Net Worth Goal Reached!

[beelea]

So excited today! I reached $250K in savings this week, and am on track for my ER. I've only got 5-10 years left to work depending on if I buy/build a house, but I love my current job anyway so I'd stay there if I could.

I finally joined this forum because I was so happy to have reached this goal, but realized that I can't share it with most of the people I know because their situation is so different than mine and I don't think they'd respond well. I really wanted to go out for drinks, and would have bought everybody a round, but I feel like it would have fallen flat. Does anyone else have this problem? Not being able to talk about money, share ideas, etc? I'm kind of bummed that when I do have a big decision to make, like keep my money invested to gain returns (hopefully), or buy a house either with cash or a mortgage, that I've got nobody to really talk to with the same financial philosophies.

[Roots&Wings]

Congrats on the milestone and continued success in your journey! Yes, this forum is a nice place to share such things and ask advice :)

[prognastat]

Congrats.

Also agreed, I get the feeling it is worse after I moved to Texas from the Netherlands. Though people generally are more frugal there and don't buy as much flashy stuff to flaunt wealth actually talking about it doesn't seem to piss off as many people.

[ender]

Wooo!

We're getting close to that goal too and like you are  trying to decide if we want to buy/build a house :)

[beelea]

Wooo!

We're getting close to that goal too and like you are  trying to decide if we want to buy/build a house :)

This is the decision I'm struggling with. If I keep everything invested over the next 4 years or so, I could be done as far as having a passive income, and have to work another couple of years to save up to build/buy a house.  If I take $100K or more of my current savings and use it to buy with a mortgage/build in cash over time, I reach the retirement date much later. At the moment I'm trying to figure out if I can pay some family for their interest in a piece of land now so that I would inherit it and then wait a year or two for the rest of my investments to increase (hopefully), and then build. But it sure would be nice to have a homestead in the next year or two instead of 3-4 years :/  It's so hard to know what to do- nobody knows what the market will do short term, so my whole 4 more years until I'm OK on passive income plan could be totally off as well. Decisions!

[Scubanewbie]

Congrats!  I just posted a milestone as well and agree that having someplace to share it is very exciting!  Congrats!

[FrugalFan]

Wooo!

We're getting close to that goal too and like you are  trying to decide if we want to buy/build a house :)

This is the decision I'm struggling with. If I keep everything invested over the next 4 years or so, I could be done as far as having a passive income, and have to work another couple of years to save up to build/buy a house.  If I take $100K or more of my current savings and use it to buy with a mortgage/build in cash over time, I reach the retirement date much later. At the moment I'm trying to figure out if I can pay some family for their interest in a piece of land now so that I would inherit it and then wait a year or two for the rest of my investments to increase (hopefully), and then build. But it sure would be nice to have a homestead in the next year or two instead of 3-4 years :/  It's so hard to know what to do- nobody knows what the market will do short term, so my whole 4 more years until I'm OK on passive income plan could be totally off as well. Decisions!

Congrats! Yeah, it's kind of weird that it's so taboo to talk about these things in real life. I think people would benefit in general from being more open about finances.

As for the above, isn't there some middle ground? How much do you pay for housing now and how much would getting a mortgage increase that by?

[beelea]

We'll, that's the thing. I don't pay anything for housing right now. I have an incredibly lucky situation- I don't own the place, but live there rent/utilities free. So no matter what I do, or how much I pay for it, it will be a 100% increase.

If I buy/build, that potentially means I need to work longer to replace the money I'd spend for that. Right now, this living situation does not have any kind of expected end date other than I'd like my own place (the dream being I create a permaculture homestead- started one before but ended up getting divorced and moving for my current job). 

Of course, the situation could unexpectedly change at any time, and I guess that's another factor in me wanting my own place. I like the security of having my own place, producing much of my own food, etc. I think my "middle ground" would be to see if I can get the piece of property I'd like to have, but hold off on building until I've got a little extra padding. Then I could just plan on working a few more years, or part time for a while to cover some of my expenses to let the savings grow longer.

[beelea]

And I agree about the "not talking about money" issue. Seems like when people/society decides to "not talk about" something, it's left to chance for people to blindly figure it out themselves. Kinda like not talking to your kids about sex...there will be a result of that, whether you do anything or not, but when you don't talk about it/plan for it, it may just not be a result you like.

Any time I've ever found my self in a conversation about $, usually dealing with work 401K options, my colleagues generally say they don't have enough to save right now, they'll do it later. It's infinitely frustrating. They just don't think it's worth opening an account to save $5 a month- ignoring the fact that $5 or ANYTHING saved NOW is so very much more valuable than saving it 5-10 years from now because of compounding. I've even showed a couple of people the Suze Oreman interest calculator, and I get shrugs and "I'll do it later". My mental jaw drops every time. Thousands of dollars just slipping away from them because of "later" instead of "now". 

[FrugalFan]

Well that puts it in a different perspective for me. If you assume that you will for certain need a place to live in the future that is not free, that number should be included in your FI number no matter what. The decision comes down to do you want to be FI sooner but never get your dream homestead, or do you want to be FI later but with dream homestead. I do think taking maximum opportunity of the free housing for a least a while longer makes sense. As you mention in your other post, those dollars you can put away now are more valuable than some you can put away later.

[Roots&Wings]

You are approaching the housing issue from the right angle. Carefully run the numbers for each scenario. Personally I'd stick with free housing as long as you can, unless you've weighed the benefits and impact on FIRE plans and feel that purchasing now vs later provides the right degree of security.

I was in a similar situation (free housing for several years, which was huge for savings), but eventually did buy my own place because it was part of my long-term FIRE plans, I intend to stay in the area forever (though in case plans change, it would cash flow as a rental). I carefully considered every cost angle I could think of, purchasing now vs. later still allowed me to meet my target investment stash savings goals, and met the various real estate tests (NY Times rent vs. buy calculator and 1% rental rule). Good luck with your decision!

[Eurotexan]

Congrats! I love this forum as there's so much support and no envy!

[Rosy]

I love it when a plan comes together and NW goals are such a huge win - CONGRATS!!!
Nothing is so cool as seeing your NW improve.