Five Years, Lord Willing

Where are you and where are you going?
singvestor
Posts: 205
Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2015 12:48 am

Re: Five Years, Lord Willing

Post by singvestor »

Your cellphone bill is really high. Savings of usd 1,200 per year should be easily possible. do your clients really care if they are driven in a USD 18k Toyota Camry or a 28k Subaru? Changes are possible but you must embrace them.

Jason

Re: Five Years, Lord Willing

Post by Jason »

It looks like our fixed monthly costs are $3,781 = $45,372

So to be safe, its +/- 50K

My wife takes nets approx. $3,200 per month= $38,400.00

I hope to take home $75-$100K this year.

So minimum savings is 60K this year.

Jason

Re: Five Years, Lord Willing

Post by Jason »

singvestor wrote:Your cellphone bill is really high. Savings of usd 1,200 per year should be easily possible. do your clients really care if they are driven in a USD 18k Toyota Camry or a 28k Subaru? Changes are possible but you must embrace them.
After Talmudic discussion with customer service, we could not find way to reduce cell phone based upon usage.

The second part of your question is what do I feel comfortable in and what is required in my profession. In any event, I've already made that bed.

I understand your point, but this is not like your neighbor drives a lexus/Bmw. This is a business perception thing which has impact.

Jason

Re: Five Years, Lord Willing

Post by Jason »

So Wednesday is my birthday and my wife agreed not to buy me my gift, but she couldn't resist giving me the card early.

It was a nice card until I flipped it over and saw she paid $6.95 for the damn thing. God bless her, but that is some self-refuting nonsense right there. I lost it and told her she could just written happy birthday on a post it. $7.00 for a card. I'm guessing that's how much some of you raise your kids on.

Now I have to figure out a way to make up for it without spending money. This is a whole new world.

steveo73
Posts: 1733
Joined: Sat Jul 06, 2013 6:52 pm

Re: Five Years, Lord Willing

Post by steveo73 »

Jason wrote:So Wednesday is my birthday and my wife agreed not to buy me my gift, but she couldn't resist giving me the card early.

It was a nice card until I flipped it over and saw she paid $6.95 for the damn thing. God bless her, but that is some self-refuting nonsense right there. I lost it and told her she could just written happy birthday on a post it. $7.00 for a card. I'm guessing that's how much some of you raise your kids on.

Now I have to figure out a way to make up for it without spending money. This is a whole new world.
My take is you can't sweat these things too much. I also think spending that much on a card is some stupid shit but at least she only bought the card. Basically though you just have to give it some time and let her adapt to a different lifestyle.

We tightened up our spending but my wife still has a tendency to buy some stupid shit. My wife is definitely frugal and we are now pretty good but we used to go the shops on the weekend and buy lunch and she would go and find something to buy because it was cheap. I always hated that. I buy stuff and I can spend more money but I buy rarely. I'm not an impulse buyer. Now though my wife doesn't really go to the shops and buy dumb stuff. I basically just stay out of it.

halfmoon
Posts: 697
Joined: Mon Nov 07, 2016 10:19 pm

Re: Five Years, Lord Willing

Post by halfmoon »

As a real estate agent, you're certainly familiar with the line "Location, location, location." I would add to that, "Perspective, perspective, perspective."

Come on; your wife agrees to a ban on birthday presents but buys you a SEVEN DOLLAR CARD? This is a massive mental step worthy of praise. Maybe she thought the card was more funny/profound/engaging than a Post-it note. Maybe you need to go back and tell her that you appreciate her attempted adaptation to your recently-adopted standards. We all respond better to reinforcement than enforcement.

Jason

Re: Five Years, Lord Willing

Post by Jason »

You are absolute correct. Although, she was as upset as I was when she was at the check out line. She just didn't want to appear cheap in front of the check-out person and say that that her husband wasn't worth a $7.00 card so she bought it. She insisted that she is buying me George Saunders new novel which will be about $14.00.

I am lucky to have someone on board. One cannot be unequally yoked in this situation.

I recently showed her our flow of dividend payments. Its like all those little expenses that used to go out are now coming in.

But thanks for the censure.

Jason

Re: Five Years, Lord Willing

Post by Jason »

So I've been spending a lot of time reading the board and if I'm not mistaken I am not ERE but am a Bogelhead i.e. dis-proportionately concerned with accumulation than spending.

