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FI seeker

Posted: Fri Feb 10, 2017 2:46 pm
by Douglas
Hello:

Been lurking on the forums for the past couple months for needed inspiration but have been on the FI path since the beginning of 2014. I am starting to have a few specific questions about our FI path so I thought I would join the forum to get feedback and start contributing myself.

A little background about how I got here... First an old college buddy told me about MMM in late 2013, then shortly after I found ERE. Early FI was not at all on my radar and these blogs basically caused me to change substantially the way I think about money. I read all MMM and ERE posts (+book) then moved on to the usual reading list. In a little over three years I went from $35,000 in debt to currently around $50,000 in 401K and cash and no debt (now including my wife who came in with ~$15,000). We do have a mortgage. More on that in another post.

Some basic background: advanced training in a technical field; early 30's; married and want to have kids; consider myself an INTJ; DIY'r (as much as practicable); 1 car family; active outdoors; lots of cooking and homebrewing; prepper/zombie apocalypse mentality (not extreme);

Family income: $12,000/month before taxes; Family spending: $5000/month (including healthcare, mortgage, and other life curveballs); We are working on getting the income higher and spending much lower. Realistic spending for the near future should be $3500-4000/month with minor spending adjustments. Anything below $3,000/month will take much bigger spending adjustments (I don't want to say "sacrifice" but we don't have the discipline yet as a family to go much lower)

I believe my path is more FI driven rather than ER driven. Right now I am trying to make the most money so my work/life balance is not ideal (although it is not bad). After x amount of years working a high pace job I am planning a transition to slower pace with lower pay (and likely more satisfying work). x could be 5-10 years depending on when my employer let's me go or we reach 10 years. Afterwards I will find another job working another 5-10 years. All in all 15-20 years is when I think we can be comfortably FI (Not extreme at all! Conservative estimate). My wife thought I was crazy talking about a 10 year plan at first, now we are talking 20 year plans...haha. We will probably keep working though once FI through part time jobs or small business ownership.

That's a lot of info for an introduction so I will stop there. Looking forward to contributing to the forums.

Re: FI seeker

Posted: Fri Feb 10, 2017 8:37 pm
by Gilberto de Piento
Nice job getting rid of the debt!

Re: FI seeker

Posted: Sat Feb 11, 2017 9:59 am
by Douglas
Thanks. Initially I lived off of $1000/month and then I got married...haha. Where I live now renting and houses are twice as expensive if not more compared to where I used to live. Our spending is heading back down to the good direction. Have to keep it there.

Re: FI seeker

Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2017 11:29 am
by wolf
Well done Douglas. Maybe you can reduce some expenses? Then you have a really nice saving rate.