My wife and I are in our early 50s. In the past, we've not made the best of choices but have always made good money, until the crash of 2008 which wiped out my career and pushed us into bancruptcy. We did eventually recover; I retrained myself at quite a low cost, and now work in IT as a network engineer, my wife is in internet analytics. I pull about $90k/yr and she pulls $150k/yr
About a year or so ago we made the decision to downsize, focus on retirement and get healthy, as we are couch potatoes. So how are we doing?
We shed almost $400k in debt so far by taking care of the high interest debts, student loans, snowballing and selling our almost 4000 sqr ft house (we are empty nesters and don't need that much space.) eliminating SUVs and getting a small car.
In terms of debt, we have $15k in the car loan and that will be gone in the next 4 months.
We are both maxing out our 401K contributions (our earnings basically dictate that we do this for tax reasons.)
We moved to Colorado (by sheer coincidents, to MMM's hometown) and our healthier lifestyle is working. Weight and blood pressure is going down!
We are working our way to frugality - the car gives good gas mileage, no SUVs here. We also only use it once per week and combine all of our trips. We don't tend to spend frivolously but I suspect we have more going out than we should, especially in terms of rent (~$1950 MRC). However we both work from home so we have zero commute. This also helps us eat better as we can prep all our own meals and not rely on the drive through etc.
I discovered MMM about 4 weeks ago so I am still very much a noob, probably need a few face punches, but I throw myself at the mercy of the forum.
My #1 concern now is that once the debt is eliminated (September), I want to purchase a small home but I also want to save for as early a retirement as possible. These two seem to be at odds with each other, mostly due to our ages.
From what I can see, I will take about 24 months to save a decent deposit, and then another 3-4 years to beat the mortgage to nothing. By this time I will be 58. This doesn't give me much time, so what is the wisdom of the forum. I am guessing I can't be the only one in this position.