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I guess I've been psuedo following the save money thing for most of my life. I only spent 35% of my income, according to Mint, and that doesn't include my pretax stuff, but does include my Roth. I expect this year to be a bit worse because I don't think my car has another year left on it, but luckily I have enough to just buy a new one with cash. I found the MMM blog on accident and I've been reading through some of the articles. My only hope is that once I can get to that goal, I can get a job doing something I think I would love, like being a zoo keeper or something, instead of doing IT. I've kinda looked into some of the Vanguard Dividend funds as a potential source of passive income, but honestly I have a hard time telling if they're worth it. TLG James fucked around with this message at 02:05 on Aug 7, 2013 |
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Aug 7, 2013 02:02
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| # ¿ May 6, 2024 09:02 |
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How are you investing currently? I had some old rear end CDs close that I forgot about, so I threw them into that VHDYX fund mentioned a bit earlier. Hopefully they earn me more than the .55 cents a month my CD was raking in! According to my 12 month budget on Mint. I'm only spending about 35% of my income in the last 12 months. It'll be great once my fiance is done with grad school. Though I expect it to get up to about 55% when I buy a new car (with cash!) My old car isn't going to last another winter. TLG James fucked around with this message at 19:33 on Sep 2, 2013 |
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Sep 2, 2013 19:26
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Instead of keeping the money "hidden" why not invest it? Then it's totally out of sight out of mind. Just give her access to the investment account.
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Oct 24, 2013 15:57
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http://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/comments/1pq2dn/retired_at_33_with_32000yr_retirement_budget_me/ Decent read. Some of the old posts are grumpy college students angry that this guy doesn't want to save for his kid's college.
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Nov 3, 2013 19:33
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I do think that the most FI thing to do would just not to have kids. But since he already went ahead and did that, I honestly think a logical thing to have done would have been to work one more year, take your income, split it by the amount of kids, and put it in some sort of fund for your kids. College is not going to get cheaper in the future. You can mitigate some of it by strongly suggesting that they go to a community college to start though.
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Nov 4, 2013 05:58
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enthe0s posted:So my friend brought up a good question that I didn't have an answer for regarding early retirement. If all of my money is essentially locked away in a 401k and Roth IRA, how do I survive until I hit 60? I know you can take out the money you contribute from your Roth IRA before 60 penatly-free, but I feel like you don't want to do that to let your money grow right? Have a separate taxable account? By the time you pull it out, your income should be pretty low taxed anyways.
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Nov 6, 2013 17:08
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SlightlyMadman posted:Yeah, I don't understand why anybody would do that unless they entered some weird alternate reality where savings accounts and money market accounts no longer exist? My checking account is pulling 2% interest. I think my savings account is pulling something pitiful like .2%. It used to be 4%.
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Nov 7, 2013 17:57
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Well there are a few thoughts on that. One, if you take the sewage job, could you retire that much earlier? Then you could go work for a non-profit or something. Or if you got the job, I'm sure you'd care, and wouldn't be likely to fudge any reports or anything compared to someone else. On the other hand, if you do a job you love, you may not care if you work it your entire life.
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Nov 7, 2013 19:11
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I stopped reading MMM's blog because he's said really all there is to say. He makes a lot of money on his blog, and seems happy, but it got too preachy for me with most of his new articles. It's like he's literally out of ideas, so when he's doing crap like moving to a smaller house, he has to use 6 paragraphs to say that it'll save him money and how the family unit should be in smaller houses to be closer to each other and go to the park and other crap. His old articles are pretty good though. edit: Oh god why did I read the comments. Someone saying that the guy who bikes everywhere is going to have long term health issues. Yep.... TLG James fucked around with this message at 08:37 on Jan 23, 2014 |
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Jan 23, 2014 08:32
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froglet posted:Being single avoids problems such as if your partner is perfect in every way, but doesn't want to travel with you, or if they aren't particularly interested in financial independence. For me that would be really disappointing. You really have to remember what part of life they are at too. I know for me, I joined the military at the age of 19 after 2 years, and being broke in college. I spent 8 years in, and got out and got a decent job. However, my fiance is a bit younger than I am, but is just finishing in grad school with massive student loans. She already had a job lined up luckily, but I've been living frugally and investing for the last decade. She just puts in a few hundred a month towards rent, but that certainly helps.
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Jan 25, 2014 12:00
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While it's probably possible, why do you want 3-4 kids? Growing up in a 3 kid household sucked. There is never good seating at restaurants, or you end up waiting forever or get put into one of those crappy chairs at the end of a table things. My dad was retired military, so at least he got all the very cheap health benefits for us, which is crucial if you have any children with issues. I would just be scared that something would happen medical wise.
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Feb 2, 2014 08:08
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Jeffrey posted:I think he wrote most of the low-hanging fruit of things to write and now he's just posting to continue generating income or out of obligation. I'm fine reading his thoughts on whatever but it's no longer interesting enough to bother checking his site that often. Yea. There isn't much left to talk about. Though I did come to a similar conclusion a bit ago when I read his post about cleaning. We have too many drat cleaning products, when it seems like a magic eraser and one cleaning multi product is all you need for most things. I still never thought I'd be reading climate change deniers still loving talking about climategate on the MMM message board.
