Author Topic: T minus 4 years!  (Read 2347 times)

Geek

  • 5 O'Clock Shadow
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T minus 4 years!
« on: July 21, 2013, 10:20:06 PM »
With any non-negative returns after inflation...
At our current savings rate and income...
We'll have FU money in 4 years, maybe 3.5!

I had been targeting age 40 but hoping for age 35 ever since Mr. Geek came back to corporate-land.
This now appears to be completely achievable.

We started out at age 23 with no FI goals. I knew I didn't want to work forever. Our first 2-3 years in the Seattle area, we paid off over 50k of student loans with our cushy near-same-salaried software jobs, staying in an apartment that was 10% of our combined after-tax income and maxing out our 401ks. We weren't saving to our potential (~25% of after-tax income) because of student debt payoff (another 25% or so).

At 25 we were debt-free and got a lost spendy as our income went up. We saved 40% of our income but more than doubled our rent costs. We also got our first dog. The dog was worth it. The rent was not.

Spendiness was reduced couple of years later. At  27 we got our second dog and overcompensated by moving into a cheaper place again, and at 28 in the second half of '10 we got married mostly for love ...but partly in order to convince the Corporate Masters that we could share health insurance. Mr. Geek started his own business and also I became very serious about living off not-quite 1 income instead of most of 2. I was able to save full 401k, Roth IRA, and a bit besides.

Software salaries went up in Seattle throughout these years, and at 30 Mr. Geek re-entered corporate America. Thanks to our previous less-than-one-income-ness, we were able to pay 20% on a townhouse in Spring of '12 with savings and commence "Ultimate Savings Mode" with 2 lovely corporate jobs. We are saving about 63% of our salary now, depending on how you count principle on the house.

I could stop working after 11 years in the real world. It almost seems wasteful to have spent so much time in school (kidding!)
The really crazy and awesome thing is I think we could last 20 years just spending our cash (theoretically. Some of it's in 401ks) if we both quit next year. Since I love my job for now, that's not the plan yet, but it's good to know I'd have a few years to develop another form of income.

You may wonder why this doesn't quite match the shockingly simple math for early retirement. It should take me significantly more than 10.5 years to retire, given that I wasn't saving 65% throughout my history. Part of this is dog costs - we don't need a dog walker and we'll need much less boarding after we retire, though at some point medical costs will make up some of that. Part of this is work clothes. Part is work food/restaurants for coworker status, and part is mortgage interest. Between them all, even with paying health insurance, we can reasonably count on paying 10% less of our current after-tax income in retirement, and most calculators assume costs stay the same.

Anyway, here's to motherfucking freedom! I can't recommend it enough!

icefr

  • Bristles
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Re: T minus 4 years!
« Reply #1 on: July 21, 2013, 11:16:51 PM »
As a fellow Seattle-ite, good luck! I'm totally with you on work food/restaurants for coworker status, though thankfully my some of my current coworkers do occasionally bring their lunch, so coworker status isn't as expensive as it sued to be.