Hello all,
this is my first post here after reading a lot of the blog and forums. I wanted to contribute my little story and the progress I have made so far.
I am now 34, born and living in Germany. I started working full-time in IT when I was 19 and have my worked my way up the ladder since then. I started sometime in the early 2000s to put a small cut of my paycheck to the side (about 10%). I have done this continuously, but taking out some money here and there (first apartment, first car, etc.).
In 2013 I made kind of a career change (still within IT), which increased my paycheck quite a lot. As a little back of background, here in Germany a certain percentage of your paycheck is taken for pension funding and health care (roughly 20% and 15%) but capped to a certain amount per year. Once you hit that cap, your take home pay grows enormously. Long story short, I upped my savings rate from 10-15% to 50%. This has been working fine for over a year now. Before 2014 is over, my NW will hit the 200K Euro (250K $) mark. This is almost half-way to FI for me, I think.
On my current trajectory I am somewhere between 8-10 years away from FI. While early 40s would certainly be good, I am still trying to optimize this. My most recent thought is selling my car, which I had used to get to my previous job. Now that I work from home it is sitting in the garage most of the day, loosing value. Since my home town offers public transport, taxis, Uber and now even car-sharing, I am close to pulling the trigger on this one. I am now using car-sharing instead of using my own car to see if it works out. If I don't find any major drawbacks until the end of the year, this will probably seal the deal.
This blog and site has been a major factor in my progress. I try to read a lot to get more input but I feel confident that I am now set on the right goal and just need to make a few choices on junctions along the way.
Regards,
Lordy
