I just saw MMM's interview on the PBS evening news. I have read the blog for many years, but I have never posted before. My wife and I have had careers in health care and education. We raised two children, lived modestly, and saved half of our income throughout our careers, but we did not FIRE. We felt we were contributing to society and to our community, and we worked as long as we truly enjoyed our jobs. That turned out to be age 60 for me and age 70 for my wife. At this point our savings amount to about 80X our annual living expenses, excluding taxes. However, our living expenses only represent about 25% of our annual budget. Our budget breaks out, approximately, as 25% living expenses, 25% money gifts to our children and grandchildren, 25% gifts to charities we value, and 25% to taxes. Our income breaks out, approximately, as 55% from my pension and required annual distributions from our retirement savings, 20% from social security, and 25% from index fund dividends. We have never had to sell any of our taxable savings and we do not expect to do so during our lifetime.
We admire, and to a great extent we follow, the the simple, modest lifestyle recommended by MMM. Our different perspective is that we did not FIRE and instead pursued more traditional full length careers. The benefits of the MMM philosophy are well presented and demonstrated by the lives and lifestyles of MMM and the Mustachians. The benefit of our approach is that we enjoyed our work and the contributions we felt we were making throughout our careers, and we are now able to help support the next generations of our family and the charities we value.