That being said, I am no longer dripping and drabbing myself to death. No lunch, no coffee (well, once). I am tracking my spending as much as my savings.

I guess we all have our floors, and mine appears to be 500K with a 250K paid off home. As they say in Appalachia, its all relative.

Based on retirement/investing calculators, I need to save $500 per month at 5.4% return to reach 500K in five years. That should not be issue (unless personal catastrophe or serious market downturn) especially with lower spending. If market downturns, I think I can make up.

The acceleration of the mortgage, is my next calculation.

Jason

Re: Five Years, Lord Willing

Post by Jason »

I just read Jacob's blog posts where he discusses wearing the same shoes for 15 years and makes an argument that there is an equivalency between owning a TV and consuming/destroying.

I realize that compared to him, I live on a different planet. I will never live on his planet, but maybe we can at least share the same solar system. I don't know if that works as an allegory. The only thing I remember from Astronomy class in college is when the Professor pulled the screen down and there was a pornographic picture taped to it.

I need to pray on these things. Sometimes I think its just too late. My wife just came in with a Reese's peanut butter cup wrapper like she was a prison guard and she found my shiv. I told her it was 15 years old.

George the original one
Posts: 5404
Joined: Wed Jul 28, 2010 3:28 am
Location: Wettest corner of Orygun

Re: Five Years, Lord Willing

Post by George the original one »

May I suggest:
"How TV Ruined Your Life"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqeBcvH ... o1g6-IdQHh

halfmoon
Posts: 697
Joined: Mon Nov 07, 2016 10:19 pm

Re: Five Years, Lord Willing

Post by halfmoon »

Jason wrote:
Based on retirement/investing calculators, I need to save $500 per month at 5.4% return to reach 500K in five years. That should not be issue (unless personal catastrophe or serious market downturn) especially with lower spending.
Color me confused (maybe it's the red wine). I thought you wrote earlier that you could almost live on your wife's earnings. Why can you only save $500/month from your additional earnings?

Jason

Re: Five Years, Lord Willing

Post by Jason »

George the original one wrote:May I suggest:
"How TV Ruined Your Life"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqeBcvH ... o1g6-IdQHh
Thank you for the opportunity to experience many more painful realizations!!!!!

Jason

Re: Five Years, Lord Willing

Post by Jason »

halfmoon wrote:
Jason wrote:
Based on retirement/investing calculators, I need to save $500 per month at 5.4% return to reach 500K in five years. That should not be issue (unless personal catastrophe or serious market downturn) especially with lower spending.
Color me confused (maybe it's the red wine). I thought you wrote earlier that you could almost live on your wife's earnings. Why can you only save $500/month from your additional earnings?
No its not the wine.

The reason I wrote that is my income is not guaranteed and fluctuates greatly, so being a rigorous pessimist I think that I will make zero (even though this year I am at this moment guaranteed close to thirty). I know everyone speaks about the power of optimism but its not my nature no matter how much I try.

If I made what I made last year for three consecutive years, we would be donezo. As in here today, gone to Maui donezo. But its not going to happen because that was like two years in one - it takes time to build up that amount of activity.

Me saying five years is reasonable to most but when I say it, Pollyannish to me.

halfmoon
Posts: 697
Joined: Mon Nov 07, 2016 10:19 pm

Re: Five Years, Lord Willing

Post by halfmoon »

Fair enough, Pollyanna.

Just don't let that $30k vaporize into peanut butter cups and lattes, because the people here are just like your wife and they will want answers. :lol:

Jason

Re: Five Years, Lord Willing

Post by Jason »

No chance. A 30K year annual contribution inputted into my handy/dandy Bloomberg Retirement calculator at a 5.4 return brings me to 645K in five years. That should be enough to eat peanut butter cups and ruminate on the benefits of optimism for the duration.

Jason

Re: Five Years, Lord Willing

Post by Jason »

(1) Net Worth: Due to an overheated US stock market, our net worth increased $6,456.00 this past week. Fourth quarter 2016, I decided to start buying individual stocks, mainly dividend stocks, and they have done well, specifically IBM and Nike. We've had Apple for a while, so that helped. Also, Activision Blizzard popped $7.50 per share yesterday so we made over $600.00 on that. We are now at a new high of 370K in securities. Our overall is 423K - house minus f*cking car.

