Author Topic: Say Hi and Introduce Yourself  (Read 3322315 times)

sailorscooby

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Re: Say Hi and Introduce Yourself
« Reply #4350 on: January 02, 2024, 12:14:53 AM »
Hey everyone, I'm Scoob! Happy to be here :)
I've spent the past year of 2023 reading the 52 weeks of MMM essentials emails, I watched the Netflix show, and have been trying to internalize what the MMM lifestyle truly means. I'm an American who's permanently moved to Finland (so I'm an immigrant, not an expat) and am finally at the point where I'm ready to figure out how FIRE works when living in the Nordics! Looking forward to sharing know-how and reaching FIRE!

RWTL

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Re: Say Hi and Introduce Yourself
« Reply #4351 on: January 02, 2024, 02:29:36 AM »
Welcome!  It would be interested to hear your experience with immigrating to Finland in either the Off Topic or the Journal community. 

sailorscooby

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Re: Say Hi and Introduce Yourself
« Reply #4352 on: January 02, 2024, 03:05:11 AM »
Welcome!  It would be interested to hear your experience with immigrating to Finland in either the Off Topic or the Journal community.

A journal thread will definitely be coming soon. I'm actually mid-move, selling my apartment in Sweden and setting up in Finland with my fiancee. Plenty to share and get some mustachian advice on!

papazita

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Re: Say Hi and Introduce Yourself
« Reply #4353 on: January 02, 2024, 09:27:27 AM »
Hello everyone.  I think I may have just FIREd! Today was my first day of not going to work when everyone else did. I think it’s going OK so far.

I’ve been reading MMM for a few years, starting at about the time of a wobbly period for the tech company I worked for. I decided to get a bit more serious about financial resilience, and have MMM to thank for helping me realise that with a bit of extra effort I could target an early retirement. I had been thinking maybe in the next couple of years, definitely before age 55. Then, at the end of last year, aged 50, I was made redundant. Not quite at my ‘number’ but with the redundancy package, close enough. It’s all quite exciting.

RWTL

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Re: Say Hi and Introduce Yourself
« Reply #4354 on: January 02, 2024, 02:16:10 PM »
Hello everyone.  I think I may have just FIREd! Today was my first day of not going to work when everyone else did. I think it’s going OK so far.

I’ve been reading MMM for a few years, starting at about the time of a wobbly period for the tech company I worked for. I decided to get a bit more serious about financial resilience, and have MMM to thank for helping me realise that with a bit of extra effort I could target an early retirement. I had been thinking maybe in the next couple of years, definitely before age 55. Then, at the end of last year, aged 50, I was made redundant. Not quite at my ‘number’ but with the redundancy package, close enough. It’s all quite exciting.

Congrats!  Welcome - There are a lot of experienced folks here to learn from.

aloevera1

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Re: Say Hi and Introduce Yourself
« Reply #4355 on: January 08, 2024, 01:36:44 PM »
Hi everyone.

I am aloevera. Have been lurking around here for years. I believe some point I read/skimmed most of the topics in "Ask a Mustachian" and "General" sections... Oh, I did read a lot when I realized what a gem I found. Wow. Very grateful for this incredible resource and people who contributed their time and experience to it.

This has really changed my attitude towards money and life philosophy. I try to live with purpose, critically examine everything I am doing and not be afraid to make changes. I am not super into money optimization and extreme frugality but I have a clear well-defined purpose for every single $ I spend. There is also a clear well-defined purpose for every $1 I don't spend ;)

Looking to giving back to the community, having an opportunity to share my thoughts and maybe even finding my tribe along the way!

Happy to de-lurk!

NorwegianHomestead

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Re: Say Hi and Introduce Yourself
« Reply #4356 on: January 09, 2024, 11:33:03 PM »
Hi everyone,
I’m NorwegianHomestead and my partner (Swedish) and I (Norwegian) are hoping to achieve FIRE in ten years. We live on a small homestead by the coast of Norway and are lucky to be able to work IT jobs from home. We spend a lot of our free time doing what we love; gardening, fishing, hiking, growing our own food, foraging, renovating our farmhouse etc.

Over the last one and a half year we’ve been reading more about FI and trying to cut our expenses and pay down the mortgage faster, as well as started investing. Our lifestyle is naturally cheaper than city life, but there is still a ton of changes we are learning to implement to be able to save more.

