Financial Independence Daily FI discussion thread - Saturday, August 14, 2021 |
- Daily FI discussion thread - Saturday, August 14, 2021
- Eight Years Into FIRE and at ~$900K NW - Time to Slow Down and Let Compound Interest Work
- Hit my numbers this week.
- FIRE Fever | A Very Lucrative Mistake
| Daily FI discussion thread - Saturday, August 14, 2021 Posted: 14 Aug 2021 02:02 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]  |
| Eight Years Into FIRE and at ~$900K NW - Time to Slow Down and Let Compound Interest Work Posted: 14 Aug 2021 08:16 AM PDT Greetings all! I have been a long time subscriber to this sub, but I am first time poster. I wanted to share my story so far and discuss the idea of slowing down on savings a bit and taking a lower stress job. First, here's my background. Currently 31 years old, married (wife also 31), no kids (yet) and we're renters. Probably easy to guess, but we are living in the US. I was lucky enough to meet my wife in college, and, thankfully, as soon as I pitched the concept of FIRE to her, she was fully onboard with saving more of our income than we spent (though she didn't quite believe it was really possible at first). My wife and I were very fortunate to come out of college with minimal student debt (~$3K). We both had scholarships that paid for 100% of our tuition and most of our room and board. Both of our families did help with living expenses, providing maybe $3000 or so per year in college. This allowed us to avoid serious debt, which we are very grateful for and recognize gave us a leg up in our FIRE journey. I graduated with a mechanical engineering degree in 2013 and started work immediately in the energy sector (equipment supply to be specific). The wife also graduated that same year, but took a bit longer to find a job in her field. She worked a retail gig in the meantime to help supplement our income. Neither of us started with salaries that were out of the ordinary, so we focused on reducing our expenses as much as possible (or at least as much as we were willing) to get the most out of our paychecks. I continued working for the same company I started with for nearly six years, receiving mostly modest raises throughout that time. The wife eventually found a job she loves and has been with her company for five years or so. She does well for her field and has received decent raises throughout her time there. In early 2019, I moved to a new engineering company (still energy and equipment, but in a different part of the industry) and received a substantial pay increase (~50%). The position is in project management. This new job came with a lot more stress to go along with the larger paycheck. I have managed to work at this new company for two and a half years now and have been able to set expectations so that I have work/life boundaries I've been able to live with. The main thing I dislike about my current job is that because I work with an international team (Asia, Europe, US), I almost always have 7am or earlier calls in the morning and at least once a week have a call at 9:30pm. Usually in the middle of the day things are very relaxed, so I really shouldn't complain too much, but I am quite tired of the early morning schedule with occasional late night obligations mixed in. The global scale of the business isn't all bad. It actually was almost all positive at first, because I enjoy working with other cultures and it allowed me to travel the world in a short time (pre-pandemic and, unfortunately, without the wife). Below are our financial stats overtime. Current Household Income: $194K
Net worth Over Time Note that the totals were taken at end of each year (except 2021 is YTD).
Net Worth Breakdown by Account
Annual Spending Our spending habits aren't as restrained as many folks on this sub, but we try our best to limit spending while not stressing over it too much. Other than housing, we spend most of our money on travel (usually two overseas trips a year and at least one ski trip per year) and food (takeout and groceries). We try to eat as healthy (as little processed food as possible), so a our grocery bills tend to be a bit higher than average. We also give a few thousand dollars to charity each year (shoutout to Givedirectly.org, which is my go to lately).
