Jande05's Journal - let there be FIERE!

[Jande05]

Hi Folks !
30 year old guy, Danish. Live in the US (Atlanta). I'm going to relocate back to Europe sometime soon, within 6 months. I made an introduction in another section, find more info there (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6587

I've been super eager to get started on my personal journal, so that I can get the official stake in the ground.
But I've found myself endlessly tweaking away on key metrics in my excel spreadsheet, and so, haven't been completely sure about what exact metrics I want to report on. But, nevertheless I need to get started so here goes. Then, I'm sure the reporting structure will change over time.

It’s a little late, but I do want to get my May/June numbers on paper (meaning, on the forum). This way it becomes a little more real for me and I feel obligated to track my progress

2015, January - April…. Hold on… This is ugly;
First, lets just recap where I am coming from - and lets keep it mostly to 2015. That’s all that’s necessary. Before I found ERE (and my brain again), I had started an absolutely insane spending track in early 2015… Just counting the first 4 months of 2015 I had SPENT 38K in total. Yes, you read correctly… 38 freaking K after tax-dollars burned up in just 4 months! That’s an average of 9500 USD per month ! There is really no need to go into the details of this, since the conclusion is clear. That is absolutely insanity! Where did the money go? To crap, almost nothing but crap. Well that’s not true but I am just getting pretty pissed when I'm writing this… ahh, spare with me, this is part of my healing process So ok, I bought a condo in January so a good chunk was spent on updating the new place (about 4.5K). There's also significant business expenses included that I've later been reimbursed (7.3K), which brings my own spending down to 30K., but, that is still nowhere close to acceptable.

I did go on two/three vacations in period that I don’t regret too much. I only regret how much I paid for them. One 1 week skiing trip in Colorado, an extended weekend in LA, and a 3 week trip to Thailand. (Damn, did I have that much vacation back then?? ) Anyway, I don’t regret the trips but I do regret that I spent 8K in total on these. That’s way too much. I am sure I could have gotten the same value for way less if I had thought it through.

So in short. I hate that I burned through that much money in such short time. But I am happy that I got a wake-up call at some point a few months back.
The thing is that I have actually always been pretty frugal (Believe it or not. And I understand if you don’t with the grim reality above). But, I don’t have car payments and never have, before buying my condo, I didn’t have any significant debt. I had a small chunk of student debt sitting back in DK… I've never carried balances on credit cards etc.

Well, for the heck of it - let me show you the last couple of year's savings %...



It's not too bad, I know. It’s a much higher savings rate than most "normal" people, but its still not good enough. How I managed to let my expenses crawl from 38K to 74K in two years is mindboggling to me… And then, as explained, the first 4 months of 2015 just blew a fuse. It has to stop.
I know I make a very decent income, and I just feel plain embarrassed that I haven't gotten more out of it at this point.

Part of the excuse
I have for sure been working very hard to get to where I am today. And part of the crazy spending in late 2014 and early 2015 was somewhat due to a sense of burning out on my job. I really felt like I needed to finally enjoy some of the hard work. I wanted to travel…. And after some thinking in mid-2014 I decided to simply "clock out" and go on a 3 week vacation. I didn’t really ask for permission, I just told my employer that I was going during X period, and that I would be off. Completely off. Up to that point I had taken close to 0 vacation during 2.5-3 years, so I didn’t even want to discuss it and at that point didn't care about the consequences. Hehe, it was a quite nice feeling. And it proved to work out, now how about that my American colleagues - its doable ! I say that because it sure did result in lots of questions whether that was "OK" for someone to go away for that long... Anyway, I went 3 weeks to Japan. It was awesome. And early in 2015 I went again, this time 3 weeks to Thailand. Another awesome experience. So, much of the reckless spending surely came as a reaction to overworking myself, but, I also did go overboard when traveling. The trips were great, and in fact, I do want to travel and experience more, but it can surely be done in different ways and cheaper...

