On April 26, 2013 I saw MMMs biopic in the WaPo while spending another fruitless day at my comfy IT job at a law firm. Life was good. Missus and I were making good money (she was a letter carrier, I was a sysadmin), and everything was fine. But it didn't
feel fine. Something was off. I read the article and our journey began. This post is for anyone getting started or somewhere down their path, and I hope it helps folks who know deep down they aren't quite up to what MMM does (that's why my name is hybrid) but still want to declare FI. Here is what we did right and wrong.....
RIGHT
- We cut spending across the board. We cut out cable, the country club, expensive phone plans, ate out less, no new cars. When all was said and done we found $1000 a month of spending that was purely optional.
- We built money trees. We already had one rental, we bought a second. We invested in our 401Ks. We took advantage of cash-back cards.
- This one is really important. I made more money. Significantly more money. (I make 30K more than seven years ago). This took years off of our FI date.
- We kept a financial worth spreadsheet detailing exactly where we were at the end of each month. I now have almost seven years of data, and the information is fairly simple.
- We developed habits by simply not doing things we shouldn't. You'll never buy a new car if you never walk onto a new car lot. You don't eat out if you make dinner in.
- While we did go on some vacations, they were lower cost and we stayed within a reasonable budget.
- We made a finish line for the missus and me. the missus retired four years ago. My last day as a full-time employee is April 15 (I will do some spot work for my company if and when they call, might be three moths a year, might be three days a year, will see how it plays out.... Suffice to say I am the one in charge of my own schedule.)
WRONG
- Oh, how the missus loves Amazon....
- We still ate out too much. The past month we haven't eaten out at all, which is a nice warm-up for a very pared down restaurant budget moving forward.
- We still drive too much. That's been a lot better the last month too. More biking when I retire!
- We joined a country club again on a limited basis when I started making a lot better coin. It didn't work out, and a year later we were out again.
IF I HAD IT ALL TO DO AGAIN....
I'm not all that sure what I would change, but I'll start here. While becoming more frugal made a big difference, earning more money made a significantly larger difference. If you want to go down our path, frankly I found it a lot easier to just plain make more money than squeeze the food budget tighter and tighter. Making more money papered over a number of our mistakes above, and seven years ago I thought it would be at least four more years before I left full time work. And biking to work stopped being an option when I took a higher paying job, it was located 22 miles away and we aren't moving.
I can't emphasize enough the financial net worth spreadsheet, especially if you have a partner who isn't completely on board and/or doesn't have a knack for the numbers. This made it feel like a team effort.
Finding like-minded people really helps. Two of my best friends started down this path with me as well. One chose the frugal route, and the other (a lawyer) is going down the earn a lot more money route. Frugal friend works for the state and doesn't get big raises. Lawyer friend started frugal but abandoned it after a while and has become what I consider to be VERY spendy. Buuuuuuut, her path is still easier than frugal friend because lawyer money papers over all those mistakes.
Good luck in your journey! Please ask any questions in the comments below.
Hybrid