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Oct 14, 2014 06:03
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Reading the new MMM blog... Is Betterment actually worth it for most people? I pretty much have my taxable account in a lazy portfolio with Vanguard, and that's pretty much it, outside my retirement accounts.
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Nov 7, 2014 16:25
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Doesn't Amazon have some sort of unlimited ebooks thing for 10 bucks a month? I just checked, I'm under 30k spent for the year, but a good portion of that is the fact that I split rent with my fiance. Though I'm at like 60% savings. I did pretty much prepay half the honeymoon already though. I also just put up the plastic on the windows for the winter. It's crazy how effective that poo poo is. I could feel the cold air coming in through the gaps as I slowly sealed the window.
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Nov 27, 2014 00:05
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Devian666 posted:Nah I think it was a more general comment rather than latest blog posts. He also makes a shitload of money off his blog. So he needs to keep writing. As far as I know, he's never listed his income on his end of year expenses. And I don't really see the benefit of looking at someone else's budget who is retired. Oh wow, he spent nothing on gas. It really isn't much harder than... SAVE WHATEVER YOU CAN, don't spend your money on expensive poo poo like cable, expensive phone plans. Bike if you can. Don't have a house bigger than it needs to be. TLG James fucked around with this message at 21:21 on Jan 24, 2015 |
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Jan 24, 2015 21:13
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Whoops wrong thread
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Apr 13, 2015 05:00
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Dude literally makes more doing his blog than he did working.
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May 8, 2015 03:06
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Nail Rat posted:Or in the mortgage situation, tough it out or rent it out. But it'd be interesting to see how he would put together a McDonalds worker budget, and if he'd find a way to get IRA contributions in there. Doubtful. Considering he once had a blogpost that said something like... Be a dog walker, make 50k a year.
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May 8, 2015 17:17
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Xoidanor posted:I know more adults than I am willing to count that have lived their lives without ever figuring out even the rudimentary parts of the financial world. A ridiculous part of the population still believes that if you make more money and you get into a new tax bracket, you lose more. That and combined with... CHECK OUT MY MASSIVE TAX REFUNNDDDDD.
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May 25, 2015 17:11
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Devian666 posted:I'm sure that they are getting some of the value of $2.50 worth of food. They could spend $5-$6 to prepare some nice food that doesn't have the texture of gritty pancake batter. You can also just make your own soylent that doesn't taste bad either. They're really just glorified protein shakes. I've drank one at least for breakfast for the last 2 years. It saves a lot of time.
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Aug 5, 2015 03:50
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I hate being close to a "milestone" and watching it slowly get farther and farther away.
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Aug 22, 2015 02:51
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I didn't realize that the Dividend Mantra guy got taken over. Looks like he came out on top, as the site looks dead now.
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Dec 5, 2015 20:07
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I'd be really curious to see how much MMM donates, like he says he does. I have no problem with him making that much and living on much less. His blog isn't really interesting anymore. After you read the core "blog posts" it isn't much else outside of, save most of your income & minimize expenses, and you don't need most of the crap you have. I wonder if he's saving money for when/if whoever the next president is, if they tear apart some of the healthcare stuff. At least I would.
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Mar 5, 2016 19:33
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I noticed mint is now sending out snail mail loan invites. Yes Mint, I need a 4000 dollar loan?
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Mar 15, 2016 02:28
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Build your emergency fund. Then a 401k if you have that option. Then you can start saving towards a house or whatever.
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Jul 16, 2016 23:37
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Then do that, and invest in a taxable account.
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Jul 17, 2016 01:48
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Ersatz posted:Yeah, taking full advantage of the 401k is absolutely the way to go, seeing as how the alternative is to watch a third of that money (roughly) evaporate into taxes every year. One of the many things that Fientist gets right is the idea of leveraging every tax advantage you can get while still earning, and solving the issue of accessing the funds at a later date. The roth conversion ladder is one promising way to do that. I don't really get the Roth conversion ladder. I mean you're limited to putting in 5500 a year. I mean, I get it, but I don't see how it's good for more than a year or two for most people. I've put in the max for at about 10 years, and even with vanguard funds, I have like 75k in it. Even if I continue to put in the max till an early retirement age of like 50, I doubt I would have more than 200k. Sites like rootofgood examples show taking out 30k a year for 10 years for a ladder. That is obviously impossible.
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Aug 3, 2018 08:38
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Ersatz posted:Yep yep. The following Fientist post provides a nicely detailed explanation of how that might work in practice: Thanks, that explains it easier and in picture form, more than any other site I've seen.
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Aug 5, 2018 15:23
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| # ¿ May 6, 2024 09:02 |
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This really isn't strictly FIRE related, but I feel stupid for not doing bank account bonuses earlier. I've already made 1k since December, just moving money around in my emergency account.
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Feb 15, 2020 16:47
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