and invested in a masters program and still have student loans so I wanted to give the lowdown so that any people like us can get a snapshot of how it's gone (and also hear from like-minded people.) Overview: https://imgur.com/a/Do74z57 Our goals are to have the freedom to take lower paying passion jobs or go get a phd when we want to. We want kids in a few years, want to own a home, American dream etc. I've been tracking monthly for almost 2 years, which is the time period when we began really saving for retirement and focusing on FI. In the images, I marked some important milestones on my chart, but the summary of our post-undergrad life has been that we both graduated with liberal arts degrees, moved to HCOL east coast city, made coffees, I took a data bootcamp and became an analyst, spouse started a masters, he graduated in 2020 from masters and now we both have salaried employment. His masters was something he's interested in, but not something that drives his earning potential. He got his current job before he finished and it's in an unrelated field. I'm now a software product manager and he works in sales operations at a startup, so our earning potential should be solid. Although, we both are interested in academia and I want to get a masters/phd in an academic field, so a big drive for FI for us is being able to take low paying jobs down the road or go to school when we want to. I am applying for masters programs that would put me in a field I'm interested in but not necessarily make me more money, so these early investments are really important to our financial independence down the road. Some notes:
Anyway, curious to hear if there are others like us on this sub! Thanks for reading :)
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| Went from $1k to $501k in exactly 7 years! Posted: 29 Apr 2021 07:06 PM PDT Seems my last net worth update posted to this sub was nearly 4 years ago when I hit $100k, so now that it's been exactly 7 years to the month that I've been on this journey, and I've hit $500k not-exactly-to-the-dollar, I figured it was time for an update. Obligatory Mint summary screenshot Obligatory NW-over-time graph Not going to go into as much storylike detail as I did in the previous post, but rather list the most pertinent updates between then and now:
Any questions, feel free to AMA! [link] [comments]  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| What was your financial rock bottom, your best moment, and what links those two? Posted: 30 Apr 2021 05:15 AM PDT TL;DR There are a lot of stories much more inspiring than my own but I'm curious to hear what people consider their financial rock bottom and how that shaped their FIRE journey. My financial rock bottom was in 2007, a few years after graduating college. I'm an engineer (not software) and had been working for a start-up (again, not software, like, trying to manufacture a new kind of product). It was stressful, the pay wasn't great, and I found a new opportunity at another mfg start-up in a different industry. Between jobs I decided I deserved a vacation and pretty much spent all of my money and went into some credit card debt on like a euro-trip you could call it. The new job paid for moving expenses but it was in a HCOL city and when I got there I basically had no money and had maxed out my one or two credit cards. My financial rock bottom was when I couldn't afford anything for dinner except rice cooked with some diced onion, salt and pepper. I was waiting for my first paycheck. This was rock bottom but I didn't really do anything to climb out. Once my paychecks started rolling in I paid off my credit card debt but my salary and the cost of living prohibited me from saving much of anything. I loved the time I spent at this job and in this city but I wasn't progressing financially at all. I also didn't really care. I was very passionate about the job, was making lots of friends and having lots of fun and I was young. I really don't have any regrets for not starting down the FI path sooner. This time of my life was rich with experiences that I cherish, despite being worthless for most of it (zero NW). I left this job for to reasons I won't disclose due to privacy and got a job at a megacorp. Megacorp were very excited to have someone with my experience join their team since they were just starting to invest in this industry and didn't know their ass from their elbow excuse the language. My pay doubled when I was hired, basically because I was working for megacorp and not for a tiny start-up. Sold my soul to the devil in a way. Fast forward to the 2010's and I'm investing in my 401(k), ROTH IRA, ESPP, saving for a house which I eventually purchase. In 2014 I find out about FIRE and by 2015 I'm maxing out everything and investing in a brokerage account too. 2021, about 15 years since rock bottom, and I just passed two commas in NW, >$800k dedicated towards retirement. I can't put a finger on my best financial moment, but my most prideful moment wasn't when I finally maxed out my 401(k) or hit $1M NW. It was when I finally had the keys to my own home, which had been a lifelong dream of mine. So my journey isn't really much more than abandon your passions and sell your soul to the devil. I say that tongue in cheek, but I'm hoping to read some interesting stories below!!! [link] [comments]  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Weekly FI Frugal Friday thread - April 30, 2021 Posted: 30 Apr 2021 02:00 AM PDT Please use this thread to discuss how amazingly cheap you are. How do you keep your costs low? How do become frugal without taking it to the extremes of frupidity? What costs have you realized could be cut from your life without pain? Use this weekly post to discuss Frugality in general. While the Rules for posting questions on the basics of personal finance/investing topics are more relaxed here, the rules against memes/spam/self-promotion/excessive rudeness/politics still apply! 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]  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Finally decided to get serious about financial independence! THANK YOU! Posted: 30 Apr 2021 02:49 PM PDT Hey everyone! This is my first post after being a lurker for a while now. To help hold me accountable and keep me motivated, I would like to announce that I am finally getting serious about financial independence and paying off debts. WOO! My NW is probably ~$165k right now. Gross income is ~$100k (full time office job plus a part time job), 28 years old, serious relationship but not married and no kids, mortgage (3.75%), car loan (5.35%). I contribute to my 401k a little over my employer's max match. I have been throwing extra money each month at my car loan since I got it in January, but now I've decided to aggressively pay it off and should have that out of the way by July 2022. I come from a family that is okay with excessive spending and taking on debt, so I can't exactly go to them for advice on this. I'm trying to figure out what I should do after the car loan is paid off and was hoping you guys could give me some guidance.
