I'm very late to the FIRE scene but have been voraciously reading the MMM blog & listening to MMM podcast interviews, etc. , and I appreciate the wealth of helpful info here to shorten the learning curve. I can see this is a tremendously helpful community and I'm so happy to have found you and to become a part of it!!
MY SNAPSHOT:
Married, filing jointly (age 50 & 60), child in 1st year college w/about 80% of tuition paid via 4 year merit scholarship (we pay room/board, textbooks, health coverage, etc). We are almost entirely self employed (real estate broker plus part time seasonal job, small side business, & property management year round). Modest 1960's home (1400 SF, no mortgage) & 3 small 1950/60's rental homes (no mortgages, one currently vacant for necessary repairs/maintenance). We own our 2 cars, have zero debt & pay off our two credit cards in full each month. We live, work & shop mostly within a 2 mile radius.
From my vantage point our biggest issue has been very unpredictable income over the years (especially pre rentals), so out of necessity (fortunately) we became savers, but not good at putting our dollars to work for us. We have no pension, never had a job w/401K matching and we pay all of our own health insurance. Over time we have accumulated the following (keeping in mind we didn't fund our retirement - nor did we have health insurance - in our early years):
60 K Roth IRA (earning 1% at credit union)
185 K SEP (doing very little in a 'cash reserves' account at Fidelity)
93 K HSA (split between 2 HSAs doing very little w/Assurant & Wells Fargo)
240 K in cash savings at credit union (earning 1%)
130 K in a mutual fund
3 small rental homes (no mortgages) worth approx 550K total
PROGRESS THIS WEEK:
I set up a Betterment account, and a Vanguard account and they are all ready to fund w/just over 50K each from the credit union cash savings account balance above (balance would be liquid cash savings). I was thinking of doing 60 Stock/40 Bond mix in Betterment, and VTI for Vanguard - how does that mix sound?
Because we are age 50 & 60 I know we should err on the conservative side, but I'm not sure how to allocate based on our age/asset mix (esp since our rental homes are not liquid assets)? Side note: we don't want to be landlords forever. The homes are all older, require more and more maintenance and repairs as they age and we've always managed and (mostly) maintained them on our own but look forward to eventually not being landlords, though we are not ready to give up that income stream yet (and hiring a management company isn't appealing to us - we keep them up and don't want them 'trashed' which we have seen happen to some rentals that don't owner manage. Suggestions as to what our options might be to consider for the future once we decide we don't want to be landlords would also be appreciated!
I've just transferred most monthly bills (utility) to our Amazon Visa to earn 'points' (used as cash on Amazon) which we pay off monthly, and I'd like to replace our airline miles VISA we've had for eons, with a cash back credit card perhaps w/a signing bonus if possible? I would like to develop a much more streamlined automated system of investing (not just putting in a low yield savings acct) and I'm guessing not having assets spread around to too many institutions would be a good start. I also just figured out how to deposit rent checks w/my cell phone app which I've been meaning to do for eons which will help in streamlining that process.
Another small milestone that gives a boost (PHOTO attached) - yesterday my husband hung some PVC pipe on lines from the garage rafters to make an easy way to hang laundry to dry even if raining (we did this years ago when he strung up the same pvc pipes as hanging racks for a garage sale we had, but took it down when we reconfigured the garage later to fit both cars inside and I've missed it ever since (now we can fit the hanging drying racks AND both cars in the garage).
NEEDS WORK/IMPROVEMENT:
Move ROTH, SEP, combine both HSAs and move I'm guessing (where best to move?), cancel cable (we want to do this once we figure out how to make our smart Samsung tv access the internet directly (we already had the most basic cable/internet plan offered but are happy to cut the cord to cable TV, but keeping internet is vital). We do have a dvd player and often get movies from the library but would like to be able to watch some 'shows' online if possible instead of looking at a laptop screen (we are not very tech savvy so would need instructions). We also have a roku that we've not used much from when they were pretty new.
Cancel land line (we both have cell phones) but this must wait until next year I think because of an annual publication where we are the sole contact phone so we can't cut off those calls.
I will also check into lowering our cell bills but we are in a rural area w/only two providers and must have a really reliable cell service plan for business (and personal) once we ditch our landline). I appreciate any wisdom and insight you'd like to share to help us manage what we have a lot better. Thank you!!