First time posting here. I couldn't resist because this thread fit me perfectly. It's very reassuring to know that I'm not the only one to have "seen the light of MMM" after passing 40.
I discovered MMM exactly one year ago at the age of 41 and was embarrassed to realize that I was the prototypical Consumer Sucka (and still am in many respects). We live in an unnecessarily large house in a very high COL suburb of Washington, DC. We drove two expensive German SUVs, both bought on credit, even though my commute is only 4 miles and my wife is a stay-at-home Mom to our three kids. We hardly paid any attention to our weekly/monthly/yearly spending and basically spent whatever we wanted on food, clothes, travel, and everything else. The only saving grace was that I'm in a high-income job at a very generous company which has enabled me to fully max out my retirement accounts every year and also put away a little bit more in taxable accounts. Even still, we've averaged only around a 20% savings rate. After finding this site, I read every single MMM article in just a few weeks and tried to start implementing as much of the advice as I could. When I read the article about the 4% rule and calculated our annual spending at nearly $200K, I realized that I would need to accumulate a stash of about $5M (gulp!) if we didn't trim our expenses and I'd likely be working until at least 60 years old. Having read about so many people here who retired in their 30s and 40s, I have become convinced that I can do it too.
Over the course of the past year, we have:
Sold both German SUVs and downsized to a used VW Golf and used Toyota Highlander (not ideal, but baby steps!). And no more car loans!
Bought a bike and started biking to work as much as possible
Bring lunch to work every day
Moved taxable accounts away from a Financial Advisor charging >1% and into Index Funds at Vanguard
Moved all 401(k) money into Index Funds at Fidelity (where my Company 401k is held)
Started tracking expenses and Net Worth on Personal Capital
Cut cable bill in half (not ready to cut the cord entirely yet, but we'll get there!)
Refinanced mortgage to save about $900 per month
Sold cash-flow negative rental property
Started selling unnecessary "stuff" on Craigslist, eBay.
Have gotten much smarter about grocery shopping and have trimmed our monthly spend by about 40%. We can still do even better.
We are still implementing many more changes in our day-to-day lives, but the biggest remaining item on the list is the decision of whether or not to relocate to a lower COL area. If we do that, we could be FIRE in the next five years.
I really can't thank MMM enough (as well as all the other contributors on this forum). It seems like an exaggeration to say that a website changed one's life, but in my case, it really did.