I'm also going to be starting a Master's program this fall (part time) in order to get into a higher paying field. I can afford it without loans thanks to my employer's tuition assistance program so please feel free to remind me NOT to accept the student loans that are offered to me in a few months! I appreciate your support! [link] [comments]  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Retired and looking at REITS for passive income - are taxes really that big of a deal? Posted: 30 Apr 2021 09:29 AM PDT As the title states, I have acheived FI and so I RE. I have some legacy stocks in a taxable account I am repositioning and looking for funds that will add passive income/diversification. I am thinking to put about 5% of my assets into a REIT ETF (like VNQ?VNQI). I can't touch my IRAs yet since not of age, so buying the fund with a tax sheltered account would not help with passive income. I know REIT dividends are taxed as regular income vs qualified so it can be taxed at a higher rate, but if you do not have work income, is this really an issue? I have also been told and read that there can be delays wtih end of year tax paperwork. I have been trying to find out if that just applies to individual REITS or REIT funds as well. Edit: I should state chubby FIRE. There will be taxes. [link] [comments]  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 30 Apr 2021 03:47 PM PDT Hi all - I recently ended up with a decent chunk of stock options at my employer netting around $1.5MM. With FI in mind, I rolled over all my previous retirement accounts to an advisor that I liked and trusted with the idea of rolling all my future sale of stock options to said FA to help me reach my FI goals. This person is a fiduciary and was told I would have a managed portfolio. I noticed my portfolio is 100% invested in a number of ETF's. Is this typical for an FA as opposed to purchasing stocks directly? I understand there is strategy involved with picking and allocating weight to ETF's, but this took my by surprise as wouldn't I be paying double fee's on the ETF's and then my advisor fees? Thanks in advance! [link] [comments]  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| How should I invest $190,000 at age 19? Posted: 30 Apr 2021 03:06 PM PDT I plan on investing for the long term and going into real estate. I will make around $60,000-$70,000 annually, and pay very little towards the mortgage, thanks to tenants. For about 8 years I plan on saving around $50,000/year, $400k in 8 years+$190,000 initial amount. St 28, I could have $600,000. Should I stay very safe in VTSAX/VTWAX/VTI, or should I go into a different area? I will decline any crypto/forex. I understand these are hypothetical numbers, so no need to make that known again. If these were true numbers, what would you do with the money? I plan on becoming financially independent and retiring at around age 40 if possible. Thanks [link] [comments]  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Mix of net worth in brokerage and retirement accounts - a model Posted: 30 Apr 2021 01:37 PM PDT Hi, this came up in another thread and I built a quick model for a situation where you might have a lot of net worth in a retirement account you wouldn't want to draw out until you're 60yo. Appreciate any feedback anyone has or if they're in a similar situation and find this useful. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1E6TjJyowYowexkSvNV8tNCXNvtOGNeYfYUoCmTqFH0E/edit?usp=sharing [link] [comments]  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| How can I turn 500$ into a investment? Posted: 30 Apr 2021 03:00 PM PDT Hi everyone, I don't know if I'm in the right place but I don't know much about finance literacy and I'm trying to get out of a debt situation. [link] [comments]  |
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