So I got carried away on travelling and enjoying myself. January-April 2015 will be my most expensive 4 months in my life, ever. But at least my old frugal me did realize that something was not right about this… so, at some point I ran into all this ERE and this community. Boy am I glad I found you guys! Ugh, its embarrassing to put it all out there. But I need some public shaming, and get my ass kicked. I deserve it. From here on, its all about getting the spending cut waaayy down to a sane level, and focus on FI.

So let's get the 2015 numbers on the table
And also the cooler charts



May was the first full month that I observed my spending closely, the "ERE way". I got it cut a lot compared to the previous 4 months, and ended up spending 5,500 in total. Due to an extraordinary high income that month of 14.2K, I hit a savings % of 61%. The spending was still way too high though, and the high savings percentage is really only due to a high income that month. My income can fluctuate a lot, so I need to get the spending way further down.

June looked much better. I ended up cutting my expenses to just $ 2,662. Now how about that for a change compared to the first months of 2015! This is 2012 territory, woo! My income was also significantly lower though, at $ 6,698, so I landed a 60% savings rate. I'm happy about that progress though. I would like to see my savings rate at least 50%, and really should be 60-80%.



401K changes, investments, etc.
I did make some significant changes in 2015 already, that also changes how my income and asset allocation looks…

401K: My company only just introduced a 401K recently, and effective June I have upped my contribution to 25% to catch up to the maximum contribution of 18K for the year. So my after tax income will look lower, but, its for the better of course. Up to that point I had contributed to an IRA. See net worth chart below.

After Tax Investments: I have started aggressively allocating my monthly savings to an investment account (set to 3K month). Until I get a clearer Investment strategy I am parking every months' savings into a Betterment account. I've already lowered my cash position a lot, and need to make it even smaller... But am downsizing it a little slower to make sure I can cover payments on credit cards which is delayed a little. Not that I carry a balance, I'm just used to putting ALL expenses on my cc and need to have enough to pay for the old habits with due payment the next few months...

Real Estate: I am 100% sure my investment strategy will include real estate going forward. I bought my current condo in January/February and am including this equity in my Net worth (see chart below).


Net worth Allocation and progress
I'm now tracking my Networth allocation, and simply, I need to grow this as aggressively as possible. I've gone from 168K in January to 204K in June, an increase of ~36K. For 2015 I'm expecting to at least keep this trend, which should put me close to a Networth of 240K per end of year. Now, lets see if I can hit that +250 instead eh




• Net worth, May: 198,036
• Net worth, June: 204,810 ($ 6774 increase, 3.4% increase)


A couple of other Key Metrics
I like the metrics below, and will probably build some charts for this…For now, just reporting as bulletpoints

FI Networth Target: 1,050,000 USD

FI WR, May: 37%
FI WR, June: 32% (there's a long way to 4%)

Years till FI, May: 10.25 Years
Years till FI, June: 10.19 Years

ERE Networth Target: 1,470,000 USD.

Years till ERE, May: 15.33 Years
Years till ERE, June: 15.27 Years

The current Networth target and the "years till FI", are based on a spending target of $ 3,500 USD/month (42K/year x 25), the ERE is the same but X 35. I need to get my spending down to at least that level 3500 level. I am sure I will lower that further later, but, I prefer to run through 2015 and see how low I can get, then make an adjustment based on more reliable data, and by then shave a good chunk off of my Years till FI… The current figures helps me getting fired up, seeing that it will take me +10 years just to get to FI at my current trend is not good enough… and ERE will take me more than 15 years?!! Hell no… ! I know that I am in a position to shorten this significantly. But my income can fluctuate a lot so I want to see if I can establish a more predicable trend, and with 2015 already messed up due to my crazy spendburn early on, let's see how it goes and I will adjust.

I know I can both lower my networth target and I know that I can optimize my savings % significantly, so lets get at it !
2015 will be very interesting from here .

That’s it for now peeps. More to come later, happy to be part of the ERE forum !

