Hi there Mustachians,
I've been reading MMM since April, and have been so excited to learn about this way of life that is so much more exciting than thinking of myself simply as "cheap."
In the couple of years since I finished my graduate degree, my DH and I have paid off about $6K in student loans, and, more importantly, we've used this time to catch up on medical/dental care to the tune of $15K out of pocket. We are taking baby steps together to control our "fun" spending, mostly because we both grew up in families that had terrible financial management(and no money, hence all the dental work), so money is an extremely loaded and emotional topic for us. Little tiny baby steps together....
After being freelance for the last couple years, I have been offered my dream job in a town two hours away from our current home. We are planning to take the job, for several reasons including eventually wanting to live in that town anyway, instead of in the boonies like we do now. DH will be keeping his job. Of course I know this probably seems crazy to a lot of people, but my field is a tiny and highly specialized and I can't fathom turning it down.
It looks like we can make this move without maintaining two households, which should allow us to live on the smaller of the two incomes and continue getting our mustaches groomed, so they can grow beautiful bushy handlebars. Here's how: DH has family near his job, so he can live at home during the week(for free or close to it), and we can can set up house in the town with my job. My dilemna is that we are currently renting a house and there is going to be some overlap for a few months so I'm struggling with seemingly insurmountable indecision about whether I should get a very small apartment for a few months, or go ahead and rent a house that will work for us longer term while we position ourselves to buy a house.
Here are some numbers-- I would really appreciate some MMM input, apply facepunches as needed.
Net income:
DH $3572
Me $100-500 (will be $2000)
Debt:
Student loan 1 $29K @2.125%
Student loan 2 $7K @2.125%
Assets:
DH's TSP(retirement) $25K
my Roth IRA $6K
old account $1700 (this is the 401K from an old job, its needs to go somewhere so it can work for me!)
SO EXCITING-- new job has 5% match for me!
Savings $15K (I sleep better at night with an e-fund, but I realize it probably doesn't need to be this much)
Checking $ 2431
Cars fully paid for: two fuel efficient economy cars, and a hobby car/daily driver that brings DH enormous joy
Monthly spending:
Rent 700
Power 100
Phone 84 (landline- only available internet here)
Cell 95 (Verizon, switching to prepaid when contract ends in March)
Insurance 140 (auto and renters)
Stu. loan 1 75
Stu. loan 2 200
gas/auto 300 (we live/work in a rural area that requires driving for everything- this is part of the appeal of moving to the city job)
food 450
TSP 240 (to get 5% match)
Roth IRA 100
Savings 425 (this is mostly earmarked for heating oil, eventual car, and medical dental costs)
Mad $$ 200 (this goes straight to DHs account and is the money he can spend no questions asked)
Netflix 8 (just switched to streaming only)
Cats 20 (Badassity--I found a clinic that sees them for routine care for $0-10)
Other 350-600 (I've been watching this all year to see where it goes, and while there is some clothing, fun stuff, it seems like most of it goes to what seem like legit expenses-auto repair, oil for heat, professional dues and memberships, and fun stuff like an auto mechanics class this month) this is the one that makes me feel like an MMM fail because I don't want to be a whineypants, but it seems like there's something every single month.
Total monthly spending: $3487
So whats our ultimate goal? We are both very productive people, and we love what we do and I can't imagine a time we would ever not be tinkering on several projects that are technically "work," so our idea of FIRE is simply to have choices about the work we do. I made a lovely YMOYL chart of spending last year, and was really happy to see that we only spent more than we earned one month, when we had an emergency auto repair for which we pulled from savings. For us, this is huge progress, although I realize even saying that probably deserves a facepunch.
With my new job, some of our spending will go down, and my goal is to cover our basic living expenses with my salary, about 2K net. This frees DHs salary for heavy saving and paying off student loans.
Damn, this got long. I'll go ahead and post and answer/ explain as needed. We are 31 and 35, no kids.
Thanks so much!