Some of the things we are doing include paying off the mortgage ASAP, saving in a taxable brokerage account, and keeping our overhead low. Otherwise we work hard to stay marketable and are beginning to diversify our income.
We bought a smaller cheaper place than we could have and used inheritance money to put down 50% and will end up paying the rest off soon with the remainder. The inheritance had strings attached to use for housing, so this was a no brainer for us. We chose a condo with a super low HOA, so our monthly overhead will be as low as possible.
Since we are maxing our retirement accounts we are dumping as much into a taxable account as possible. This will give us cash available when needed for emergencies such as job loss.
We also do the regular Mustachian thing of saving money on everything, so our overhead is on the lower side, around $1250/person-mo. No car, pack lunches, don’t drink or smoke, have a reasonable wardrobe, cheap cellphone plans, etc. We also do not have kids (yet?), but our spending is such that we can swing it on 1 income and still max our retirement accounts.
Next is just trying to be better at our jobs. We both work long hours and spend our weeknights studying to improve our skill set. If there is extra time in the weekend DW will get a head start on the weeks task list. I also just completed my professional licensing exam (hopefully passed!), and keep a long list of happy clients with my personal contact information. These efforts help three-fold in improving our income, making us more of an asset at work, and making us more valuable in the job market if we needed to look for something new. I also see this extra effort as necessary to work for ourselves eventually.
Lastly is diversifying income. DW plays music at events and just signed her first two weekly students. I try to pick up side gigs when possible and also started to sell stuff on eBay. We are looking for other avenues such as Amazon and buying a rental to further diversify, but nothing in the pipeline yet.