As I mentioned, I'm currently in a job that I am not in love with, but pays probably the highest end of the salary range for my experience level and industry. My current job does not allow me to really "turn off" and if I were to take a vacation, it would not be possible to completely disconnect. My previous job did allow this, and it made travel and work life balance so much more enjoyable. The wife and I are at a stage in life where we want to travel as much as possible before potentially settling down to have kids in next couple years. The pandemic year was supposed to be our year to get our international travel out the way, but you all know how that went. We are looking to move back closer to family so that when we do have kids, we would be surrounded by our loved ones. I was recently offered a position within the US government as an engineer. The job would come with a substantial pay decrease, but is located near my family and the agency would pay for my move. It also includes four weeks of vacation time and two weeks of sick time (plus an additional ten or so days in federal holidays compared to my current job). From what I've gathered from talking to a friend who works for the federal government, the work life balance is topnotch, which is very enticing. However, as I mentioned, the pay decrease is significant. I'd be going from my current $129K salary down to $92K. I am a bit conflicted about taking the lower salary for a, hopefully, more enjoyable work life balance. With that said, after saving heavily for the past eight years it feels like the right time to start focusing on transitioning into a less stressful lifestyle. Does anyone else have plans to put the breaks on savings to either use your income to enjoy life more, or take a less stressful job with lower pay? Curious to hear other's thoughts on this concept and perhaps firsthand experience from anyone has already followed a similar path. Any who, thank you to everyone who read through this rambling wall of text. If anyone has any thoughts, comments, questions, or pointers on our FIRE journey/progress we'd love to hear them. Be well and thanks again for your time! TLDR: 31 y/o DINK couple with $900K net worth taking lower salary (30% decrease) for being closer to home and more time for travel/better work life balance. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 14 Aug 2021 02:10 PM PDT This week I hit my FIRE numbers and pretty stoked about it. Am early 40's and now trying to decide what the next couple of years look like. My numbers were hit by selling a company I started 13 years ago so will still work in it for at least another year while working out what I what to do. Wanting to decrease to 3 days per week though to get back some extra time. At that point I will probably take at least 6 months off with no work, then decide what to do from there. I will probably do something totally different to my current career. I have always wanted to own a bar. The numbers: Approx $2 million in external investments Approx $1 million in shares in new company Own house worth approx $1 million No debts or mortgage. I was planning on hitting FIRE several years earlier, without selling the company, however life never goes as planned. A separation from my wife meant a large hit to FIRE numbers, including having to buy a new house etc. I was lucky enough that because of the financial position we were in, there wasn't a huge stress about how we were going to handle that. I also know that my kids will be well looked after by both of us due to our prior financial planning. Its both scary and exciting not knowing what my plans are for the future. FIRE has been a strong motivator for many years now but now I have to decide what to do with it. [link] [comments]  |
| FIRE Fever | A Very Lucrative Mistake Posted: 14 Aug 2021 10:42 AM PDT I'm trying to make this as to-the-point as possible but there is a lot I want to cover and I'm pretty passionate about it so…. we'll see how this goes. Not watering it down. This is a cautionary tale. Background: I'm a 28 year old single guy living in a major US city. I have an Engineering degree and found work in Engineering at a major company. In my off time I like to do all the same stuff everyone else does; be outdoorsy, travel, live music, hobbies, and (shoutout to all you money makers taking a break from makin that money to read this) make money with the money I make. In high school I was an above average student by obligation rather than intelligence or drive but was always working and saving. In college I slacked off freshman year and lost a scholarship that me and my family were counting on, which wound up being a fairly formative event. Sophomore (shoutout to my 10th grade geometry teacher for forcing us to spell that non-geometry-related word until the whole class had it on lock) year I had an epiphany. I've always been savings focused and I realized that an engineering degree, or really any technical degree, would pay significantly more than I would want to spend… so I needed to learn about what to do with that money. I read a few books (shoutout to my uncle who recommended only the most practical books on stock ownership) on stocks and a few more on starting businesses. As a 19 year old, I built excel documents that calculated my net worth at various years and wrote a document, that has since been lost, outlining