Can’t wait to get to know some likeminded people here!

moof

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Re: Say Hi and Introduce Yourself
« Reply #4357 on: February 06, 2024, 08:55:45 PM »
Moof here.  Been lurking a bit. Thought I was doing pretty good, and I am by comparison to the average american, but feel I have been remiss now that I have seen how far a little more discipline goes.

Currently 39, wife, kid.  3 cars, but just $2k total car debt.  No credit card balances in years.  I was targeting mid 50's to retire, which seemed great till I realized I could possibly pull that in before I hit 50.  Currently sitting on $0.5 M in retirement accounts.  My own number is about $1.3M to feel comfortable cutting myself loose.

Currently I am saving a little more than 25% of my gross each year.  I am struggling to benchmark that properly given taxes and such.  Even doing my homework I struggle with properly weighting those effects between 401k's, Roth's, etc.

I grew up frugal (single parent, welfare, etc), but let things slide as I saw big paychecks come in.  I never questioned the save 10% mantra, wishing now I had kept it at 20% all along.  Luckily I have never racked up any real debt.  I used to freak out my girlfriend (now wife) by always carrying a few hundred in cash.  She never had that much spare, but it helped me stay disciplined.  I have let a lot of little things slide under the mantra of a happy wife is still cheaper than a divorce.  I need to work on getting us both on the same page better for not wasting so much money (or not being so damn cheap as she would counter).  Good times.
Had to check in with my 7 years ago self.  0.5M of savings has grown to 1.85M, aiming to pull the plug by the end of the year.  My target has moved a bit, $1.3M in 2017 dollars would be $1.63M, so we are targeting about 20% more than my past self was thinking.  My wife wants to keep working a few more years, so we will likely blow past are target by time she pulls the plug. She expects to break 6-figures this year, not sure if her thinking will change, but we are in good shape either way. I took a 14 month sabbatical, but have been working part time for the last 7 months, and very much not enjoying it.  Net worth is up at $2.3M with house equity and a college savings account for the kiddo.  My main headwinds are the impending need to replace a car, and some deferred house maintenance that will put a big dent in the slush fund outside of the IRA’s.  Past self should have understood Roth’s and the value of after-tax flexibility better.
« Last Edit: February 06, 2024, 09:10:09 PM by moof »

OtherJen

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Re: Say Hi and Introduce Yourself
« Reply #4358 on: February 16, 2024, 07:34:52 PM »
Wow, I didn’t expect to be able to post here again! I received a perma-ban notice in spring 2022 with no apparent way to resolve it. I decided to look at the forums today as a guest, on a whim, and apparently I was still logged in. Hi, all!

I’m still in metro Detroit, still married (hit the 20-year anniversary last year), still in a little house (also hit the 20-year mark on that mortgage last year), still driving a now 12-year-old Prius and 23-year-old Chevy. Frugality has been a great boon for us; my income has gone up by about 50% in the last few years, which has allowed us to save quite a bit as we didn’t increase our spending much. Husband’s company was sold and then went through several rounds of restructuring, and he was caught in the most recent round of layoffs. Frugality means that his unemployment benefits cover our health insurance with a decent amount leftover, and all other bills and monthly savings and investments are easily covered by my salary. He’s working on a software certification that should give him access to a much wider (and better-paid) range of jobs, and we’re grateful that we can easily afford for him to take that time. Thank you all for your advice and example over the years.

We’re trying to survive a very gloomy MI winter and are looking forward to expanding the big vegetable garden that we set up in our yard last summer. We really need to speed up using the frozen basil pesto, adobo sauce, and zucchini and jars of various pickles from last summer’s bounty to make room for the next round. I’ve spent much of my free time this winter improving my gluten-free bread baking and spending probably too much on good cheese to go with it (no regrets).

igetit

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Re: Say Hi and Introduce Yourself
« Reply #4359 on: February 21, 2024, 04:40:36 AM »
I always enjoyed reading your posts.  Glad to see you again. 

Bartie Musa

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Re: Say Hi and Introduce Yourself
« Reply #4360 on: March 02, 2024, 08:37:04 PM »
Bartie Musa - Hello! Glad to be here, this is a fascinating and rather large forum/blog. Finding the answers to some of the questions before posting took effort to say the least! Never experienced that before.

Idlewild

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Re: Say Hi and Introduce Yourself
« Reply #4361 on: April 09, 2024, 05:40:41 AM »
Hello, my name is Idlewild. I'm 59, retired, and living in Portugal, still dealing with the decompression. Very inspired by this community.