[singvestor]

Good luck, Jande05! Looking forward to seeing how your journey will go. Seems you might be FI before 40!

[Jande05]

In here with a late update for July, its been busy on my side lately. Here goes - quick recap;


Good
- My GF came over from DK mid July, and we are having a blast together. Soon I may not be living in the US any longer so having her here and experiencing some fun things is great. But… It is pretty expensive to be paying X2 every time we do something…

- OK, this is a huge one for me; I'm slowly converting my GF to embrace lowering spending, and she's actually taking it pretty well. I think there's a future ERE'er hidden in her. Crossing my fingers. So, we were going to a 30th birthday dinner for one of my best friends… First, we agreed that a great gift would be to give him my YMOYL book since I'm done with it… Cheap solution and what a gift Secondly, I refused to spend money buying gift wrap… And instead of starting a discussion my GF actually suggested that we go see if there was a good box in the recycling bins where I live. Whaa? And so… we did. Now how about that, she actually went dumbster diving for a box that we could put the book in. LOL… I'm telllin' ya, future ERE'er

- I increased my "passive income" significantly in July. I started renting out my place on Airbnb and actually racked up an extra $ 1200, just in July ! I've been AirBnB'ing my place in the past when I travel, but this time I opened up for guests while I'm here and it works out great. Now, its just a shame I cannot see that extra income bump up the savings rate this month. It should have, grrr… Anyway, I'm not doing the airbnb thing now that my GF is here since some privacy is nice. But, I for sure I will take it up again when my GF flies back to DK, this is too easy money and quite entertaining to have guests coming by.

- I've taken up working out again, its nice to be back on track. I eat healthy and have always been very active but tend to let the workout regime slide when I get stressed from work. I feel SO much better when working out.

- I am increasing my efficiency. Signed up for Audible again to speed up the "reading" during driving, running, and working out. There's so many interesting books to catch up on, thanks to this forum too !


Bad
- I spent way too much, and my savings % is embarrassingly low at just 32%, despite a solid income in July. I had a last minute business trip that came up, which gave me extra deductible expenses of some 1900. If I subtract that, my "real" savings % would be 54%.... But, I'm displaying the 32%, because, that gets me fired up… and once reimbursed it'll just give a higher income in August. While the 54% would be "ok" normally, I'm still not happy with it. My extra income from renting out alone should have made me reach a "real" savings percentage of at least 60%. No excuses.

- I did splurge on an extended weekend in Orlando with my GF, connected with the business trip. This was very expensive. The hotel cost, her flight from DK (I paid), eating out, and especially going to Universal Studio was pricey! I spent some 1500 on this all in all. Ouch! I have to stop these kind of massive expenses if I'm to speed up my FI process… In fact, I was really kind of disgusted at times. Especially when walking around in touristy areas like Universal Studio. Now, I was the one who pushed for this. I really wanted my GF to experience Universal St., and I am a kid sometimes and love a thrill rides... But, the way everything is setup to just suck money out of people, and seeing how people (and myself included) just happily get in line to just burn money up... I'm not going back to a theme park like that anytime soon. Maybe some day when I'm well above FI, I may take my future kids... But am not sure. There must be much better ways of having a good time with your family...



July Spending - Overall
Was way too high. Travel includes $ 1100 in direct business expenses and a total of 1900 to be reimbursed. The rest of the travel section is a Flight, fun and hotel with GF in Orlando. Food and Dining includes some $ 300 for restaurants with GF, that needs to go away also. Entertainment includes one really cool whole day trip on dirtbikes with my GF, she was awesome at it! Also pricey, but was a lot of fun. The "Fees" of 159 includes includes 95 USD for my Skymiles Delta credit card… I need to get those miles used up and get rid of it. Waste of money now that I look at it. Health & Fitness also includes a one-time cost of 75 for signing up my GF at LA Fitness so she can workout when I'm working… When she's visiting I still work full time and she's just hanging out.... So all in all there's a bunch of one-time and massive expenses for having fun with my GF while she's here… This is not an excuse, but, I really do need to get those big one-time expenses cut away.




