My friends have $500k houses, shiny cars, around the world vacations and are less happy than I am. Overall our good and bad luck regarding property and financial market timing has roughly canceled to neutral, which is still a very good place to be. This blog is about being efficient with money (and improving your life at the same time), and this only becomes MORE efficient, the lower your income is. Max out 457 and 403b, Roth IRA. This has involved determination and flexibility on our part – we don’t live where the cool kids do, and we understand the concept of delayed gratification and try to practice temperance with our spending – but we are friends with the cool kids and know they are doing it way tougher than us in terms of payday to payday. I’ve been reading this blog front to back and THIS entry/comment is the first one where I felt compelled to chime in. Meanwhile, I actually switched to 4-day-per-week work this year in exchange for a 20% pay cut – my first test of the waters of early retirement. Marcia @Frugal Healthy Simple That is all money saved. From the Pulitzer Prize-winning play “The Time of Your Life” by William Saroyan, written in 1939: “Listen carefully. Haha.. very nice follow-up punch, Gerard! He made money on his last vacation. It depends on your determination. I’ll still be retired, and although the Mustachian movement will be much larger, the world will still be a frustrating place of overconsumption with much work remaining to be done. I’d like to move forward and we have been working to increase our income with not much avail… So are these articles irrelevant to me until we can earn more? Skip the silly widgets the industry is always coming up with. If you want a house/unit in a better area you can expect to pay around $500-900k for it (plus taxes). Also I second not having an excess of cars. Die Redaktion hat im ausführlichen Mr money mustache com Test uns jene genialsten Produkte verglichen und die nötigen Eigenschaften recherchiert. Can’t wait to make some changes and get my wife even more on board-I hope. So, have you successfully left work behind for good, 28 months later? I love and hate your website so far… at the end of each article there is a “where to next” and the suggestion is a random article. Here’s to us both making it work! What about (a) the cost of your child’s higher ed and (b) the cost of any additional child (apparently you’re not going to do this, but some people might want two children) (c) health risks (on or more of you could end up with a chronic health condition or disability that is expensive to treat and that may add other costs to your living expenses) and (c) problems with inflation and taxes (I gather you are diversified in real estate and stocks, but at some point you will need to buy bonds to avoid the volatility of stocks and the rates of return on bonds may not be high enough to provide you with any income above inflation + taxes). In 1996 I was right where you are now. As for the New York Times article – yeah, poverty is up, and wages are stagnant. It sucks getting turned down for jobs too. Hi MMM I made a few mistakes along the way since I only stumbled into the idea of preparing for being job-independent about 6 years after graduation. I wish I knew back in 1996 what I know now, I would have financed my college education much differently, and spent my early full-time-work years handling money differently too. We just discussed it over breakfast, and here is what she came up with: What is a reasonable percentage of a salary that should be saved? $8K purchase. It is always exciting and educating to hear people’s success stories. – Side note: I live near Boulder, CO where A/C is not needed and winter heat bills on my 2600SF house are somewhere in the $400-$500 range per year. 360K, 20% down. I’ve been saying anyone can retire at 40 in the USA, but now it’s 30. You may have already read that entry by now, but it not, take a gander–maybe it’ll help with some of your questions. 1. :), Mrs. Money Mustache Complaints and insults generally won’t make the cut here, but by all means write them on your own blog! It’s been going decent, enough to break even, but not always. Isn’t that weird? Hi Mr. Riley, thanks for reading and for the comment! And it is worth figuring out if you can free yourself from car dependence, as this is one of the most expensive things in family life at that income level. My salary today is what yours was when you started, and my wife is stay-at-home… although my family’s expenditures are about what your family’s is, not counting mortgage. Sorry to sound not entirely convinced, just yet, coz it just seems too good to be true! Congrads. Dancedancekj Having a mortgage on your own home becomes a mistake when you could have someone else pay for your home and have the interest be deductible while it is being paid off. I’m at least paying cash for everything now, earlier stupidity be damned. Please, reassure me that you think this is what is possible! I hope that doesn’t happen too often. Lol! Year 5: We were still hard-working Career Beaks at this point, so we both scored raises. Yeah, that would be impossible, saving 100%, since even if you ate nothing there are still taxes to be paid! Having been reading the blog for a while now, I know MMM would rather be out biking or laying some fancy tiles, instead of dealing with the hassles of hosting a podcast. Im Gegenteil, seine Tipps zeigen immer wieder, dass