Early Retirement Extreme Forums

Early Retirement Extreme Forums » Introduce Yourself

1. 

   AspiringYogini
   

   Novice
   Joined: Sep '11
   Posts: 19

   Hello to all you ERE enthusiasts!

   I have been FI for 10 years now, and have not worked full-time since 2001 and am 46 years old. Since that time I have hosted foreign exchange students, traveled, researched and worked (gratis) in Central America and Europe, studied homeopathy, become a Master Gardener, raised ducks, worked at becoming food sufficient by growing and trading for as much of my food as possible, gotten a Masters Degree in Public Health, as well as taken on different part-time jobs that I have a real interest in. Now, I am teaching public health courses and this allows me to travel and do volunteer work in Spanish (which I didn't know at all when I retired). My DH is not FI but will be in less than 4 years and at that time I hope we can sell the house and travel the western US in an RV and that I can get him interested in living in Central America.

   I am happy to know that such a group exists, because I don't know others who think or act like I do with respect to jobs and money. My DH understands (kind of) but I don't think my family quite does, but they don't say much. I don't have any friends that are FI except for traditional retirees and I don't really understand why younger people aren't more interested. So, I have had lots of fun, and haven't spent time explaining myself to others and it really hasn't been a problem.

   I don't consider my ER as Extreme as Joe Dominguez or Jacob and I don't believe I spent a lot of time other than doing the YMOYL accounting to get to the crossover point which was $24,000/yr. I have been able to live on a lot less, because I learned more once I quit working and because I got married and we share expenses. I also worked some, but have not needed to dig into that money; I only use it for non-necessary things like travel, gifts and charity. Otherwise, money I earn now goes into Vanguard funds. For the both of us over the last 10 years we have averaged spending about $24K/yr.

   I would like to have a better idea of investing, but it really bores me tremendously to do the research. I know the fundamentals, but I'd rather read seed packets or a medical dictionary than a prospectus. I feel that even if I understand all this stuff well, can't these companies give misleading or even false financial statements? I can see how I could have done this when I ran my own small business and can only imagine the deceit that could be created in a larger business.

   Posted 1 year ago #
2. 

   Chris
   

   Journeyman
   Joined: Jul '10
   Posts: 195

   There are plenty of us here on the path to ER, but having more people who have made it provides inspiration for the rest of us.

   What's your backstory? Sounds like you didn't have your friends, DH, or this forum to point you toward ER. How did you discover it was something attainable?

   Posted 1 year ago #
3. 

   jacob
   

   Expert
   Joined: Jul '10
   Posts: 3,304

   @AspiringYogini - Interested in doing a guest post on the blog? I sometimes get asked what I'm doing in when I'm not working and since I've only been "retired" for little over 2 years, I can't boast a tremendous track record (published a book, learned how to sail) and I often have to respond with something like "ask me again in ten years".

   In general, this forum/blog/book exists because people are unlikely to find these ideas/support anywhere else. I hope a point can be reached when everybody knows someone personally, who FIRE'd.

   @Chris - I do occasionally receive an email out of the blue from people who retired extremely early and have been so for the past 10+ years.

   Posted 1 year ago #
4. 

   AspiringYogini
   

   Novice
   Joined: Sep '11
   Posts: 19

   @Chris - You are one of the few people who have ever asked me this! Wow and thanks for asking!

   In 1996, one year after I started my own business and was in a debt for my car, my house and the business loans, I read YMOYL and it made me think that I could be FI. The money would have to come from the sale of the business. At that time I was working the business about 6 hours each day while working for a colleague about 4 hours each day. I wasn't being paid much, probably about $23K from my boss and the business wasn't paying me anything, so that I could pay down my start up costs. Shortly after I read the book and started tracking expenses it did make sense for me to move to my own business full time (12-16 hours each day) and work at building it up and maxing out my income. I figured I was making $11/hr when I did my initial hourly wage (what I traded for my finite hrs on earth according to YMOYL). But my business did start to grow with all the time I was putting in. I did my own work, much of my own billing and accounting, as well as payroll and everything else. I didn't take a day off for the first year and worked 6 or 7 days each week (the business was closed on Sundays, but sometimes something needed doing anyways). After I moved over to my own place I took off Tues and Sat afternoons.

   My business starting doing well and I started a SEP-IRA account and I could often put away $2-3K each month. I paid off my morgage and car loan, paid off some business loans while taking on lines of credit against my paid off house (interest rates were cheaper that way). I also borrowed from the bank of DAD and was proud to pay my parents 10% on the loan they made to my business even though my Dad said that he would give me leeway with payments. Ha, I never needed to and paid his loan in 3 years. So, after a couple of years running my business with very little social life and not much personal time, I did meet my current DH. We took a weekend away and he took me to the area where we live now. He was sick and tired of always being on call and wanted to move to this new area to live and asked me to marry him and move there. I did think that my business was salable, but it actually took me a stressful 18 months to sell it. At first, I wanted to leave the area, but didn't want to leave my business, my staff and my clients and I think that because my heart wasn't totally in it, that energetically or vibrationally, I held up the sale of the business.

