Revisiting Blog Articles

[KBecks]

Since joining the forums I've been swept into conversations here and gradually gave up things like line drying clothing and seeking maximum efficiency.   It's time to read the blog articles again and get back to er, basics, and budgeting.

What have been your best, most lasting life changes since arriving here?

I should re-post a case study and commit 2017 to living lean.  My husband does not like his job.  I have a side hustle that could be more productive. 

What are your favorite MMM articles?

If we ever retire early our two biggest expenses will be property taxes and health insurance.  About $6k each.   Any tips on the health insurance side?

[RosieTR]

We were already fairly frugal and had been on and off on the Simple Living forum for some years. I suppose there were two changes since arriving here: 1) my DH got way more on board and 2) I started actually tracking percent saved instead of just amount per month/year. These weren't earth-shattering but they have been helpful. DH especially has started planning what he'd want to do in FIRE rather than just the set-it-and-forget-it that he had been doing (which was still good but less motivational).

Favorite article? Hmmm, maybe the Shockingly Simple Math Behind Early Retirement. It's something that seems like duh once you read it, but seeing it all laid out like that really does provide motivation to make the proportion pretty decent. Math doesn't lie. Favorite for sending other people to get them to possibly stick their toes in? Probably News Flash: Your Debt Is An Emergency. Because much of the time, that's the gorilla in the room for someone who's struggling financially, or at least the thing they could control if they are in a spot where earning much more isn't possible right now.

As for the health insurance question, there are a number of threads about those options, I think even with a sticky. Try Ask a Mustachian sub-forum.

[Monkey Uncle]

Most consequential changes:

1. Tracking spending in detail.  Nothing like knowing exactly where the money is going to shame you into reining in extravagance.

2. Whenever cash starts piling up, making a concerted effort to sweep it into the savings account and then the brokerage account instead of finding some indulgence to spend it on.

3. Re-negotiating/shopping around for car insurance and internet/phone service.  The monthly savings add up.

4. Learning about and applying retirement calculators that are based on actual spending, actual market history, and can account for actual expected supplemental income (cFiresim and Firecalc), instead of the typical financial advisor's calculators that are based on 80% of final salary and do a poor job accounting for SS, pensions, and market returns.  Using these calculators helped me discover that I am much closer to FIRE than I thought I was.

5. Learning more about strategies to tap qualified retirement accounts early and minimize the associated taxes.  I was already aware of the 72t rule, but learning about the Roth pipeline and how to combine it with living off of capital gains/dividends to essentially eliminate taxes in FIRE was a really big revelation.  I guess this doesn't really count because I'm not implementing it yet, but the knowledge of this strategy definitely played into the FIRE-is-possible realization.

My favorite blog article is probably a tie between Shockingly Simple Math, A Millionaire is Made Ten Bucks at a Time, and When the Back of the Napkin is Worth Millions.  I think if MMM had only written those three articles, most of his job would have been done.  The other articles contain many useful strategies and details, but those three contain the entire framework for FIRE (FIRE is possible if you save X percent of your income, you can save X percent if you pay attention to the everyday choices you make, and here's how to figure out how close you are to the goal).

[soccerluvof4]

I would agree the biggest thing that made a change was keeping track of spending and being shocked at what was being spent where, overtime adjusting and saving a boat load that way.

I would also say that being influenced to read so many great books like the Millionaire Next Door, the Overspent American and many many other suggested books really made me take inventory in my life.

We downsized twice, reduced groceries in half and cut so many other bills. Sold so many unused toys from snowmobiles to a vacation home which saved us taxes etc...

I would agree with Monkey Uncle on the 3 articles he mentioned but I feel I have gotten more out of the threads than MMM's articles only because it seems to be more "in the moment" and there are alot of smart people here.

[arebelspy]

Biggest change post-MMM that I can think of was realizing how little we actually need.

Not that we cut back spending, we were already at a low level, but it made me realize that low level we were happy at was sustainable.  We didn't need to plan for a huge ER budget out of line with our current spending.

It also was a good time frame--we discovered the ER movement before finding MMM, but it really sunk in over the first two years of MMM that this was a real, achievable thing.

Having it become real, almost tangible, is invaluable--moving it from a dream to a goal.