Hi Fellow Mustachians,
I have been following this blog for quite some time, but only recently found the forums. A little about myself:
- My name is Noel
- 42 yrs old, married, 1 son (4.5yrs old) - wife is currently staying at home
- Originally a career academic, then musician, then ESL teacher, now city employee
- Live in the frigid north (Canuckistan) city of Winnipeg, MB
- Spent my youth (up until 37) gallivanting around Asia, both teaching English and travelling
- Upon returning from Asia to my hometown of Winnipeg (at 37) , we not only had no savings, but were close to $20k in debt
- I then took it upon myself to attempt to get into a city job for 3.5 years (while working an entry City job for those years), putting us further into debt (we were about $40k when I finally got the job)
- I took transferred some debt to a Credit Card transfer that is due in August 2017
- Discovered FIRE and MMM about a year and a half ago
Our situation now is that we are about 1 month away from paying off our $40k debt completely, 8 months from paying off the credit card transfer (no interest until August), and then the only debt we will have left is our mortgage ($150K or so). We have about $15K in our TFSA, and approximately $10-20K in house equity.
A big pro and con for me is my "Golden Handcuff" pension situation. The earliest I can retire is 50, but with pretty significant penalties. Without even considering our TFSA situation, retiring in June 2025 ( I would be 51)I would have around a $25K/year pension.
We would likely move away from Winnipeg, and are considering the Gulf Islands off of Vancouver Island. Our son would just have finished grade 8, so it should fit nicely.
Our spending is pretty good, but it is always good to get new pointers on places to save. My savings situation is a bit complex to figure out with my pre-tax deductions for my pension (which are huge, but I am not complaining) - but once the loan and Credit Card Transfer are paid off, we will be saving $300 bi-weekly to TFSA, $300 bi-weekly to my RRSP, and $200 bi-weekly to an Emergency fund (for a year and a half, then it will go to our Mortgage). The percentage of take home going to savings is around 47%, and any excess from overtime goes into savings of some sort.
That is it for me for now, the boy wants to watch a show (on Netflix of course!) .
Glad to meet you all!
Noel