my financial strategy through my 20s and 30s. This strategy was F.I.R.E. before I knew the term, 6 years before joining this sub-reddit. I also shaped up in school and earned back my scholarship after burning up everything I'd earned in high school paying tuition that year. I graduated college at almost exactly $0 net worth (shoutout to my parents for covering rent throughout school and providing me with the old family clunker for my last two years… and sorry for wrecking it). The rest is history… Lol jk, this ain't Disney. See below. The Good - I'm currently writing this while drinking a nice cabernet and listening to my weekly AI curated Apple music New Music playlist while my wonderful rescue dog, pursuing her self-thrown plush hedgehog, drifts around the hardwood floors of the house I own in the exact part of town I want to live in. Nice! - Thanks to a hobby I fell in love with (shoutout to my boy who let me borrow his rig and gave me the opportunity to discover a truly constructive craft, and, to an even greater extent, the flow state the sport demands), mountain biking, I'm still in great shape. I've ridden 700 miles this year and have a goal of 1,000 so I'm ahead of schedule. Sick. I own a full carbon shred sled (really nice mountain bike) that I have hung up in my bedroom like a trophy and I appreciate it just about every day. - I've traveled to 19 countries and 42 states which has helped me develop a foundational appreciation of diversity and culture while helping me come to understand that we are all so ridiculously similar. - I've been to 9 music festivals and around 100 concerts with around to 1,000 bands, groups, acts, and DJs experienced. Sober, I travel farther on a dancefloor than Elon can send a rocket. - Somewhere along the way, all this prosperity and happiness drove me to evaluate the world and why everyone isn't able to experience the freight train of bliss my early/mid 20s provided. My mission has become helping as many people have access to what I experienced as possible. I'll need influence, millions, and time. More on this at the end. - So far I've built a net worth of $300k without using any "fast cash" approaches like meme stocks (I've never even owned Tesla… unfortunately), crypto, forex, or anything. Just hard work, solid stocks, and a great deal on a rental property in a well picked location (70k of my net worth). - My first job out of school paid $45k. My current job pays $140k and I'm treated like a rockstar in the office. It's hard to tell how you're doing through others eyes, but I'm confident there is nobody doing better than me. I'm a positive example, I attend off hours charitable events, I help others when they're struggling, and I absolutely have my area running like a well oiled machine. I'll almost certainly be one of the next promotions………… The Bad - My job, while paying very well, takes a lot of time. I've been averaging 70 hours a week for about 3 years and a lot of it is unplanned calls in the middle of the night or weekends. I don't derive any satisfaction from the job above the satisfaction of just getting something, anything, done. - My social life has slid due to the massive unplanned time expense my job requires. Most of the folks I had regularly spent time with stopped inviting me to things because I'm just always on a call about something and need to cancel. I'm basically down to a few ride or die folks who've moved away and acquaintances that set up hiking trips a few times a year. - Living in a house that you plan on renting rooms out of really isn't fun. Tenants will obviously never take care of your things like you would. Also, this may sound odd but, folks looking to rent a room with a flexible lease are rarely motivated in any way. This has caused a lot of mental drag as I work 12 hour days using my weekends to strategize and stay fit on the bike, then they're just on their back watching Netflix all day. - Even if you don't rent part of your house out, home ownership is not a blissful experience. You need to maintain a TON of stuff and repairs are so much more expensive than you'd expect. They also take a lot of time and businesses are only open during working hours, making work difficult if you have an intense job. - With the job and the house, I have way less energy to pay attention to the stock market which has really cut into my ability to compound returns. I've been following the stock market for 9 years so it's really my greatest strength financially and it is continually neglected due to physical and mental energy limits. The Ugly – It gets real here. All over-extensions of my mental health are from a place of solid understanding of myself with a strong purpose of trying to understand my limits and achieve something amazing in life. I have a strong family to back me up if I slip into something I cant get out of and enough money for therapists. Please be safe. - Man………… I'm tired. I don't even know if sleep will fix it because I never get enough to isolate that variable. The bags under my eyes could be carried down a runway. - My mind is not right anymore. I need sleep. You need sleep. We all need sleep. Without it you cant organize your thoughts. It takes significantly more energy to think clearly now than it did when I took my current job. The strain to focus and catching things moments before they become an emergency causes anxiety. Extended