This was the spending, only 32%... and a "real" savings rate of 54% of business expenses are removed.... Still not good enough with my income for the month. Here's month by month overview, with July;

[Jande05]

July update, part 2. Lets get the NW tracking on here as well;

Networth Allocation and progress
As mentioned in my first post, I'm now starting to see networth go up quite a bit since I increased my 401K contribution to 25%. I've also made a correction in the calculations where my old Danish Student Debt is now subtracted from my DK assets…

• Net worth, May: 199,903
• Net worth, June: 204,816 ($ 4,913 increase, 2% increase
• Networth, July: 213,672 ($ 8,856 increase, 4% increase)






Key Metrics

FI WR
• May: 37% corrected to 38%
• June: 32% corrected to 33%
• July: 32%

Years till FI:
• May: 9.05 Years
• June: 9.60 Years
• July: 9.22 Years

Years till ERE:
• May: 13.52
• June: 14.36
- July: 13.85

[Jande05]

In August I've already had a new business trip coming up, and I've booked a flight of +1500 USD. Its a big chunk of money and skews my savings % a lot. These kind of expenses are not going away any time soon. Should I take these expenses out of my calculations ?

[thrifty++]

Wow your doing so well. Your net worth increase from July was massive!
Why do you have a business travel expense? Are you self employed? If your work pays it back to you I think I would still include it but put it into the category of "work spending" which then cancels out once reimbursed. To keep your sanity you could express both your savings rate with and without that expense.

[Jande05]

Thanks thrify++, that is a pretty big increase. I had to go back and check my numbers again, but it looks correct. Unfortunately I cannot count on such a big increase every month... I wish I'm not self-employed, its just been the practice at the company I work for that I/we arrange travel ourselves (and earn the miles/cash back, or other benefits, which has been an ok perk), but I then also have to float the money until it gets reimbursed. Maybe I should cover all such expenses on a specific card that is just living its own life on the side... Today I have a mixed use of personal and business expenses on it... For now, I'll track both with and without expenses as you suggested.

[Jande05]

I am going to quit my job this week And. It. Feels. Awesome!

I have an awesome tickling feeling inside. It's both a little scary, but most of all its super exciting since it will mark the beginning of a new adventure for myself. I'll also get much closer to my GF right away, and I'll have a lot of fun in my new role!

Not too long ago I was offered to invest in the company I work for now. Though it was potentially a good offer I turned it down last week. I am burned out in my current role and too many things are changing for the worse since we are going through mergers, layers upon layers and more bureaucracy is slowing down everything. We're becoming a corporation with lofty goals. I can already feel the passion and original identity of the company dispersing…. I simply wasn’t willing to tie myself and my cash to a company that I've already worked for, for 6 years… And, I was presented a plan that I actually don’t believe will succeed. So, instead, I'm outta here

In parallel, I have instead reached an agreement with another company which is just too good to pass. We have been discussing the terms and the vision for our collaboration for about a month… There's so many upsides to this agreement… One of the immediate effects is that I am going to cut my salary by more than half, when doing this. Wohoo! Haha, but the future potential is much bigger and the plans are so exciting that I am not one bit nervous about that part. I will make that up, and I will be doing it while having a ton of fun.

One of the very cool things is that it'll allow me to make some major adjustments pretty soon that will step up (or, lid up!) my FIERE plan considerably. My future job will involve a lot of travelling (and staying) in Europe for the next year and eventually moving there permanently in about a year's time. So one of the best things about the agreement is that it includes the new company paying for all housing and transportation expenses in Europe for min. the next year while gaining momentum there. That’s obviously huge! So, I am right now planning on basically selling all my crap (furniture, TV), renting out my condo asap, selling my car and get rid of all associated expenses. So this will almost eliminate all my core expenses I'll be extremely mobile (nomad style!), I'll travel a lot, and it's all covered! I'm pretty ecstatic

And on the guilt side… This will be a major surprise for my current employer. Good lord. So many initiatives and plans are tied to my role and my unit… And they generously offered me to invest in the company as one of few "key employees", and now I'm leaving instead. Haha, oh well, I'm sure they will be fine without me.