I need 500K in money and a paid off house. My feeling has always been that 400K will insulate us from future poverty. Obviously, this endeavor is as much about keeping the crocodiles at bay as it is about the size of the castle.

Based on my age, we are actually doing better than most in America, but that's reminiscent of my douchebag brother coming home in August and bragging about receiving an A in summer school. Hate to burst your bubble asshole, but when everyone else in the class is an idiot, what have you really accomplished. Anyways, enough of that shitheel.

To me, money is about dignity. I have had it and have had it not. Having it doesn't mean much, not having it means everything. That's why losses hurt more than gains satisfy. Being rich is overrated, being poor immeasurably sucks.

(2) Spending: Did not buy lunch this week. Made it myself everyday. Bought two DD coffees and a pack of Reese Peanut Butter cups. So, overall I should be saving close to $200.00 per month. But I want to go scorched earth on food/beverage. Seeing that shit on my bank statement now makes my blood boil.

Things still come up. We needed new drapes. I can't ask my wife to Laura Ingalls Wilder that shit. We needed a service guy to look at our stove. He looked like he was one of the Hells Angels who killed Rollings Stones fans at Altamont. Also, I bought a book shelf because books are my weakness. Yes, I can hypothetically build a bookshelf but the likelihood of it coming out even as about as great as finding a photograph with both Robin Leach and Jacob Lund Fisker in it.

(3) Wife's paycheck:

She gets paid twice a month approx 1,700 a month:

$100 went to extra mortgage payment
$250 went to Vanguard VFIAX (non- retirement)
$100 went to Charles Schwab (I use ETF's as purgatory for quarterly tax payments)
$100 to savings account #1(Serves as overdraft)
$200 to saving account #2 (emergency Fund which I tend to invest and replenish)
$386 car payment (makes me want to skullfuck Henry Ford) Can I say skullfuck here?
$91 to Rex Tillerson's golden parachute
$181 to ATT (make that skullfucking threesome with Henry Ford and Thomas Alva Edison)
$100 to car insurance (new car caused adjustment in insurance, see line above referencing my feelings on that matter)

I think that's enough. I don't know how to make charts and there is really nothing of interest to take a picture where I live. Sometimes there are wild turkeys in the area. Wild Turkeys are the derelicts of the bird community from my remedial observations. Like the T-Birds in Grease.

steveo73
Posts: 1733
Joined: Sat Jul 06, 2013 6:52 pm

Re: Five Years, Lord Willing

Post by steveo73 »

Here is one suggestion that you might be able to use. Get a kindle or other e-book and torrent your books. It takes up a lot less space and you get a lot to read and it's a lot cheaper.

Jason

Re: Five Years, Lord Willing

Post by Jason »

I am not a luddite, obviously, as I am on a computer. But I find sustained reading on electronically devices to be quite draining on my eyes.

oldbeyond
Posts: 338
Joined: Thu Nov 29, 2012 10:43 pm

Re: Five Years, Lord Willing

Post by oldbeyond »

So if you include the extra payment on the mortgage you saved 150k post-tax on a pre-tax income of 250k? I'm amazed the byzantine tax system you guys have so I won't venture a guess on how much you pay in tax, but at that income I guess it's quite a bit? With a bit of optimization you should be able to save quite a bit even if your normal earnings are more like 150k, given your stated housing and transportation costs. It seems like a detailed breakdown of your recent spending might be worthwhile for you :P

Jason

Re: Five Years, Lord Willing

Post by Jason »

(1) Taxes are approx. 33%;

(2) I created a budget and it appears we can live on 70K pre-tax which is my wife's salary, if there are no serious disruptions;

(3) If we gross 150K, I would hope to save minimum 50K;

I am too old and spoiled to make radical adjustments to my life i.e. moving, change of career etc. so its a matter of "tweaking" which there is much to do. This includes but is not limited to eating out, buying gifts, buying crap etc. I'm thinking that could account for 10K.

The biggest changes I can make are mental which would be include metamorphosing from glass half empty to half glass full, which of course is a transition of which I am skeptical.

What is essential is that my wife will retire in five years at which point she will receive a pension of approx. 33% of her salary. My goal is to be in a position to absorb that change.

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