I've been reading forums, Jacob's posts and much more for the last year while redefining my life. I always knew I was different than other people/parents and friends but I never had a label to put on it. My whole family spends every dollar they get their hands on and make fun of me for holding on to it. At first I thought it was because there was nothing worth buying, but slowly realized that spending money is like releasing all of your potential energy. Spending money on something now means I have fewer choices in the future.So many of the forum threads engage the same names that the whole environment seems intimate. Shoving myself into the conversations without providing more background feels like walking into a strangers house and trying to chat them up about the weather.
A bit about me:
Mid 20s male living in Ontario. Engaged (soon to be married) with my live in fiance of 4 years. Avid home brewer. Software developer. I own my house with 75% of the mortgage paid. Have ~25,000 in savings. No debt other than mortgage.
I'm definitely off to a good start from a net worth standpoint but it still feels like I'm crawling along from an ERE standpoint. Every time I run the FI numbers it comes to about 10 years to FIRE. Fiance really enjoys living in the house so moving is out of the question. I have been trying to get the utilities down over the last year with some success but compared to some of your numbers I feel like I'm living in a pretty high cost area.
Here is a standard utilities month:
Hydro (electricity)
$156.08
Water
$139.49 (bi monthly)
Internet
$56.44
Gas
$96.14
Property taxes
$1400 (bi yearly)
Which adds up to ~$611 a month. That seems crazy to me considering this doesn't even include mortgage (quite small in comparison). I have gotten the electricity bill down to 90 dollars before but recently acquired a room mate who brought it back up to ~150.
My inspiration for financial independence right now is that I want to bring up my own kids. Fiance and I have it in the plans in the shorter rather than longer term future (4 years or so). That's a pretty short time frame to get enough equity up for FI, but I figure I could at least get a decent nest egg up while I'm being a stay at home dad. Work is okay (not my motivation for ERE), but pays fairly well considering it's my first job out of university.
I'm not sure if I want to share more financials here, but it would be nice to get critiquing eyes scanning over my purchases. Sometimes the only way to fix thins is to show others your dirty laundry. My current savings rate 60-70% depending on the month so there isn't too much room for improvement.
TL;DR: Happy to be here and finally start giving back! (are journals really giving back, or is it more self serving?).
PS. I really appreciate how dedicated some of the other journal writers are here. I draw a lot of inspiration from C40, Pedal to petal, ffj, etc.