I'm crossing fingers that it won't turn ugly when I quit. I'm shooting for giving my notice no later than Wednesday this week.
More to come later.

[Jande05]

I just quit my job today. Bam! Feels good to be on that side of the table.

"You're fired", "No, you're fired!!"

[Jande05]

Oh, I also quit my La Fitness membership today. Big move. Hah

[sky]

Congrats

[El Duderino]

wow, sounds like a great opportunity to do something you're passionate about and will bring you back to Europe for a length of time, which must be nice. If I were in a similar situation with an opportunity to return back to the US for a job I was excited about, I'd be grinning as wide as your emoticons. Well done!

Isn't it interesting how with all the overacheivers on here, you're unhappy with a 32% savings rate when that is immensely better than the average spendthrift out on the streets. It's all relative and there is a lot of pressure on here to get these really impressive numbers. I've noticed and felt this myself a lot. Even as a person whose monthly exepenses are way, way outside of the ERE range, I found your numbers for the first part of the year to be super-high. Good to see that you're getting that under control.

Besides the obvious multipliers that you're using to calculate your FI and ERE numbers, what's the thinking behind FI = 25x42K (i.e. 4% rule) and ERE = 35x42K (~2.8%)? I know there don't seem to be strict definitions of the terms, but I've come to think about FI in a loose sense as being debt free all the way to the complete quality of being debt free with assets that return enough to live off of. ERE seems to me to be that more hard-line state of sub 7K/year expenses or at least some really frugal/economical standard of living that allows for an early retirement under self-imposed conditions that others would deem to be extreme or compromised in some way (in their estimation, of course).

[jacob]

Besides the obvious multipliers that you're using to calculate your FI and ERE numbers, what's the thinking behind FI = 25x42K (i.e. 4% rule) and ERE = 35x42K (~2.8%)? I know there don't seem to be strict definitions of the terms, but I've come to think about FI in a loose sense as being debt free all the way to the complete quality of being debt free with assets that return enough to live off of. ERE seems to me to be that more hard-line state of sub 7K/year expenses or at least some really frugal/economical standard of living that allows for an early retirement under self-imposed conditions that others would deem to be extreme or compromised in some way (in their estimation, of course).

I see I need to have a talk with the ERE Marketing Department again

In general,
standard of living = skill of living * cost of living.

For most people (consumers), the skill of living = 1, so

standard of living = cost of living

Hence, it's a common perception that ERE suffers from some kind of extreme sacrifice in standard of living. This is either because of an inability to realize that it's possible to spend money better or outright denial. Probably mostly the former except when confronted directly in which case questioning commonly held beliefs are met with anger (e.g. see "all comments" on any extreme early retirement article in MSM.)

Most frugality sites use large lists of tips and tricks (think Tightwad Gazette) which increase the skill of living to a level above 1. For example, think of using coupons to get 20% off. Suppose you did that on everything. Then skill of living equals 1.25 (=1/0.8). This means getting the same standard of living at less cost of living because, say

$40000 = 1.25 * $32000

The $8000 can be saved and invested to create FI.

Different skills and ways of solving problems can further increase skill of living. But you can only go so far with "diversifying your ingredients" without considering/adopting some kind of smarter structure.

The difference between ERE and I'd say practically any other FIRE site is that ERE very deliberately takes a systems-theoretical design approach/focus maximize this skill of living. Consequentially, ERE "skill of living" is often in the 3+ range. I'd estimate my number to be close to 4.

Hence for our family (of 2) ...

$48000 = 4 * $12000

This is why you see such low cost numbers here. Whereas in reality ERE folks likely don't look like they're living any differently than their neighbors. But of course the thinking behind it is very very different.