auch Geringverdiener mit einem bescheidenen Lebensstil einiges ansparen können. Ahh, the comments section.. endless entertainment to be had here. I think so many readers get caught up in the idea that in order to reach early retirement they must choose to have very few kids (2 tops). It has changed my life and my outlook on how to spend my income and what I should spend it on. – different education:I graduated from Computer Engineering, she has a Commerce degree with Managament and Information Systems specialty. Or try the neighborhood of Louisville that is right at the top of S.Boulder road (i.e., the closest possible commute to Boulder). We currently make about 30k/yr with 3 kids. I made a few mistakes along the way since I only stumbled into the idea of preparing for being job-independent about 6 years after graduation. If you like, send me a private message through Facebook and we could compare notes. Just stumbled on this comment section. Check out our Now page to see what we're up to currently. I am also hoping for an Extreme Early Retirement. I’m looking to buy a house in Longmont and the cheapest one I can find is 250k. a story forms my mind writing from the heart . I’ve seen “MMM” dropped around a lot lately, so I finally came by to see what it was all about. Note that I was nearly 26 when I started working (prior to that I spent all my money on University and a 3-month backpacking trip to Australia). Regarding travel – we like to travel by road, to do things like camp, hike, bike, and kayak. (She just finished her masters too so hopefully a future administration brings it back). Looking to kick the ass of the remainder and move on with life. It’s easy to take care of that scenario by limiting your deposits to whatever is covered by FDIC or CIPF – if US or Canada. September 15, 2011, 12:07 pm. Even after paying for grad school, my girlfriend managed to save $4000 of her income last year. In the beginning, Mr. Money Mustache found its own audience and had feedback tha… If we can put it together well over the next 5 – 10 years then we will have a much more comfortable time in our old age. The Money Mustache Community » General Discussion » Share Your Badassity » The Toyota sienna story « previous next » Print; Pages: 1. And in your calculations of your living expenses, you have probably already assumed rent is zero dollars per month. Year 4: At this point, my future wife finally graduated from her longer and more meandering education up in Canada and decided to join me in Boulder. A short list of some of the differences in our lives: I’m much older, made less money than MMM, wife made less than Mrs. MM, I’m not a good investor and haven’t done any real estate deals, I had school loan debt, I always have had cable, I don’t have a bike, we take yearly vacations, we eat out at restaurants several times/wk, and I lost all the ammunition to my optimism cannon in my twenties. not possible for probably about 90% of us. Thanks very much for your candor on this issue. Think about the poor souls who wanted to retire in ’08-’10. April 27, 2013, 11:00 am, Masked Defender Your blog states a lot of the same information but in an easier to digest way! - Read articles and track your progress - Get… Haven’t found a job yet, and I’m trying to get a job in a different city and move out, but that would be difficult, as I have so many bills to take care of and no job and no savings. And your kids can walk to Coal Creek Elementary, reportedly one of the best in the whole state. I looked back in my records and was shocked that despite HUGE differences between MMM’s life and mine, setting my year zero= first job above minimum wage-ish level gave a result that our stash levels were within 5% at years 9-10. No CC, no car payments. Today on the Financial Independence Podcast, I’m excited to share a live Q&A session with Mr. Money Mustache, Paula Pant from Afford Anything, and Doug Nordman from The Military Guide!. If words from 1939 do not ring true to you, read this from Sept. 13th’s NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/14/us/14census.html?_r=1&sq=Poverty&st=cse&scp=1&pagewanted=print. In fact, I finally wised up and sold my car, and we became a one-car couple. I would love to see how you distribute your funds (if you don’t mind, of course!). My parents are renting in a suburb of Brisbane for $470 per week. I always count ALL equity, including houses, as part of net worth. Just wanted to say that I appreciate you answering this personal question, even though you certainly didn’t have to. 10K Retirement, and 17K Taxable Trading Account. If you have a shortage, you can always spend less for a while. Retiredat40 Spend 12K for living with 8K for travel (with parents, as a single) in business class (by buying airmiles and hotel points). Just wanted to say how inspiring this was and its good to see kindred spirits. September 24, 2012, 9:01 pm. It is just so much easier for DINK mustachians to achieve this kind of impressive stash-building, than for a single person to do so. Assume my yearly expenses are ~$16K (I’m gonna continue the modest grad lifestyle FOREVER) which leaves me with $60K savings per year. If I decided not to invest, and instead to spend all my money on consumption in hopes of avoiding the sins described in the Time of Your Life play, I’d cause a temporary boost in domestic demand, and provide temporary jobs for US workers, or if I bought international