Hello, mustachians!
I am an emigrant from Ukraine, who currently live and work in Bellingham, WA; 32yo.
In 2016 I made $57K after taxes, including:
$34K - My work
$5K - Wife's work
$14K - Rent income
$4K - Other
2016 Expenses:
$24K - Mortgage (minus $14K into principal, so real is $10K)
$2,645 - bills (electricity, water, gas, garbage, internet, cellphone)
$2,232 - groceries (I get 2/3 of my food for free from volunteering job I have on a side)
$3,182 - household (including $2,000 for new tile in kitchen and two bathrooms; $600 for tree removal)
$2,143 - Relax (including $1,100 for 7 days in Honolulu)
$1,305 - Transportation ($900 - tickets to Honolulu…)
$900 - clothing, books (wife was finishing college), medicine
$552 - kids
$7,045 - charity
$1,070 - other (mostly help money for relatives).
$1,579 - Taga bike (still not sure if it was worth it! Hehehe)
Savings:
$13K in Savings Acc (0.5-1%)
$1K in LendingClub (10%??)
$7K in 401(K) (4%??)
$6K in mutual fund (8%??)
Around $68K in equity
We are family of four with me working full time and wife some part time; two kids - a toddler and a baby and two host students ($14K of rent income, uhuh!).
Living somewhat super frugal (no cars; one cellphone for family; no debts beside mortgage (172K at 3.25% for 30 years just recently refinanced for this great rate).
The GOAL is to RE this or early next year.
Soooooooo...
Plan A: use somewhat good income to mortgage second property (1bd, $100-130K, with 20% down; rent current property (4brd, 2.5bth townhouse) for $1800 a month (if you calculate it with manager and missing rooms it's more like $1,600 though...).
Income:
$1,600-1,800
Expenses:
$1000 - current Mort
$500 - second Mort
$300 - EVERYTHING ELSE
Kind of tight, but wife wants to keep working (so that's $250 a month!), and like I said we live super frugal.
Plan B: buy lot in HI for cash ($30,000), live next to ocean, build a styrofoam dome house, live on money from renting first property.
Income:
$1,600
Expenses:
$1000 - current Mort
$600 - EVERYTHING ELSE
Plan B looks nice and warm (it's snowing outside at where I am now), but I have no clue, if I can even get a permit to build in Hawaii… A lot of research needs to be done.
So, any thoughts?? What am I missing?? Thanks for any thoughts/comments!
PS: no, I don't want to keep working and save bigger chunk of money, I'm sick of it and kids are 2 and 0.5 - it's time to be with them 24/7!!