Conversely, for a family living in poverty, it's more like

$14000 = 0.8 * $17500, where the "skill" is lower the 1 as money is wasted on lottery tickets, payday fees, "emergencies", restaurant junk food, ...

Of course it takes quite a bit of time (at least a few years of dedicated effort) to learn and run one's personal finances like an efficient small business. You need to develop both the vision (systems viewpoint and the appropriate solution, chapter 5 of the ERE book), the management (mostly psychological, aligning values with actions, chapters 2,3), and the technical skills ("frugality tips" but also more serious hard skills, e.g. cooking, fabrication, gardening, appropriate DIY, ... some standard stuff in chapter 6) to do so. Certainly the number is not just going to jump from 1 to 4 by switching to Republic Wireless, clipping coupons, or renting out a room. Usually the vision is the hardest part because everybody is constantly bombarded by consumerist spend-spend-spend messages from all directions. Another reason is being locked-in in terms of traditional ways of doing things. This is mostly a mental block but it's hard for the fish to see the water.

More here,
http://forum.earlyretirementextreme.com ... 349#p74349
http://earlyretirementextreme.com/wiki/ ... Philosophy

PS:

The 4% comes from the Trinity Study which is computed the maximum withdrawal rate on US-centric portfolios that never failed over any historical 30 year period. For longer periods or for most other countries (the 20th century US returns were in the top 3 in the world), the SWR is lower/the risk of failure is higher.

The 4% number is widely used and I suspect not everyone quoting the 4%-rule is aware of these assumptions.

The ERE standard is a 3% withdrawal rate because 3% real returns have been possible in some way (pig farming, Roman apartment building mortgage rates, ship funding, ...) for the entirety of recorded financial history which is about as old as written history. This requires some diligence from the investor but it should be good in perpetuity which is good since ERE often lasts longer than 30 years and because ERE doesn't always take place in 20th century America.

So the difference is that the 4% rule is based on a combination of mathematics and some rather narrow assumptions. Whereas the 3% rule is based on personal intelligence and all known history.

[Jande05]

Time for a quick update - Time is flying, and so am I !

Btw, thanks for the last two posts, El Duderino and Jacob, very interesting points made. I must admit that I mostly did think of the difference between FI and ERE being the hard line of 4% vs 3%. That being said, getting to those numbers will for sure require ERE thinking and application + Development of skills... Unless I just win the lottery, which would be hard, since I dont buy lottery tickets (not ERE approved!). I believe getting to that point is a Progress where one has to Work on his own skills to keep improving, and the FI and ERE targets are just economic indicators/goals for myself... and actually just two out of several goals or metrics if you will... One of the aspects of Jacob's ERE thinking I love is, that I have a Whole dashboard of indicators and areas to work with, and I can choose to focus on different aspects as I please... One day its about the savings %, then its on the Investment side, then the personal side and skills Development... there's even the Whole relationship side to think of, how do I optimize my ERE skills while including my GF (without driving her nuts...)...

And Jacob, thanks for the points about efficiency ("Skill of living", hah!)... I really like that way of thinking... And agree, that it must take years to get to e.g. a 3.0 effiecency... I'm not sure where I am, I may have moved from 0.8 to 1.2 percent just in a few months. Maybe higher, but like most Things, its easy to improve a lot in the beginning, especially if you start out with the big chunks (housing, car, etc), after that, it becomes more difficult to improve further.

It could be fun to think about what actually qualifies one to be in the ERE field though... Not to start an ERE police.... Could one say that to be in ERE territory, you would need to have a 2.0 efficiency rate? In other Words you are getting at least 2X more out of your spending than comparable peers?? The rate should probably be higher... 3.0 ?

[Jande05]

And to the quick update on my end.

I am behind on an Economic update for August, and I am not currently tracking my expenses much for September - But I will catch up! The short update is that I am having a blast on my new gig. I started my new job 1st September, and have been travelling since Friday 28th Aug... The last two weeks I had the pleasure of showing my 3 US business partners around in Denmark, Scotland, Englang (London), and back to Denmark.