anxiety tires your mind out and causes depression. I'm now anxious and depressed in a big way. Truthfully, its nothing I can't handle but nobody has fun while they're just hanging on. - My confidence is not gone, but it's an abstraction of what it used to be and I feel like people may be starting to understand how hollow it's become. I'm beginning to learn to hate myself and its so terrifying I can feel it in my spine. I wonder if this whole exercise in finding my limits is even worth it. Ignorance is truly bliss. Comfort is truly comfort. - A big job, in my experience, requires big sacrifice. I don't have a social life anymore. I work, ride my bike, hang out with my dog, and that's just enough to recharge between shitshows. And the last concert tickets I bought I felt bad about. The whole reason I go to shows is that folks show up without baggage. They're just having fun. I don't know that I can have fun at shows anymore and I'm afraid I will impact peoples experience. 1000 great fear free concerts and I'm afraid of the next one. - I'm intimately aware of the effects stress has on the body. - Trying to jam an "epic" trip into an already slam packed life is hard work. Equipment, training, coordinating with other busy adults, ect. Its hard and really detracts from things. Vacations don't really seem like enough to get back to my normal self anymore. Just a way of being reminded how far I've slid. - My wonderful dog, a dog that I've already accepted as a once-in-a-lifetime quality dog, stresses me out because I need to move her toys before running the Rumba. Take Aways Well… I can confidently say that if I got a chance to go back, I'd probably do things quite differently. I'm not sure I'm ready to throw the word "regret" around, but I'm pretty close. Really, I don't know why I'm surprised about any of this. I designed my whole life around making money and it's a shocker when I'm not beaming with happiness and fulfilment? Go figure. If I had to change one thing, it would be establishing boundaries with work. My job is not one that simply "gets finished" and I realized that long after I had already set the precedent of picking up every call and answering every email. I shouldn't have rescheduled that second date for a third time. I shouldn't have picked up at my grandpas 90th birthday or as I was walking in the door for a family reunion. To this day, I don't know why I did. The biggest thing I learned is an understanding of the word "workaholic". Its destructive to your social life like drinking and makes you lazier than smoking pot does all under the guise of being good at something while satisfying greed and a need to feel superior. Nothing else in my entire life has made me feel like I've needed a drink or a joint as bad as this fuckin job. I've grown to appreciate the "uncommon collision" that I've demonstrated through the shoutouts here. These are all nuanced demonstrations of strength/kindness/passion exerted by people I've bumped into along the way that have had a huge positive influence on me. Burnout completely rules out any possibility of me providing extended value to those around me and greatly limits my ability to have collisions in the first place. It's hard to describe tangibly, but in both literal time usage and in an more broad and abstract mental growth perspective, I've become very limited. For people who are just jumping into something big at work, business, financially, or just anything in general. Try to understand how it is affecting you mentally as early as possible, same day if you can, or through experience, before it even happens. I should have understood within 2 months of working this job that I was in a bad spot and probably needed to start a job search. That much anxiety and stress every day was not sustainable. It's going to take me at least a full year after transitioning to something new before I'll get my mind right again. I don't want to do F.I.R.E. anymore. Mentally, it puts me between a rock (work) and a hard place (finding a way to get a bunch of money). And I don't even want to retire, I'd be so bored. Back to what I mentioned earlier about helping other folks experience that freight train of bliss. I know I'm not alone in the sentiment that the world could use some work. Obviously, there is no rule that says you gotta stop working if you retire, but it lends itself to a this-then-that type of view about doing what you want to do. I don't have time to not do what i want all the time. How does this impact my retirement? I really don't care. I may not retire ever. Who knows? If they know I don't what to hear it. I'm shrugging off the rigors of structured plans and taking a step back to open myself up to life and opportunity less measurable. I've proven myself capable in my current job and my resume slaps so hard it could cook a chicken. I'm going to take the job I want in a field I believe in while applying everything I've learned about what I need to be happy and satisfied. I could not be more confident that any reduction in income or stability will be made insignificant by the might of the mindset I'm setting out to build. Rebirth through instinct rooted in self-respect. 😊 [link] [comments]  |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Financial Independence / Retire Early. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States | |
No comments:
Post a Comment