products, workers overseas. If you think you are hardcore enough to handle Maximum Mustache, feel free to start at the first article and read your way up to the present using the links at the bottom of each article.. For more casual sampling, have a look at this complete list of all posts since the beginning of time or download the mobile app. Getting back to the point – Mrs. M. and I earned completely average software engineering salaries throughout our careers (and salaries for those jobs are even higher now). Foreword from Mr. Money Mustache : Marla is a long-time friend who I met on one the very first of the Ecuador Chautauqua trips. And Also for the record, MaveStashe is not as funny as Mustache. I’m sure the questions will come about where these investment gains came from (I don’t remember exactly, but I do remember doing a bit of accelerated buying of the S&P500 during the big tech recession in the early 2000s, as well as a few buy/sells of Cisco stock when it went down to $7 and subsequently recovered to $30). Why bother searching for the best blogs about personal finance when it can be found and read for you? — -- Mr. Money Mustache is the financial guru for the hipster generation and to most of us, he is living the dream. September 17, 2011, 8:52 am. And I borrowed money from my older sister to do it (what a clueless young man!!!). I could do better, but I like my particular bank. A few other good investments as well, to really compound the TSLA gains. My work schedule is weird, so I still eat out more than I should, but I’m getting better at planning. Now to ND’s question; wife and I also travel 2 – 3 months a year but spend very little. Or you might decide to work as late as 40 or even 45! So I hope to learn lots more from your blog, for when I go down the road of savings and investments. I don’t often literally laugh out loud when reading online commentary. Okay, I love your optimism in this article. I achieved a $250k stash this year, but I know even at a 79% savings rate I won’t double it in two years. December 3, 2013, 3:22 pm. but no car or house loans thus no “good” debt). Both him and his wife studied engineering and computer science. I have around 50k of net worth after 7 years of gainful employment. Now I have three credit cards, one with a credit line of USD 6.000, exceeded by USD 2.000 more, in order to be able to use it I must pay 2.500 USD this month that DO NOT HAVE!, following that credit card I have another to buy groceries, 80% of the credit line consumed and another one with a credit line of 500 USD, which I already spent 200 USD. I save 80% of my income and cannot possibly fathom how someone could spend all their $60k income and think they are just scraping by. Year 4? I guess I was assuming you are a heterosexual & you would not have married a woman who had a mustache. I’ve been reading your blog since you started, and have really enjoyed it. I got tired of explaining to people that I retired early by being cheap because they would look at me like I did something unholy like run pornsites, or stuff a mortgage-backed security with bad loans and peddle it to clients to whom I lied so I’d just tell them that it was pure luck. As for the target – we always had the goal “600k plus a paid-off house”, thinking we’d need almost $40k of spending money per year in retirement. Notes. Think of Optimal Finance Daily as an audioblog or blogcast. I first met Pete at a meet-up in Ecuador called the Chautauqua. Notes. The Money Mustache Community » General Discussion » Post-FIRE » My Story of FIRE « previous next » Print; Pages: 1. My biggest fear of early retirement would be the gap in health insurance because the US lacks a socialized system. June 22, 2013, 6:18 am. And it was nearly ALL eating out. Custom renovations and finish work only for local, nice people on my side, and Real-estate sales for local, nice people on her side. October 20, 2011, 2:55 am. I tried to go to school back in 2011, but that didn’t pan out well. September 17, 2011, 10:27 pm. Mixed in with those later years, but left out for clarity, was this house-building business of mine. Maybe I missed it but did you ever send MMM your story? Personal Finance Source Publication date 2016-03-14. 1. Is that a smart strategy? And that does not include a health benefit package (it would cost us $1,000 per month out of pocket to cover our family of four through the school district.) It’s really cool to see how things are growing and fun to make spreadsheets for how things could continue to grow over the next few years. My last name is my maiden name and husband has his last name. Include Out of Stock; Sponsored The Simple Path to Wealth: Your road map to financial independence and a rich, free life. Almost everyone can become rich fairly quickly by modifying their spending, but people in their 20s have a chance to enjoy their entire lifetime, including any child-raising years, being financially free. It is AWFUL. Also worth noting is that CCA (capital cost allowance) can turn rental income into untaxed income which will only be taxed if you sell the income property. Started sharing his philosophy of Simple, good things would they continue buying it they... High compensation in your well laundered monetary underwear in front of thousands of people for. And got a $ 50k paid-for house Stache-Mave is an equal-opportunity employer and everyone is for. 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