I am so happy I made this shift. My new colleagues are intend on having a good time while working. So, apart from showing them around in Copenhagen for a week while having meetings, we flew to Edinburgh last weekend, toured around the Scottish highlands... Then took a train Down through the country to London for more meetings and touristing around.... Heck, I had to talk them out of doing a roadtrip from Copenhagen through Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, France, and up to London by car! These Guys are great, especially considering they are way older than I am - they still want to spend time touring around, and, they are all fired up and excited that I've joined them. I love it.

I've now shipped back my colleagues to the US and am in DK right now continuing running up the business here. I have nearly had 0 personal expenses the last two weeks, and this will be the picture going forward. I will be on the road, almost all expenses will be reimbursed... This should help my FI rate tremendously. I plan on returning to the US 1st Oct., and here my plan is to sell my car, all my stuff, and rent out my place. From that point on, I will have close to no expenses. Yir !

[GandK]

Congratulations!

Your journal has been fun to read. Keep it up!

[Jande05]

Thanks GandK!

So, I have a question to the forum. How do you deal with sharing cost with your significant other? It seems that most take the approach of simply splitting cost in half, and then work on cutting spending of the remaining $$ to the best of your ability with whatever you have left much on an individual basis...

So, the other day my GF came up with a - I think - ingenious suggestion. Reminding you she's not into ERE, but she is picking up on the idea little by little. Well, a lot now I guess! Maybe she's secretly on the forum as wel.... Hmmm...

Right now I'm in the process of moving to DK so have been living at her place the last few weeks, so we are figuring out how to deal with the "shared" economics.

Her suggestion was that we lump all our fixed expenses together. Rent, groceries etc. And whatever the total amount is, we then contribute a fixed equal % of our net salary each. She suggested we should make sure that this % is only 10-15%, and try to maintain that.

Now, the thing is she's studying still and I make probably 10x more than she does, so obvisouly I would be paying the majority in that scenario.. if we just split 50/50 I could contribute a very small % of my income... However I do think it's a great and fair suggestion which will give her a chance to get started saving up as well - and that was an important part of her thinking that she could then also save up a significant % of her income.

Any others doing something like this, and what do you think? Suggestions are welcomed!

[steveo73]

I've come to think about FI in a loose sense as being debt free all the way to the complete quality of being debt free with assets that return enough to live off of.

I look at FI like this.

ERE seems to me to be that more hard-line state of sub 7K/year expenses or at least some really frugal/economical standard of living that allows for an early retirement under self-imposed conditions that others would deem to be extreme or compromised in some way (in their estimation, of course).

This is my assessment as well. ERE would honestly be fine for me. It wouldn't be fine for my wife and 3 kids.

[steveo73]

So, I have a question to the forum. How do you deal with sharing cost with your significant other? It seems that most take the approach of simply splitting cost in half, and then work on cutting spending of the remaining $$ to the best of your ability with whatever you have left much on an individual basis...

I'm married with 3 kids. We just have one pot of money. I'd prefer to split expenses but it wouldn't work in my situation. I suppose its your call based on your current situation.

Interesting journal as well.

[poleo]

So, I have a question to the forum. How do you deal with sharing cost with your significant other? It seems that most take the approach of simply splitting cost in half, and then work on cutting spending of the remaining $$ to the best of your ability with whatever you have left much on an individual basis...

My view is that either you get a significant other that you agree with on such matters - life goals, strategies to attain these and so forth - or perhaps you start looking for a different significant other. In my opinion this is the difference between having a person around you spend time with, and a partner in the true sense of the word.

The way I deal with this is that my +1 and I share one bank account for consumerism, all other finances and all material property. We also share our path and goal, though of course with some differences in the details. To me this also lines up very well with wanting a simple life, both financially and emotionally. Having to worry about different accounts and desires seems like a handful I don't want.