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I'm an IT Systems Engineer.
I've been aiming towards self-sufficiency/FI for a couple of years. In the last year I've come across the ERE book and forum - A nice addition, confirmation, adjustment and extension to the "internal principles" I've been developing over the years. I have a wife and no kids (at the moment).
I'm a classic INTJ and therefore my analytical bias has helped direct me towards spreadsheet/budget perfection - I'm sure other INTJ types will chuckle in agreement
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History to date:
Year end / Age / SWR / Comments
2005: 21 - ∞% SWR - Career start. No personal debt, but a student loan of ~£16k (at sub-inflation rate).
2007: 23 - ?% SWR - Bought my first house. 15% cash deposit, none of this "shared equity" ponzi business.
2008: 24 - 100% SWR - Moved to a large company, with accelerated income. The thinking was in terms of '12 months of expenses in emergency fund' i.e. Current Ratio=1. INTJ mindset kicked in and I rapidly got to 12 months of expenses.
2012: 28 - 100% SWR - Since buying the first house, I was fortunate to have been on the end of multiple decreases in mortgage interest - I was on a BoE (Bank Of England) base tracker rate, and it ultimately hit the mortgage floor of around 1.5%. A real shame as, I was looking forward to seeing the banks pay me interest. I overpaid the mortgage surplus over the years, and I ultimately then decided to never overpay the mortgage again - Wasted opportunity cost.
2013: 29 - 120% SWR - Moved to a larger house (boo)[1]. Kept old house (yay). Paid off my student loan[2]. Living expenses remain broadly similar to that of studentdom (yay).
2014: 30 - 49% SWR - Started thinking in terms of 'rental properties until retirement'.
2015: 31 - 18% SWR - Read Rich Dad Poor Dad, switched gears. Sold the one rental property, and bought two higher yielding rental properties.
2016: 32 - 14% SWR - Read ERE in Nov, installed jet engine. 6 months away from hitting 12%; Initial goal as meets P2P lending (11-13%) and specialist rental property income (11-15%).
2017 Q1: 33 - 11% SWR - Hit the initial goal of 11% SWR (50% actively managed direct property portfolio, 50% passive FTSE/similar).
2017 June: 33 - 9.8% SWR - Single figures!
2017 Dec: 34 - 8.4% SWR
[1] With the move in 2013, we decided to stretch the mortgage to 90% LTV with the thought of buying a crappy house below value, thus pulling the LTV rapidly to the 60-70% LTV level.
[2] Back in 2013, perversely I paid off my student loan. In the UK when I was a student, the student loan was pegged at less than inflation. Paying money into a student loan was dead money, when you could put it into a savings account (at the time) for a higher return. This was back when you could get a 5% interest rate if you locked your capital in for a couple of years.
We wanted to purchase our next home, but the mortgage company wouldn't lend the amount they originally said they would. It got to the underwriter stage, they called me and said "we can offer you ${70% of what you asked for}, is that OK?"... Of course it wasn't, as we had minimal buffer cash at the time (couldn't and didn't want to spend it). The perverse part was that paying off the remaining £10k on my student loan meant I could borrow the extra £50k I needed. It was a pretty bad deal, and I was definitely smelling badness, but it all fit correctly in my mental model - Leverage to scale, then decompress later. It's paid off thus far, and we're at a 60% LTV on paper.
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