   So, I sold my business for $400K in 2001 (5 years, 3 months later) and held a note on about it for about $100K. This put me at my crossover point of 6% of $400K or $24K, but I actually had a little more money than that and I had a paid off house that I rented out for income after we moved.

   I did get married and that changed the financial plans a bit. If there is interest, I can tell you more about that some other time. Like you said there wasn't support from DH to get to that point, so I managed to make a deal with him and keep finances someone mingled and somewhat separate.

   @Jacob - I would be honored to write a guest post for you. I just need to figure out exactly what I do with all my time!!!! Let me know the details of what you want and I will cook something up.

   AY

   Posted 1 year ago #
5. 

   pooablo
   

   Journeyman
   Joined: Aug '11
   Posts: 189

   Hi AY,

   Thank you for sharing your story. It was very inspirational! I'm amazed that you have been FI for the past 10 years. How were you able to pay for your Masters in Public Health while being FI? Were you able to get scholarships and financial aid for the program?

   Pablo

   Posted 1 year ago #
6. 

   m741
   

   Master
   Joined: Jan '11
   Posts: 737

   I've got to agree with everyone, it's good to have more people here who have become FI. Any details would be appreciated - such as, how do you currently structure your time? Some of the things you do seem like they could be expensive(as mentioned, getting a Masters) - were they difficult? What sort of business did you have? Have you had any unexpected challenges in retirement?

   Posted 1 year ago #
7. 

   Balance
   

   Novice
   Joined: Nov '10
   Posts: 18

   Thanks for sharing your story AY! Like the others have said, very inspiring. My question to you is do you miss work at all? I have friends who retired pretty young after being in the military and they ended up going back to work because of "boredom". I would think that if you had some great hobbies and continued to learn more about things that interest you it would be hard to get bored. But I hear it all the time from retirees. What is your take on that?

   Posted 1 year ago #
8. 

   AspiringYogini
   

   Novice
   Joined: Sep '11
   Posts: 19

   Thanks for being interested in my story. People don't usually think it is very interesting!

   @poobalo - My masters wasn't that expensive compared to many schools. I did it while I had a part-time job and I made more than enough to cover the tuition and books. I took three years to do it and most can do it much faster (18 months). I took as many courses online as I could which saved me the cost of driving 1 hour each way to the university (and all the costs to the earth WRT fossil fuel!). I usually took 2 courses each semester and my tuition and book fees were about $2000 each semester. I thought I could do it all for $10,000, but it ended up being more because I did 7 credits of anthropology electives and field research in Costa Rica and there were more expenses associated with that and I wasn't working while I did it. I did not finance anything or get any scholarships; I kind of felt that being FI didn't really entitle me to free money, since I already have enough. The job I had at the time was one I sort of fell into; I was introduced to a guy who needed an extra person at his business and I filled in there for 2 1/2 years until he sold part of his business and didn't need me any more. This was actually good, because I realized that I didn't want to keep doing this sort of work for money, and I was able to walk away from that work and have not picked up any more work in that field. Now with my MPH I teach part-time doing online courses which suits my lifestyle, my philosophies (low impact on the earth) and my interests better.

   Posted 1 year ago #
9. 

   AspiringYogini
   

   Novice
   Joined: Sep '11
   Posts: 19

   @M741 - You ask a lot of good questions and if you don't mind I will ruminate on them and use them to help me write a guest post for Jacob on how I spend my time and what I have done over the last 10 years. So, to be continued later.......

   Posted 1 year ago #
10. 

    AspiringYogini
    

    Novice
    Joined: Sep '11
    Posts: 19

    @Balance - I do not miss work at all. What I do miss is the comraderie I had with people I worked with. Having lunch together and complaining and telling what is going on in our lives was the greatest part of work. However, now I have lots of social actvities (where this is actually more appropriate) and this was something I was sorely lacking when I worked for money. I need a calendar for all my fun things. One thing that I do find myself doing sometimes is perusing the jobs list at the university where I received my masters. Could I get this job...wonder what it pays.....could I get respect and admiration from colleagues again? Then I usually snap back to reality and think that since I am not interested in publishing or researching and working to get the grants to finance that bogus stuff one has to do to maintain a professional sort of life....ah forget it...It's not worth it. Those professional lives take a lot of energy and even though I am in good shape (doing my yoga every day) I am not going to live forever and my time and my energy (and my health - I have to say that since I teach it) are the most precious things that I have and I am not willing to give them up to drive 2 hours every day and get caught up in fruitless meetings and frivolous activities one must do to keep one's spot in the workplace.

    I really agree with something I read that Jacob wrote. If you were bored before retirement, it is something you carry with you. Since I always had a list of things that I wanted to accomplish outside of work, I always have another list to replace things, once I cross one activity off. The sky truly is the limit and I have found ways to get what I want, often very cheap or even free. Sometimes there are financial setbacks with the economy, hurricanes, bad renters, unexpected bills and the like, but I have been able to roll with these punches.

    AY

    Posted 1 year ago #
11. 

    George the original one
    

    Expert
    Joined: Jul '10
    Posts: 1,943

    > I did get married and that changed the financial plans a bit

    Marriage certainly screwed my plans up, requiring bigger house and more income! However, it is one form of slavery that makes us stronger, so, yes, I'd do it again.

    Posted 1 year ago #

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